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Addressing racism must be at the core of what we do as an anti-hunger community, and we cannot end the cycle of food insecurity and chronic disease without changing the fundamental systems and policies which perpetuate racial and other forms of inequality.
We’ve been watching the news, horrified, for the last two weeks. As police violence runs through every state, it’s clear that this is what racism looks like in America.
The reality is that racism is also fundamental to why many of our Black neighbors don’t have enough to eat. With decades of discriminatory policy that have led to poorly-funded schools, higher unemployment, lower homeownership, and worse access to food, it’s no surprise that double the number of Black households face hunger as compared to white households. The staggering economic effects of COVID-19 are set to make that even worse.
Our mission to end hunger must include taking action on racism. So, non-Black allies, we invite you to join us in recommitting to fighting racial discrimination and violence in all its forms.
Five quick actions to take right now as an ally for Black lives:
Donate to the Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation and NOWTRUTH.ORG‘s “War on Human Inequities” (WOHI) – a nonprofit project of the two. See more below.
Get educated on how you can be a better ally. Here’s an anti-racist reading list to get you started.
Learn more about why tackling racism is so key to ending hunger in America.
Talk to your kids about anti-Black racism and police violence. Start with this great guide.
This is the only beginning of the road to justice for George Floyd and many. many others. Sign the #JusticeForFloyd petition and take a stand on excessive police violence.
Black Lives Matter, and we must stand with those demanding justice, accountability, and action to confront the racism and inequality that lead to police violence and hunger alike. We’re hopeful that, together, we can make a difference.
AMWF and NOWTRUTH.ORG‘s “War on Human Inequities” (WOHI) recruits and develops leaders from low income backgrounds and organizes campaigns to address economic survival issues that people face. The WOHI agenda includes:
Funding essential community services through progressive taxes
Food Insecurity
Judicial Reform
Social Justice Reform
Criminal Justice Reform
Workers’ Rights
Affordable Housing
Health Care
Equal Education
Welfare Reform
Living Wage and Equal Pay
Immigrant Rights
Environmental justice
AMWF bases its work on the following principles:
Unity. WOHI is committed to building an organization that brings together activists from varied segments of the community by uniting families on welfare, senior citizen activists, rank-and-file union leaders and community activists into one organization.
Multi-issue. WOHI is building a multi-issue organization that adds strength and helps support the efforts of other single-issue organizations. By working collaboratively with progressive legislators and other social action groups around the state, WOHI has developed a multi-issue agenda called the “War on Human Inequities”, which addresses such issues as Food Insecurity, Judicial Reform, Criminal and Social Justice Reform, revenue, tax reform, jobs, wages, child care, health care, housing, education, and the safety net.
Power in grass-roots organization. The key factor determining the ability to make a difference in the community is the size of its network of grass-roots activists. Whether building support for the initiatives of constituent organizations or developing independent campaign, WOHI seeks to empower ordinary people to change social policies that affect their lives. The WOHI organizing approach focuses both on developing commitment and leadership of people new to social activism, and on working with existing activists and organizations to strengthen their effectiveness.
1) Judicial Reform to END the Grand Systemic and Endemic Corruption; Social Justice Reform to END the Grand Systemic and Endemic Corruption of which Systemic Racism is a part;
2) Criminal Justice Reform; Gun Violence;
3) COVID-19 & Our Communities;
4) a. Hunger and Food Insecurity;
4) b. Homelessness;
5) Racial Injustice, Equality, Racial Justice is Education Justice, Support Ethnic Studies Programs, Black Lives Matter Barber Shop, Islamophobia, Xenophobia;
6) Wealth Inequality, Income Gap, Poverty and Basic Needs;
7) Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline; School Safe Zones; Protecting Students’ Civil Rights; Facing Hate and Bias at School, Teen Violence and Abuse, Teen Depression and Suicide, Youth Alcohol Usage, Transportation;
8) Immigration, Refugee Crisis, Families Belong Together, Dreamers;
9) Healthcare, Obesity, Smoking;
10) Climate Justice Reform,
11) Voting Rights;
12) Sport and Athletes Human Rights
Background:
The Dollar Store Backlash Has Begun, CityLab, 2018
4 Not-So-Easy Ways to Dismantle Racism in the Food System, Yes! Magazine, 2017
Leaders of Color Discuss Structural Racism and White Privilege in the Food System, Civil Eats, 2016
Growing Justice: Transcending Racism in the Food System, The Next System Project, 2016
Dismantling Racism in the Food System, by Food First, 2016
Uprooting Racism in the Food System: African Americans Organize, Huffington Post, 2013
Videos
The underlying racism of America’s food system: Regina Bernard-Carreno at TEDxManhattan
Impacts of Gentrification on Food Insecurity
Impacts of Gentrification on Food Insecurity
A video documentary researching the impacts of gentrification and urban renewal on the availability of food in Church Hill, the oldest neighborhood in Richmond, VA.
Bridging indigenous knowledge and science to end hunger | Muthoni Masinde | TEDxUFS
Bridging indigenous knowledge and science to end hunger | Muthoni Masinde | TEDxUFS
Muthoni reveals how indigenous knowledge is crucial for small-scale farmers, food security in Africa and the creation of effective solutions for managing the agriculture in rural areas that are plagued by droughts and mass hunger. The talk explores bridging recent technological innovation with indigenous knowledge, through the ´ITIKI´ computer science tool which can predict meteorological data inexpensively and accurately and assist local farmers. Muthoni Masinde is a computer scientist with B.Sc, M.Sc and Ph.D computer science degrees from the University of Nairobi, the Free University of Brussels and University of Cape Town respectively. She is currently Head of the Department of IT at the Central University of Technology. One of her greatest research achievements is the development of a novel tool to predict droughts in Africa. The tool taps into the rich African indigenous knowledge on natural disasters and augments it with ICTs. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Black Food Matters: Race and Equity in the Good Food Movement | Devita Davison | Change Food Fest
Black Food Matters: Race and Equity in the Good Food Movement | Devita Davison | Change Food Fest
In this video: Devita Davison, director of marketing and communications at FoodLab Detroit, shares the story of Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, explaining the barriers there still are today for food entrepreneurs of color. FoodLab Detroit is transforming Detroit’s local food economy by supporting a diverse community of food businesses and allies working to make good food a sustainable reality for all Detroiters. About: Devita Davison, a native of Detroit and granddaughter of a preacher, lived almost 19 years in New York before moving back to her hometown of Detroit in 2012. Her words are not just letters strung together; they are vessels for love and fight, heart ache, wisdom, and profound joy. To say she wears her heart on her sleeve is an understatement; whether decrying injustices in the food system or expounding on the beauty of a ripe strawberry in summer, her passion for food justice is palpable. Stay up to date with all our Quickbites and exciting projects from Change Food! http://changefood.org Change Food is a grassroots movement creating a healthy, equitable food system. We provide various levels of expertise to organizations that are not getting sufficient support yet are creating real, replicable change. In addition, through conferences, events and special projects, Change Food raises public awareness and connects various parts of the food movement. Want to get to know us more? Get our monthly newsletter: http://bit.ly/signupCF Support us on Patreon!: http://bit.ly/PatreonCF Like us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/ChangeFoodFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/changeourfood Like us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/changeourfood LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7427675 Google+: https://plus.google.com/+ChangeFoodOrg
Systemic Racism in Our Food System
Systemic Racism In Our Food System
The incredible Pam Koch talks about our broken food supply and much more in the new episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy, which is up now https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/PamKoch
Food Justice & Racism in the Food System
Racism underlies the history of agriculture and food access in the United States. It began with the taking of land from Indigenous people to create farms. It continued with the enslavement of Indigenous and African peoples to work the farms. It continued with the exploitation of immigrant labor from Asia and then Latin America. During the period of Reconstruction former slaves began to gain access to land and achieve financial success. But the death of Reconstruction saw the stealing of most of this land by whites using unjust law and outright theft. In the 1940s when Japanese Americans were forced into concentration camps by a presidential executive order, farms were again taken by unethical and greedy whites, sometimes with no consequences. Racism can also be seen in the tolerance for, and in some places, imposition of food swamps or food apartheid. These are terms are used to describe the great divide in access to healthy fresh food evident when comparing the average white community to the average community of color. This inequality in access to healthy food is a major contributor to the disproportionately high rates of diet related disease found in populations of Indigenous, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Pacific Islanders. Poor diets impede learning, paths to empowerment and financial success.
Food justice is the work to right this wrong. It encompasses a wide array of activities and activism. Its roots can be traced back to the Black Panther’s creation of free breakfast program for school children. The Panther’s good work helped propel passage of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 that is now operated by the US government to provide free and reduced cost school meals for all low-income students, the majority of whom are kids of color. Food justice includes development of urban agriculture projects and neighborhood kitchens, economic development initiatives to relocate healthy grocery environments in low income communities. Nutrition incentive programs that provide cash matches for SNAP and WIC benefits spent on fruits and vegetables in farmers markets and grocery stores are another form of food justice. Food justice includes the guarantees that fair proportions of public funding from the USDA and some states, will flow to farmers of color and women who have traditionally been excluded due to documented and adjudicated acts of racism or sexism. Emergent is the idea of reparations in the form of land grants to farmers of color based on the recognition that people of color have been systemically kept from owning land or had their land stolen. This latest concept is well described in Leah Penniman’s important book, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land.
We support food justice as a primary objective in our work and promote it as a primary goal of the food movement in general.
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Impacts of Racism in the Food System
“
Rates of food insecurity are substantially higher for Black- (22.5%) and Hispanic-headed (18.5%) households than for White-headed households (9.3%) (USDA – ERS, 2017).
”
Although many communities suffer from food system disparities, data shows that Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) suffer disproportionately.
In our work over the past 25 years, we make note of research that indicates:
Rates of food insecurity are substantially higher for Black- (22.5%) and Hispanic-headed (18.5%) households than for White-headed households (9.3%) (USDA – ERS, 2017).
Communities of color and low-income families have limited access to affordable healthy food and welcoming shopping spaces due to supermarket “redlining” and “greenlining” (CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, 2018).
Mass incarceration and exploitation of Black Americans in agricultural systems has been well documented into the 1940s, enabled by collusion between law enforcement agencies and farmers (INFAS, “A Deeper Challenge of Change” report, 2018).
African Americans in North Carolina are 1.54 times more likely than white North Carolinians to live within three miles of facilities controlling animal waste (EarthJustice, 2014).
At the turn of the 20th century, formerly enslaved Black people and their heirs owned 15 million acres of land, primarily in the South, mostly used for farming. Now, Black people are only 1 percent of rural landowners in the U.S., and under 2 percent of farmers (USDA data & Food & Environment Reporting Network).
Pigford v. Glickman, a successful class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), unveiled a historical pattern of racial discrimination in the allocation of farm loans between 1981 and 1996. This is one of many examples of how these historical impacts have benefited some, while preventing access to opportunity for many.
Cases of COVID-19 disproportionately affect the Hispanic population in NC and have a higher incidence in the Black community.
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To Fight Hunger, We Must Take Action Against Racism
June 8, 2020
by Amirio Freeman, Danny Navarro, Mike Glymph, Mya Price, and Thao Nguyen
Feeding America Government Relations Team
The below text is from Feeding America Action. Addressing racism must be at the core of what we do as an anti-hunger community, and we cannot end the cycle of food insecurity and chronic disease without changing the fundamental systems and policies which perpetuate racial and other forms of inequality.
We’ve been watching the news, horrified, for the last two weeks. As police violence runs through every state, it’s clear that this is what racism looks like in America.
The reality is that racism is also fundamental to why many of our Black neighbors don’t have enough to eat. With decades of discriminatory policy that have led to poorly-funded schools, higher unemployment, lower homeownership, and worse access to food, it’s no surprise that double the number of Black households face hunger as compared to white households. The staggering economic effects of COVID-19 are set to make that even worse.
Our mission to end hunger must include taking action on racism. So, non-Black allies, we invite you to join us in recommitting to fighting racial discrimination and violence in all its forms.
Five quick actions to take right now as an ally for Black lives:
Donate to the Aaron & Margaret Wallace Foundation and NOWTRUTH.ORG’s “War on Human Inequities” (WOHI) – a nonprofit project of the two. See more below.
Get educated on how you can be a better ally. Here’s an anti-racist reading list to get you started.
Learn more about why tackling racism is so key to ending hunger in America.
Talk to your kids about anti-Black racism and police violence. Start with this great guide.
This is the only beginning of the road to justice for George Floyd and many. many others. Sign the #JusticeForFloyd petition and take a stand on excessive police violence.
Black Lives Matter, and we must stand with those demanding justice, accountability, and action to confront the racism and inequality that lead to police violence and hunger alike. We’re hopeful that, together, we can make a difference.
AMWF and NOWTRUTH.ORG’s “War on Human Inequities” (WOHI) recruits and develops leaders from low income backgrounds and organizes campaigns to address economic survival issues that people face. The WOHI agenda includes:
Funding essential community services through progressive taxes
Food Insecurity
Judicial Reform
Social Justice Reform
Criminal Justice Reform
Workers’ Rights
Affordable Housing
Health Care
Equal Education
Welfare Reform
Living Wage and Equal Pay
Immigrant Rights
Environmental justice
AMWF bases its work on the following principles:
Unity. WOHI is committed to building an organization that brings together activists from varied segments of the community by uniting families on welfare, senior citizen activists, rank-and-file union leaders and community activists into one organization.
Multi-issue. WOHI is building a multi-issue organization that adds strength and helps support the efforts of other single-issue organizations. By working collaboratively with progressive legislators and other social action groups around the state, WOHI has developed a multi-issue agenda called the “War on Human Inequities”, which addresses such issues as Food Insecurity, Judicial Reform, Criminal and Social Justice Reform, revenue, tax reform, jobs, wages, child care, health care, housing, education, and the safety net.
Power in grass-roots organization. The key factor determining the ability to make a difference in the community is the size of its network of grass-roots activists. Whether building support for the initiatives of constituent organizations or developing independent campaign, WOHI seeks to empower ordinary people to change social policies that affect their lives. The WOHI organizing approach focuses both on developing commitment and leadership of people new to social activism, and on working with existing activists and organizations to strengthen their effectiveness.
1) Judicial Reform to END the Grand Systemic and Endemic Corruption; Social Justice Reform to END the Grand Systemic and Endemic Corruption of which Systemic Racism is a part;
2) Criminal Justice Reform; Gun Violence;
3) COVID-19 & Our Communities;
4) a. Hunger and Food Insecurity;
4) b. Homelessness;
5) Racial Injustice, Equality, Racial Justice is Education Justice, Support Ethnic Studies Programs, Black Lives Matter Barber Shop, Islamophobia, Xenophobia;
6) Wealth Inequality, Income Gap, Poverty and Basic Needs;
7) Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline; School Safe Zones; Protecting Students’ Civil Rights; Facing Hate and Bias at School, Teen Violence and Abuse, Teen Depression and Suicide, Youth Alcohol Usage, Transportation;
8) Immigration, Refugee Crisis, Families Belong Together, Dreamers;
9) Healthcare, Obesity, Smoking;
10) Climate Justice Reform,
11) Voting Rights;
12) Sport and Athletes Human Rights
In solidarity, safety, and health,
Amirio Freeman, Danny Navarro, Mike Glymph, Mya Price, and Thao Nguyen
Feeding America Government Relations Team
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Addressing the Root Causes of Food Insecurity in the U.S. – Disparities and Discrimination
April 5, 2019
by Sabea Evans
Policy & Communication Fellow, Center for Hunger-Free Communities
In 2017, 21.8% of African American households and 18% of Latinx households reported food insecurity, while the national food insecurity rate was 11.8%.
“How are racism and hunger related? Being mistreated at school, on the job, in health care and beyond, translates to lower wages and exclusion from society. When employers discriminate, people of color make lower wages than white people. When health-care providers discriminate, people cannot get the health care they need, and when the courts and the police are biased, they are more likely to put our family members behind bars, which damages their prospects for economic security.”
Sherita Mouzon, a community engagement specialist at Drexel University’s Center for Hunger-Free Communities, wrote this in an op-ed for the Inquirer on the necessity of facing racism and discrimination as key factors in food insecurity in the U.S. Issues of food justice, economic and racial equity, and food sovereignty cannot be solved by our emergency food system. Racism and systemic oppression permeate all of our systems, including those that hold up pretenses of service.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Black and Latinx households have had higher annual rates of food insecurity compared to the national average among all households since 1995. Sherita’s words are part of a conversation that people of color and people living in conditions of poverty have been trying to broadcast for generations and that the Center for Hunger-Free Communities hopes to amplify.
Through examination of our Children’s HealthWatch data from interviewing nearly 700 caregivers of children under the age of four at St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital between 2015-2017, we found significant associations between reported caregivers’ experiences of discrimination based on racial or ethnic identity and food insecurity status. We asked participants for the number and context of experiences of discrimination they had encountered due to race, ethnicity, or color. To share this data and confront the lack of urgency in addressing the root causes of food insecurity in Philadelphia (and in the wider U.S.), we released a series of reports called “From Disparities to Discrimination: Getting to the Roots of Food Insecurity in America.”
The reports focus on multiple arenas in which experiences of discrimination are associated with food security: in applying for housing, public assistance offices, receiving healthcare, schools, hiring, workplaces, public settings, policing, judicial systems, and within immigrant populations. Caregivers who reported one or more experiences of discrimination were more likely to report food insecurity compared to those who had not experienced discrimination, across the board. Caregivers who were people of color who reported experiences of discrimination were more likely to report food insecurity, while the food insecurity of white caregivers was unimpacted.
Simply providing people with food has proven to be an unviable solution to ending hunger in the U.S. Policymakers, meds & eds, big businesses, non-profits, philanthropists… We all need to acknowledge, address and help people heal from the racism and discrimination in our systems and within ourselves in order to intervene in systemic oppression and reduce food insecurity in the U.S.
April is National Minority Health Month. Learn more about how to effectively work with communities to address and eliminate health disparities.
Sabea is currently the Policy & Communications Fellow at the Center for Hunger-Free Communities. She has a B.A. in Linguistics from Haverford College, where she invested much of her extra/co-curricular work in diversity, access, and engagement. Sabea’s interests also include ethical ethnographic media, language diversity and activism, and ethnolinguistics. She thrives in collaborative spaces and aspires to co-facilitate projects that amplify the voices, knowledge, and creations of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.
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How One Organization Can Shorten Food Bank Lines Across the United States
The nation’s largest food charity, Feeding America, has failed to embrace the progressive values needed to make a real impact. Here’s a plan to change that.
Has our collective sense of imagination and action become so limited that the best we can do is to give organic veggies to the millions of newly unemployed? Source illustration: TarikVision/SHUTTERSTOCK
By: Andrew Fisher
Dedicated to the memory of Hank Herrera, a lifelong advocate for racial justice.
This is the time of year when middle-class America gives thanks for our privilege, and considers the plight of the less fortunate. We staff the turkey dinner lines at the local homeless shelter, donate cans to the food drive, or write checks to the food bank. We do so regardless of our partisan affiliation, race, or geographical location.
Food charity is, after all, one of the few things that historically has united most Americans. While we remain a country deeply divided, it has become America’s lowest common denominator. Even the mean-spirited Trump administration has poured at least $10 billion into food banks since 2017.
The outpouring of charitable donations to food banks in the wake of the Covid economic crash makes me appreciate that we, as a nation, retain some sense of caritas, even while millions of President Trump’s supporters scoff at masks and flip the bird to any sense of communal responsibility. Yet it also frustrates me that distributing more free food, even when it is grown organically by farmers of color, is all we can seem to manage as a response to this dire situation. Never let a good crisis go to waste, Sir Winston Churchill used to say.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, Sir Winston Churchill used to say.
In 2020, when America is gasping for breath, from the smoke that chokes the West Coast, police brutality, a democracy on life support, and 12 million (and counting) people struggling with Covid-19, I wonder if our collective sense of imagination and action has become so limited that the best we can do is to give organic veggies to the millions of newly unemployed? Where is our vision? Our political project?
Andrew Fisher is the author of “Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups.”
At a moment when America’s seamy underbelly and gaping wounds of inequities, racial and otherwise, have been exposed like no time since 1929, I wonder what does it take to turn the apolitical food bank industry onto progressive politics. I keep hoping that food bankers will recognize the urgency of structural change, and embrace progressive values. Black Lives Matter. Reparations. The Green New Deal. Medicare for All. A $15 minimum wage. This is the language of social change in America. Yet, the food charity sector has almost unanimously failed to embrace any of these strategies.
For the past 40 years, since the explosion of food banks in the early 1980s, we have been handling hunger as if we were doctors, with doses of medicine in the form of food giveaways. We have been treating the symptoms and ignoring the disease. At the heart of this medical model, or hunger industrial complex — the web of connected corporations, anti-hunger groups, and government agencies that perpetuate hunger because it is profitable — sits the charity behemoth Feeding America. The nation’s second largest charity, with a $2.8 billion budget, it deploys a network of 200 food banks across the entire country, distributing 4.6 billion pounds of food annually.
Feeding America and its affiliated food banks possess an unparalleled potential to mobilize our anti-hunger response toward social, racial, and economic justice. They feed 40+ million people, engage millions of volunteers, and reach tens of millions of donors every year. They could be mobilizing and organizing half of America to take bold political action. They can be at the forefront of working with poor people to help them build power and wealth. But progress remains geographically uneven and sporadic.
The silver lining in this horrible year can be that food bankers finally step on the gas and accelerate toward justice. They will need a road map to get there. Here, I propose a 10-point plan for how Feeding America could play a leading role in substantially reducing the incidence of food insecurity for millions of Americans.
1. Support labor-friendly policies, including a higher minimum wage
Analysis: Prior to the pandemic, the vast majority of emergency food recipients were employed, largely at jobs that paid low wages, or where they were unable to gain full-time work on a regular basis. The minimum wage still remains at $7.25 in 21 states. A $15 minimum wage would make 1.2 million households food secure. Yet, Feeding America and the vast majority of its network have failed to take a position on raising the minimum wage, either nationally or at the state level.
Action: Feeding America and its network need to support a national $15 minimum wage by 2023, starting first with paying a living wage to its own employees and contractors. Yet raising the minimum wage is just one part of the solution. Other important policies that they should support include eliminating the sub-minimum tipped wage for restaurant employees, and establishing predictive scheduling, paid sick leave, and anti-wage theft policies. Oregon Food Bank has done an exemplary job here.
2. Place racial equity at the center of their work
Analysis: Racism is at the root of poverty, which is in turn at the root of hunger. Yet the emergency food system only reinforces this racism, both at the inter-personal and structural levels. For example, volunteers (disproportionately white) get to control what recipients (disproportionately people of color) get to eat. The system does little to build power, wealth, or agency for their patrons.
Action: Like most non-profit organizations and other institutions in the United States, food banks need to own their legacy and 40-year history of unconsciously perpetuating structural racism before they can undo the harm they have done. They should seek to dismantle racist practices within their organization, and become strong forces for anti-racism. They can develop an action plan to make changes, such as advocating for dismantling the policies and practices that perpetuate gaping health inequities linked to social determinants of nutritious food access, holding themselves accountable to the communities that they serve. Follow the lead of the Oregon Food Bank in this area.
3. Expand SNAP organizing
Analysis: SNAP provides nine times the amount of food as food banks. It is the keystone to ensuring food security, yet its benefit levels are set at unrealistically low levels. Feeding America has dedicated substantial resources to fighting against new restrictions and for expanded funding during the pandemic.
Action: This is one area in which Feeding America could not only expand its own staffing but fund organizing positions in key states to grow the SNAP program. It should place SNAP as its top policy priority alongside advocating for an increased minimum wage. Bread for the World does an exemplary job of mobilizing its communities toward policy action.
4. Diversify their Board
Analysis: Who’s at the table shapes what’s on the agenda. And by and large, it’s white people who work in corporate America who sit on food bank boards. My own review found that 22 percent of the board members of food banks worked at Fortune 1000 companies or their private sector equivalent. Very few are persons of color and even fewer are people with lived experience of hunger. These governance structures keep food banks as appendages of the food industry, not as agents of social change.
Action: Feeding America and its affiliates need to be held accountable to the people and communities that they serve. They should set ambitious targets for board diversity, including by occupation, ethnicity, gender, and include people with lived experience of food insecurity, and provide incentives for the network to do the same. Look to the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Oakland, CA, for an example of how to engage community residents in its public policy advocacy.
5. Establish a strategic plan for a 50 percent reduction in food banking from pre-Covid levels by 2028
Analysis: Before the pandemic, the amount of food distributed by Feeding America food banks doubled over the past decade. Part of this increase is due to contractual obligations that mandated a 50 percent increase of food distributed per person in poverty. Despite this increase in food distribution, food insecurity did not dip below 1995 levels until 2018. Clearly there is not a statistically significant link between reducing food insecurity and emergency food distribution.
Action: As part of its annual contract with its network, Feeding America should stipulate a reduction in the amount of food delivered per person in poverty with a corresponding increase in other social indicators, such as social capital, poverty reduction, and resilience. They can reorient funding, such as the $100 million Jeff Bezos donated, to strategic shrinking initiatives to address the root causes of hunger, rather than expanded capacity. Bring in community members with lived experience of poverty, alongside researchers to help develop innovative measures of success, beyond just persons served and pounds distributed. Look to the great work of the Community Food Centres of Canada for innovation in measuring success beyond food distribution.
6. Reorient their communications
Analysis: For far too long, Feeding America and its affiliates have systematically misled the public that charity can end hunger. It’s been done in the name of raising funds to keep their good work going. It’s led to a crisis of imagination, which has, in the current pandemic, meant that funders double down on hunger relief efforts rather than addressing the root causes.
Action: Revise their communication strategy to reinforce new root cause-oriented programming. Tell the public that we can’t food bank our way out of hunger, and that’s why we’re investing more funding into fighting tomorrow’s hunger through policy advocacy, human development, and addressing the social determinants of health. Boldly name the root causes of hunger and debunk the bootstraps myth that prevents our country from fulfilling its protective obligations to our most vulnerable citizens. Consider Northwest Harvest’s role to get passed a constitutional amendment in Washington to establish the right to food.
7. Put a moratorium on expansion
Analysis: Buildings become stakeholders. The bigger the food bank building, the more sophisticated the infrastructure, the more pressure staff and Board will feel to ramp up their distribution efforts. It’s like building a new lane on the freeway to reduce congestion. It doesn’t work. It just creates more traffic. For too long, food banks have seen newer, shinier, bigger digs with larger freezers and coolers as a key strategy to expanding their capacity to feeding the need.
Action: Feeding America should put into its contract language a clause to actively discourage and penalize food banks that undertake expansion campaigns. Similarly, they should seek to diminish their food procurement department while redirecting resources to policy advocacy, organizing, and a new department of strategic shrinking. Foodlink in Rochester, NY, did a great job of not expanding, but instead using its space strategically to support community-based food businesses.
8. Keep up the great work on health and take it to the next step
Analysis: In the face of epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the quality of the food passing through Feeding America’s network has undeniably improved in recent years. The amount of produce has increased dramatically. More food banks have nutrition policies and staff to evaluate the quality of the product they distribute. Roughly one in seven food banks no longer accept soda or candy.
Action: Feeding America has done a good job of increasing produce distribution, but has largely failed to limit unhealthy foods in the system. Mazon’s seminal report (A Tipping Point) has shown how snack foods and baked goods are still overrepresented in food pantries. They should set national standards, rejecting sugary beverages and candy, while continuing to fund projects that connect food banks with local agriculture. Similarly, they should recognize that access to health care is a critical variable in the health and financial status of its clientele (medical bills are the primary cause of bankruptcies in the U.S.), and should actively support universal free health care. Consider the work of the Food Bank of Santa Barbara County (CA) to re-focus itself on improving community health as its core purpose.
9. Re-examine the relationship between food banks and Big Food and Big Ag
Analysis: The Feeding America network has a massive conflict of interest problem on its hands through its reliance on corporations with egregious labor, health, and environmental practices such as Smithfield, Walmart, Amazon, and Tyson. These are companies that cause hunger among their millions of employees through their practices, yet Feeding America casts them as hunger fighters in their partnership promotions.
Action: Until Feeding America approves corporate donation policies that establish clear criteria for its acceptance of food and cash, it will continue to be ethically compromised. Its continued relationship with agri-business enables them to over-produce, while having the benefit of a morally acceptable way to dispose of their surplus products. Feeding America needs to adopt a more sophisticated analysis of its role in promoting food waste and in enabling bad actors to continue their egregious labor practices. Look to WhyHunger for model corporate donation policies, as a starting point.
10. Embrace sustainable food systems as a core part of their mission
Analysis: As some of the largest food-oriented non-profits with transportation staffing, and cooling resources, food banks can and should play a role in supporting community economic development programs in their local area. Many food banks have indeed become an integral element of their local food systems, through buying from local farmers, allowing local businesses to utilize their facilities off-hours, serving as a food hub, hosting farmers markets, supporting community gardening programs, and operating organic farms.
Action: While many individual food banks have embraced local food systems as a core part of their work, they have done so largely without support from Feeding America. Feeding America can play many roles, such as aggregating data about the impacts of the work of individual food banks in this area, providing financial resources, researching and disseminating information on best practices, as well as communicating to the public about the importance of these efforts. The Food Bank of Northern Alabama and the Atlanta Community Food Bank have done exemplary work in this area.
Andrew Fisher has worked in the anti-hunger field for 25 years, as the executive director of national and local food groups, and as a researcher, organizer, policy advocate, and coalition builder. He is the author of “Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups.”
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Our Statement on Racial Justice
At Food Bank of Central New York, our mission is to work to eliminate hunger through nutritious food distribution, education, and advocacy in cooperation with the community. As leaders in the fight against hunger, we must lend our voices to those partners and organizations calling for justice. Systemic racism lies at the heart of many issues that contribute to food insecurity across our communities and America.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion have been priorities for Food Bank of Central New York and will continue to be as we move forward. These goals are in our current strategic plan and a part of our core values and we work hard to integrate them in our daily work. As we all navigate through the days and weeks ahead we extend our support and hope that through all of this we will become a more just and equitable world for all.