Moving from food insecurity to food justice frameworks will allow us to create pathways where everyone has access to the nourishment they need to thrive.
In a world overflowing with food, the persistence of hunger and unequal access to nutritious meals reveals a troubling paradox. The heart of food justice lies in resolving this – ensuring everyone, regardless of background, has access to food that nourishes, sustains, and respects cultural identities.
What is food justice?
Food justice goes beyond simply feeding people who are hungry or struggle with food insecurity. It envisions a food system where fair practices and sustainable production are the norm. It champions food as a basic human right and actively addresses inequalities within our current system, from the labor systems which produce food to the barriers driving food access inequities. While food justice advocates for everyone’s access to healthy food, it also dissects the structural roots which drive nutritional disparities, like race and economic factors. Applying a food justice lens to the three pillars of food insecurity allows us to better understand a path forward for this multidimensional issue.
Food Apartheid
A food desert is a geographic area where there is limited access to food, particularly areas where a majority of the population is over a mile from a grocery store. Limited food access is not a passive process, but rather the reflection of systematic stratification, where food abundance and absence mirror larger political, economic, geographic, and social marginalization. Food apartheid explains the political and structural realities of food distribution, specifically, the deliberate exclusion of communities of color and low-income individuals. To address this, we must recognize the structural forces which drive food insecurity while increasing access to affordable, healthy food options in underserved areas.
Food Sovereignty
Everyone has a right to nutritional quality, particularly respecting dietary needs, and cultural preferences. Food sovereignty promotes this right by ensuring people can define their own food and agriculture systems and empowering communities to take control of their food systems from production to consumption. This concept expands beyond addressing hunger and allows individuals, particularly in marginalized communities, to reclaim their relationship with food.
Affordability, Stability, and Economic Hardship
“Some people obsess over kale while those harvesting it can’t afford to buy it.” -Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System
A core tenant of food justice is affordability of healthy and nutritious foods. Ultimately, this means moving beyond emergency food response and into the world of sustainable, equitable, and healthy food options for all. To do this, we must acknowledge the relationship between economic hardship, poverty, and race with food insecurity. The probability of food insecurity declines as income increases, emphasizing why we need not only food assistance programs for low income households, but also larger initiatives to address poverty and financially empower families to afford food.
Long Term Efforts for Sustainable Results
Short term solutions, such as food banks, simply place a bandage on the larger issues at play. Although helpful for addressing emergency situations, they often do not solve the structural drivers causing food insecurity, like decades of political and economic inequities targeting marginalized communities. Achieving food justice demands dismantling the systemic barriers perpetuating food insecurity.
This means championing policies that:
Target Emergency Food Services: A vital step is advocating for expanded SNAP benefits. This includes a larger array of eligible food products respecting dietary and cultural preferences, a streamlined application process, and expanded eligibility criteria. This may be enhanced by programming targeted at educating communities about nutrition and sustainable food choices.
Eliminate Food Deserts: This includes investing in infrastructure and initiatives that bring healthy food options to underserved areas, while actively addressing existing policies that cause racial and socioeconomic inequities in food distribution.
Promote Food Affordability: To ensure everyone can afford a nutritious diet, we must address root causes of poverty. For example, policies that target affordable housing, unemployment, educational opportunities, transportation, childcare, and healthcare access all hold potential to improve an individual’s economic security so they may afford healthy foods.
Economic Stability: Eating healthy is a privilege, fueled by economic stability, or an individual’s financial ability to access essential resources. By investing in living wages and equitable job opportunities, we can empower families to afford nutritious diets.
Joining Forces for Change
Food justice is a collective endeavor. Individuals, communities, and policymakers all have roles in creating a system aligned with our shared values of fairness, sustainability, and dignity.
Today’s food justice movement is making headway on these issues with community-based solutions. Neighborhood food cooperatives promote the local food economy and bring affordable and healthy food choices to communities, often in places deliberately overlooked via food apartheid. Since they are community driven, they also deliver mission-oriented services targeting broader social determinants of health, like racism and poverty.
Within Philadelphia, Reinvestment Fund joined forces with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health to form the Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative. By awarding grants, particularly to projects and organizations led by those with lived experiences regarding health injustices, the program both empowers communities and works to create a more just food system. Recent 2023 grant awardees include Black Lives Matter and their citywide food distributions alongside educational programming on food and economic justice, as well as Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangouts, a teen focused initiative addressing root causes of violence through hangout spaces and a no-cost community food market.
The journey towards eradicating food insecurity starts with recognizing its multifaceted nature. Addressing the root causes of this issue is vital to creating a future where no one must worry about their next meal. In a world of abundance, creating pathways to ensure that everyone can access the nourishment they need is Target Emergency Food Services: A vital step is advocating for expanded SNAP benefits. This includes a larger array of eligible food products respecting dietary and cultural preferences, a streamlined application process, and expanded eligibility criteria. This may be enhanced by programming targeted at educating communities about nutrition and sustainable food choices.
both a moral imperative and a smart investment in the health and well-being of our communities. Food justice lays the foundation for health equity and vibrant communities. By supporting these initiatives, we invest in a future where everyone can thrive.
By: Makenna Lenover, MPH & Partnering Author Donna Kabangai, MPH, DuringConsult
Comments