Winter 2005, Volume 10 Number 1

Table of Contents

Thirty-six million Americans are living in poverty and 842 million people in the world go hungry for days, weeks, and much longer. Because of hunger, kids never have a chance to develop, learn and thrive, economies are crippled, and human potential is greatly hindered.  Solutions to hunger and poverty are wide-ranging and often quite practical.  World Hunger Year (WHY) has a 30 year track record of connecting  people to food, government programs, and services that build self-reliance; motivating organizations to adopt effective models that move people out of poverty; advocating for sustainable development policies; inspiring kids to make a difference; and engaging artists to bring attention and much needed funds to address the problems.

            One of our most important activities is to bring our work into the classroom as part of our KIDS Can Make A Difference program.  We are working in 3,000 classrooms to inspire more than 100,000 kids to learn about hunger and engage in service that helps their hungry neighbors and changes their communities.  The KIDS program challenges the typical response to hunger which is to feed people.  The KIDS program reveals the root causes of hunger.  We are living in a time when more people are going hungry, many of whom are part of working families, and are relying on emergency food from food banks, pantries, and kitchens to meet their every day needs.  By feeding vast numbers of hungry people our massive and efficient charitable food distribution system masks the great injustice of poverty and diverts our attention from building a more just society and sustainable food system that provides access to healthy food for all.

            Emergency situations demand emergency responses.  Time and again we experience how crises are met with an outpouring of compassion that leads to heroic efforts of volunteerism and fundraising.  We weep at the horrific images of people suffering from the recent tsunami, hurricanes in Florida, landslides in California, and genocide in the Sudan.  Empathy is transferred to full blown action.  However, a crisis that lingers becomes a constant like homelessness, hunger, and disease.  Over the course of two decades, the emergency response to hunger has slowly converted into an entrenched system of charitable feeding that serves millions of Americans.  By becoming so invested in our heroic efforts to solve the hunger crisis, we are unable to see that feeding ever-increasing numbers of people without helping them afford their own food through living wage jobs is not only completely unsustainable but also thoroughly unjust. 

            How do we move beyond emergency feeding?  WHY attacks the root causes of hunger and poverty by promoting effective and innovative community based solutions that create self-reliance, economic justice, and food security.  We work with thousands of grassroots organizations that are changing people’s lives while at the same time meeting their immediate food needs.  We believe that community food security can work within the traditional anti-hunger framework of emergency feeding, support of federal nutrition programs, and advocacy, while simultaneously strengthening everyone’s access to affordable healthy food in their neighborhoods that is grown by farmers who are caring for the earth and in turn earning a living wage for themselves and their families.

            Community Food Security (CFS) embraces the full range of food chain activities – natural resources and agriculture, processing and distribution, nutrition and health, public policy.  While the goal of CFS is the same as other approaches – to end hunger and food insecurity – its method is different.  CFS, in its fullest expression, draws on a range of community food system resources, invites the participation of many individuals and sectors, and promotes solutions that reduce food insecurity and build the health and well being of the wider community.           Community food security is a dynamic approach to ending hunger that some food banks and numerous community organizations have implemented. The value of incorporating any of the community food security measures like community gardens, farm to school programs, farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture, nutrition education, culinary arts training, and food policy councils into the work of food banks is that it can increase their capacity to address multiple needs and problems, and provide a valuable tool for community building that fosters self-reliance.  There are many food banks and emergency food providers that incorporate community food security into their work, and are finding that by growing food or by linking directly with a local farmer they can provide a transformative experience for clients, volunteers, and the community at large.  It also creates opportunities to implement innovative solutions that address the root causes of hunger and move people out of poverty.  Because food is grown sustainably, organically, locally, and humanely, the positive health benefits are enormous.  A food bank, pantry, or kitchen that embodies these practices establishes a more dynamic system that fosters social change, directly challenges dependence, and promotes healthier eating. 

            Food banks, with their access to food and multiple community relationships, have a special role in building the bridge between anti-hunger work and community food security.  Many anti-hunger networks and groups have long supported policies that address the root causes of hunger -- poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and lack of health care.  Increasingly, groups such as food banks, shelters, and churches, while continuing to feed the hungry and house the homeless, are sponsoring food security related programs that include food sector job training, nutrition education, healthier food choices, community gardens, links to local farms, and economic development.  The forthcoming Building the Bridge will focus on food banks that – from an anti-hunger base – are implementing key aspects of community food security.

            Food Banks are uniquely positioned to shift the prevailing model of food charity to one that promotes food justice.  Actions to move toward food justice would include exposing the growing inequality in income and in access to food.   Many of the food banks profiled in Building the Bridge are already making a shift in empowering those involved in emergency food programs to be active participants in their local food systems as opposed to passive recipients of aid.   This is significant in that it promotes self reliance and brings people together to solve problems in their own communities.  They can inspire the vast network of food banks to transform their operations and awaken our greater societal responsibility to address the root causes of poverty.  Building community food security is a practical alternative vision to food charity and provides us with an opportunity to care for our farmland, provide an abundance of healthier food, and stimulate local economic development.

                Noreen Springstead is Program Director at WHY.

The basis of this article comes from the forthcoming Building the Bridge, a joint collaboration between WHY and the Community Food Security Coalition.   

            Please email your request for a copy of Building the Bridge to Noreen@worldhungeryear.org . You can find ways to incorporate nutritious food into your school lunch program, support family farmers, ensure healthy food for you and your family, and more by accessing WHY’s online Food Security Learning Center at www.worldhungeryear.org

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