A food future that’s fair for all

“Covid-19 is the crisis-within-a-crisis that highlights and exacerbates the contradictions of a profit-prioritising food system that produces both waste and hunger. We have seen millions of animals slaughtered due to loss of market value and highly concentrated slaughtering facilities at a time of overwhelming demand for emergency food, an eerie echo of 1930s America when baby hogs were liquefied to forestall market gluts at a time of visible destitution. This politically-embarrassing contradiction between excess and scarcity, as Janet Poppendieck and others have long documented, has been alleviated by ever-expanding private food charity. Covid-19 is a klaxon call to attend to food production systems that damage ecosystems (and exacerbate pandemic risks) yet have consistently failed to ensure everyone an affordable, nutritious, desirable diet. Many working and volunteering for food charities agree that they cannot be the key response to hunger; the Global Solidarity Alliance will galvanise the vital role of government as well as partnerships between producers, campaigners, researchers and the many people fighting for a food future that’s fair for all.”

Charlie Spring, Research Associate interested in international food charity, University of Calgary and Greater Manchester Food Poverty Alliance