Food Charity – Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice

U.S. Food Banks Supporting Migrant Justice

May 10, 2022

In today’s episode, we’ll talk about why our food justice movement including food banks should work in solidarity with the movement for migrant justice. I recently saw a meme that showed a picture of a man holding a sign that read, “Do you know what an accent is? It’s a sign of bravery.” Truly, the migrant story is one of bravery. You must be brave to leave family and the only homeland you’ve known, embrace potentially treacherous travel and come to a new country where you know that not all will welcome you. But you do it for the potential to work, you do it for the potential for safety, you do it for a better future. Migrants make up the backbone of our American food system. They work our fields and in our restaurant kitchens yet they are among our most vulnerable for food security. They pay taxes, but immigration status is a bar to important federal food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The charitable food bank system is one resource, but it’s not a sustainable one and also can be fraught with access issues. We’re talking with Claudio Rodriguez and Robert Ojeda of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona. Claudio is the environmental and social justice manager and Robert is the chief program officer.

Is Food Charity Political? If so, how do we organize?

March 2, 2022

Charitable food networks have been growing in many countries, which has seen foodbanking organisations lobbying national governments for funding and favourable regulatory environments for the redistribution of surplus food as charity. Meanwhile, some food charities have become vocal critics of government policy that they see as driving food insecurity. It’s clear that the link between…
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How Non Profits Can Support Food Justice

January 13, 2022

Given the urgency of responding to climate change, food movements have featured prominently in urban planning, food policy, and sustainability initiatives, over the past decade. However, mainstream frameworks, such as the Local Food Movement, have typically catered to privilege, namely, a white middle class. They tend to overlook food networks that racialized communities have relied upon to survive social marginalization. Many of these communities have come together to support one another during COVID-19, a time when they’ve experienced profound social and dietary inequities. While the pandemic has presented a parallel crisis to climate change, it has also presented an opportunity to build food movements that are more sustainable, equitable, and inclusive to diverse communities. In this episode, we will understand how we can do so using the framework of food justice.

‘Big Food’ at the UN table: A recipe for big waste?

November 4, 2021

waste nor hunger has been significantly decreased as a result of these efforts. Is the answer, then, just to urge companies to redistribute more surplus, and perhaps tweak their supply chain processes a little harder?

Food Banks and Charity as a False Response to Hunger in the Wealthy but Unequal Countries

October 14, 2021

Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2021 – The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the food injustices and inequalities felt by too many in the so-called ‚Global North‘, particularly those in marginalized communities – Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

Not Our Menu: False solutions to hunger and malnutrition

October 14, 2021

Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2021 – This year’s edition of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch – Not Our Menu: False Solutions to Hunger and Malnutrition – attempts to connect the dots surrounding the food that we eat.

Why This Pediatrician Wants U.S. to Re-Frame Poverty and Food

September 10, 2021

Lack of food or too much of the wrong kind of food can create a wealth of physical and mental health problems. Making matters even worse, society often blames individuals for making the wrong choices. But data shows us that diet related ill health goes hand in hand with inequality and poverty and occurs at disproportionately higher rates for communities of color. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Ben Danielson, a pediatrician with the University of Washington, about the parallels between food banking and healthcare. And, how both systems manage social problems and could benefit from addressing food insecurity systemically at the root causes level.

Food Poverty Has No Place in Our Society

June 9, 2021

Dave Beck is a lecturer in social policy at the University of Salford and expert on food poverty. We chat to him about his work, the role of food banks in the UK and how he believes we could eliminate food poverty.

What is Hunger in the United Kingdom?

May 16, 2021

The United Kingdom, where I’m from has seen rising levels of hunger over the past 10 years. And despite being in the top five wealthiest countries in the world, demand for food aid was rising even before 2020, but it’s estimated that 15% of families with children have struggled to afford a decent diet since the pandemic began. Food charities have struggled to cope and have increasingly called for government intervention. But the problem is still poorly understood. To help us understand food insecurity and hunger in the UK. Who it affects, what’s causing it and what’s being done about it – we’ve invited policy and international relations researcher Hannah Lambie-Mumford from the University of Sheffield and the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute. Over the last decade, she has studied the rise of food charity and the right to food in the UK and other European countries.

What is Hunger in the United States?

May 16, 2021

Did you know that 40 million people in the United States experience hunger. This is startling given the fact that the us is one of the richest countries in the world. Perhaps you’ve participated in a hunger drive at your school, have volunteered at a food pantry, or even experienced hunger yourself. So what is hunger and how do we manage this problem in the United States? In this episode, we talk to professor Janet Poppendieck of the Urban Food Policy Institute at the City University of New York, to explore some basic definitions of hunger and food insecurity, who it affects, and solutions to address the problem. Host: Rebecca De Souza, professor of communication at the University of Minnesota Duluth and author the book, “Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries.”

What is the Right to Food?

May 10, 2021

Have you ever wondered why there are so many hungry people in wealthy nations like the US, Canada and the UK long before and especially during COVID-19? So what does the “right to food” mean and why does it matter? In this podcast, two guests define the right to food, and also how it differs from food charity such as food banks and food pantries. University of British Columbia Professor Graham Riches is the leading voice on the right to food in Canada. He’s joined by attorney and PhD candidate Laura Castrejon-Violante, who researches the constitutionalization of the right to food.

Big Hunger: Challenges and Current Opportunities to the Emergency Food System

March 18, 2021

Watch Closing the Hunger Gap’s inaugural webinar on the challenges of our current emergency food system and how one food bank is shifting towards their work to support community-based solutions. Author Andy Fisher recounts the history of our current charitable emergency food system and the tangled relationship between corporations and emergency food providers. Hear Andy’s thoughts about creating a long-term vision to truly ending hunger. Learn from the experiences of Robert Ojeda and Marco Liu of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona about how their food bank is mobilizing resources and supporting community-based solutions.

E80: Janet Poppendieck – COVID Highlights the Problems with Charity Food

March 18, 2021

This podcast is part of The Leading Voices in Food series focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re exploring today, the role of charitable efforts to address food access. Places such as food banks, soup kitchens and food pantries. Janet Poppendieck has studied the emergency food system in the U.S. for decades. She is professor emerita of sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of the book, “Sweet Charity, Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement.”

Freedom From Want: Advocating for the Right to Food in the United States

January 26, 2021

The current state of food insecurity and the strategies for addressing hunger in the U.S. are a far cry from the vision the Roosevelts invoked on the eve of the establishment of the United Nations. With the growth of more than 60,000 private charitable organizations distributing food to tens of million of people in need while public social security unravels, Americans are not guaranteed the freedom from want. And so, we continue to advocate.

Covid-19 and everyday experiences of hardship: why charitable provision is not enough

December 21, 2020

Commentary – At a time of global crisis, the UK’s fraying safety net has been under scrutiny and subject to urgent—though temporary—changes to slightly strengthen it, as part of efforts to improve the experiences of those relying on out-of-work social security for the first time.

How One Organization Can Shorten Food Bank Lines Across the United States

November 23, 2020

Author and activist Andy Fisher describes how America’s largest food charity, Feeding America, has failed to embrace the progressive values needed to respond to multi-faceted social inequities. Here is a 10-point plan to change that.

Philanthropy must go beyond charity to fund transformational food system change

October 30, 2020

On October 22, 2020, the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice urged members of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders (SAFSF) to go beyond charity and work toward transformational food system change through the first of a two-part webinar series titled: “We Can’t ‘Foodbank’ Our way Out of Hunger.”

COVID-19 and the Right to Food

October 1, 2020

The Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice is a group of non-governmental organizations, national networks, grassroots activists, and scholars began to emerge two years ago out of relationships built at Trans-Atlantic conferences and meetings, resulting in a growing shared analysis of and reaction to the increased use of private philanthropy and transnational corporate food banking as a response to “rich world” hunger and poverty.

Letter: Can UBC do better to feed its food insecure students?

March 23, 2020

PhD candidate Laura Castrejon-Violante and Professor emeritus Graham Riches question the moral basis of their university’s food bank campaign as a response to student food insecurity. They argue that food should not be a disempowering gift, but rather a right to be accessed with agency and enforced by social institutions.

It’s not the hungry who gain most from food banks – it’s big business

March 25, 2019

THE GUARDIAN – Who benefits from food banks? The donors? The volunteers? The recipients? You might be surprised – and dismayed – to learn that big food corporations from around the world revel in the wonderful world of food banks.

Tag: Food Charity

Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice