Above: Shoppers Stockpile Supplies in response to Covid-19 Pandemic                                                 Below: People Wait in Line at a San Antonio Food Bank

With the recent lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic and news stories dominated by pictures of empty grocery store shelves it is easy to feel like we will soon run out of food. Beans, medicine, and toilet paper are flying off the shelves and not just paranoid citizens are starting to stockpile, nations have also begun to hold on tighter to their resources.

Meanwhile, now more than ever the world’s hungry are in need. In the United States, food banks are being overwhelmed, and globally the World Food Programme estimates that 5.5 million people in central Sahel alone will be facing severe food insecurity in the coming months. The hoarders and the hungry; an epitome of a global food system that never seems to have enough to go around.

Yet, when you look closer into how that food is being used, there is an even more insidious note. Every year the United States wastes 40% of its food; 63 million tons a year. When 63 million tons of food a year is left to rot in one country alone, it is clear that the global food system doesn’t have a shortage issue, it has a distribution issue; a distribution issue exacerbated by rampant western individualism. People are, and have for a long time, purchased only with their own perceived needs in mind, without thinking about the larger scale implications that these actions have on others around the world. We live on a finite planet, with finite resources. Every meal you throw away is food that could have eased the hunger of someone else. It is time we wake up to the manufactured food crisis we have created, and in compassion, work toward a more equitable food distribution system, that decreases waste by calming the hoarders and feeding the hungry.