Tag Archives: Hunger

No System is Immune: Structural Racism in the American Food System

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This past quarter I had the opportunity to work with a Washington organization fighting to empower the youth of the state to fight for bold, equitable, and science-based climate policies. Through my work with Our Climate, coupled with my politics of the world food system course, I became more educated about the concentrations of power in wealth that dominate and dictate the processes and practices of the world food system.

The richest fifth of the population control 90 percent of the world’s wealth and emit 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.[i] This block of people is mostly white. This fact does not exist without substantial consequences for the rest of the population. For example, 10 percent of white households experience hunger in the United States, Black households experience hunger at rates of 20-25 percent.[ii]

Source: https://alliancetoendhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hill-advocacy-fact-sheet__HUNGER-IS-A-RACIAL-EQUITY-ISSUE_Alliance-to-End-Hunger.pdf

Food insecurity, as we know can and does lead to inability to attend school or jobs, decreased health and health outcomes, disease, shortened life expectancy, and more. Systemic racism does not solely exist in our legal and governmental institutions. It shows up in the global food system, especially in the American food system. Systemic racism is not isolated to a few systems or institutions, food insecurity is not the only manifestation of systemic racism. Private agricultural land ownership is dominated by white people.[iii] Only 1.3 percent of farmers in America are Black.[iv] Black farmers receive less assistance from the government than white farmers.[v] The list goes on and on.

Source: https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DRnumber2_VF.pdf

Systems are inherently interconnected and organized to achieve a function. Yet, our national food system fails Black Americans. Change in systems is inevitable and we must leverage this inherent change to ensure that food systems serve Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color just the same as they serve white people. We must call upon our politicians and listen to Black activists to address these issues.

Lastly, I want to share some important resources, activists, educators, and organizers to turn to during this time.

END NOTES:

[i] Political Ecology of the World Food System Lecture, April 16, 2020

[ii] https://alliancetoendhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hill-advocacy-fact-sheet__HUNGER-IS-A-RACIAL-EQUITY-ISSUE_Alliance-to-End-Hunger.pdf

[iii] https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DRnumber2_VF.pdf

[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/why-have-americas-black-farmers-disappeared

[v] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/why-have-americas-black-farmers-disappeared

– Sophie Stein

Hunger During COVID-19

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Response to Aaron Baker’s Food supply Chain Consequences of COVID-19

   The post from Aaron indicated the economic consequences of COVID-19. While the food supply decreases, we can expect an increase of the food price. Consumers are forced to pay the increased price, and this will lead to severer hunger. This lead to the question: how do we overcome this food crisis?

Field workers wear face masks and gloves while harvesting the first crop of organic cabbage.

    It’s important to invest in local food production (The Guardian). As some countries are restricting exportation of certain foods, supporting nutritious and affordable food production can be the key of sustainable food system. Food distribution is also substantial to guarantee the delivery of food to the vulnerable populations.

    To improve our food system, we need to change our policies. According to “the Real reasons for hunger”, the policies should “put livelihoods and food security first, rather than read and commerce”(Vandana Shiva). People are starving because of the policy structure that limits the access to resources and markets and dismantle the livelihoods of farmers. Trade liberalization is not the solution of the food crisis because the political democracy removes the basic rights of making decisions from people in this country. 

    The food chain should be regulated by the governments with improved policies. Under this pandemic, governments must work together to avert disruptions to foo supply chains. The coordination of global governments is needed because of the globalization.

                                            

Food Lines: A Response to “Hunger and the Hungry”

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Having had time to reflect on a post by wisdaub entitled “Hunger and the Hungry,” a thoughtful contemplation of spiritual fasting, hunger, and food system shocks amidst the coronavirus pandemic, I will try to extend the conversation using a systems thinking approach. If we put “food insecurity” in the center of a systems map, the maze of feedback loops is dizzying, even without considering the effects of the current pandemic on the food supply network. Factor in the pandemic crisis and the triple inequalities multiply as those already least prepared for catastrophe are hit with another wave of hardship. There is no single cause or solution to global hunger, and many causes have complicated relationships among themselves.

Food System Map                                                                                     Image Source: thebigraise.fr

Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, an expert in issues of famine, declares poverty and lack of democracy as primary drivers of hunger, and suggests increased trade, tariffs and democratization as solutions, and self-sufficiency as a less powerful solution other than in times of war. A different view from physicist and food sovereignty advocate Vandana Shiva sees globalization and lack of import regulations as some of the larger systems responsible for poverty and displacement in the first place. Both perspectives would be appropriate in a systems-thinking map – the 135 million currently facing food shortage are victims of systems that cause or perpetuate poverty.

Children wait in line for food                                                      Image Source: weforum.org

If food is a human right (which, of course it is), how can we prevent projected estimates that the number of hungry may double by the end of 2020? Part of the answer is that people can’t afford food, especially with the economic fallout from the pandemic. Another is that nations who rely on imports are feeling food supply shocks deep in their bellies without the resources to grow or secure food closer to home. Increasing food sovereignty can build nimble resilience as shock absorbers for current systems vulnerable to price fluctuation and supply bottlenecks.

Widaub’s post describes fasting as “a way in which we recognize our common human fragility.” This is both humbling and empowering. Humbling in that the fragilities within  the food system are wounds pulled wide open during Coronavirus. These wounds may heal not by applying bandages of food aid and imports alone, but by empowering the world’s hungry with land, the resources to feed the land, and their children. Poverty is a reason many will not eat today. The systems perpetuating poverty are reasons many may not eat tomorrow.

Farmers in Indonesia
Image Source: viacampesina.org

 

Why are so many people hungry?

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In response to “Thoughts on hunger after contemplative practice.”

Tristram Stuart’s TED talk that we watched earlier this month first got me thinking about food waste in a structured way. He says that the United States has twice as much food than it actually needs to feed its citizens, a statistic that shocked me. But when I thought about it, I wasn’t really surprised. I throw out food I don’t finish all the time, not feeling too guilty about it. What did I know about what good my food could do in someone else’s hands?

And then it went to the back of my mind for a couple weeks — as concepts we learn so often can — but going through the blog, this post brought it back up again. It reminded me of the connections between our overconsumption and waste of food with famine in less developed countries. Especially as climate change wreaks havoc on our food system both now and even more so in the future, we need to think critically about how we dole out the world’s food because the amount is finite and so many people need to be fed. And the system we’re using now isn’t equitable.

Author Tristram Stuart with a pile of discarded bananas, an emblem of global food waste. (Source: https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/00000148-bd38-d00e-adef-ffbc74fb0000)

“Global hunger is a problem of distribution, access, empowerment,” Michael Carolan writes in chapter 4 of The Real Cost of Cheap Food (italics are the authors).

Carolan rightly notes that global hunger is not the result of a lack of food, but instead is a socioeconomic problem in our system that disproportionately gives food to industrialized countries like ours over developing countries that desperately need it. 

This is not a scientific issue, but a political one that could be solved that way. But the question is: will we?

Is This Hunger?

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Sitting in the last bits of daylight, eyes closed, I calmly take deep breaths. Slowly inhaling through my nose, exhaling through my mouth. I’m concentrating on the emptiness inside of me, I’ve been fasting for almost 24 hours. Is this hunger I think to myself? No, it is not, being hungry means more than just missing a meal. It’s a debilitating crisis that has more than 820 million people in its grip.

Hunger is a perilous cycle that passes from one generation to the next. Families who struggle with chronic hunger and malnutrition consistently go without the nutrients their minds and bodies need, which then prevents them from being able to perform their best at work, school, or to improve their lives.

So why are people hungry? This is a complex question, but hunger is a byproduct of food insecurity, which is defined as being “unable to consistently access or afford adequate food.” A number of factors such as poverty, climate change, price fluctuations, distribution networks, and food waste all play a role in food insecurity. There is no silver-bullet solution and each region or community needs its own tailored fix. Though many agree that closing the yield gap, using fertilizers more efficiently, raising low water productivity, and reducing food waste would all go a long way in helping to reduce food insecurity.

Suddenly my mind begins spinning, my breathing hastens. This problem seems so overwhelming, what am I a poor student suppose do about this? I slow my breathing and say to myself “you don’t have to be responsible for solving the world’s problems but taking a moment to contemplate and be mindful is at least a step in the right direction.” Contemplative practices can be helpful in metaphorically dipping your toe into complex problems. They allow you to examine your place within a living system while not overly internalizing it.

When More Food Means More Hunger

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Response to: “Feeling Hunger: an Exercise in Mindfulness (Contemplative Practice 5)” by dakotajh

The hunger knowing you have food in your pantry is starkly different than hunger knowing you may not eat for days. Hunger and the contrast of populations deciding what to eat and whether it is possible to eat was highlighted in a post by dakotajh, scratching the surface of how our act of unmindful consumption impacts individuals across the globe.

It seems like a simple idea: reduce waste, redistribute food, end hunger. But reality is more complicated than that. Even if developed countries reduced waste and brought food to the markets that need it most, more damage could be done if local producers do not survive. On one hand, the redirected waste may be too costly, and the fight against hunger will go on. On the other hand, the food we trade could be cheap and accessible, but cost the jobs of local producers who need money to buy it. This latter example displays how integral local producers are to the sustainability of hunger solutions. India learned this firsthand, as Vandana Shiva explained, when they opened their borders to trade. Peasant farming collapsed, and millions lost their source of income. What can food in a market do without money?

Agricultural workers process mangoes. Source: https://www.tripsavvy.com/mango-farms-and-festivals-india-1539678

Dakotajh mentioned that here in the US, with food readily available, hunger is a quick fix. This is almost translatable to a global scale with one addition. Evidently, when food is readily available, hunger is a quick but temporary fix. Because to feed the hungry, available food and the jobs people must have need to be sustained. The best way to do this in a largely agrarian country is to increase the number of local farms, killing two birds with one stone. More people will be employed, incomes will rise, and there will also be local food available for everyone.

In response to: Feeling Hunger: an Exercise in Mindfulness

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As I was scrolling through the contemplative practice posts from last week, I found  Dakota’s thoughts about Feeling Hunger: an Exercise in Mindfulness showcasing the complexity of hunger, very compelling. The post sheds light to individuals who lack privilege and access to food which are negatively impacted by inequalities embedded in the world’s food system. 

In comparison to Dakota’s ideas, this contemplative practice made me think about food waste. America produces enough food to support and feed its population. However, billions of pounds of food are discarded and millions of Americans struggle with hunger. Contemplating about the interdependence of one system to another and its non-linearity, I witness the relativity between food waste and hunger where the changes implied to one system affect the other. Wasting food means wasting all of the energy and the natural resources (such as water) it takes to grow, harvest, transport, and package it. Once food goes to the landfill and rots, it produces methane – a greenhouse gas that is far more potent than carbon dioxide. 

Source: stopfoodwasteday.com

Source: stopfoodwasteday.com

Going back to Dakota’s point of view, I see the connection between the inequitable distribution of food, food waste, and hunger. Individuals along with manufacturers, distributors, retailers, etc, who have the privilege to effortlessly access food often waste food, not considering the fact that millions of people are dying of hunger. Dakota quoted, “I think that food-secure people may not (or, at least, I did not) conceptualize hunger in the same way that the underprivileged do.” I am one of those food-secure people who take access to food for granted and unquestionably discard food, which makes me a contributor to this problem. The interdependence of these topics are apparent and indisputably woven together which assists my understanding of the way systems thinking work and how each factor affects one another.

What do we do to resolve America’s problem with hunger and food waste? Many grassroots organizations such as Feeding America are utilizing their connections (manufacturers, distributors, retailers, food service companies and farmers) and collecting surplus food, and provide it to those who are hungry and do not have proper access to food. Another course of action to combat hunger through food waste is to promote Freeganism. An ideology that was introduced to me by Tristram Stuart, in which is an exhibition of the injustice of food waste by utilizing minimal consumption of resources. They target disposed food that are often gathered from grocery stores and restaurants dumpster.

The longevity of these provisional solutions may be uncertain, but what’s important is that we’re dedicating these surplus food for mouths, rather than landfills. It starts with us. One small contribution could lead to huge impacts that could lead to a major and positive shifts in the system. Let us work together to combat food system problems one step at a time.

For more information about Feeding America, click this link. 

 

Food Security, COVID-19, and the Future of Land Ownership in Yemen

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In response to: “Womxn, Food, and Security Amid COVID-19 in Yemen” by Amber Torell

Amber’s post addressed the impact of COVID-19 on a group of under-represented and vulnerable people in one of the least developed countries in the world. Sadly, Yemen was a country in crisis before COVID-19. To gain a deeper understanding of the food-aid dimension of the global response to the Yemeni crisis, I visited the USAID website. USAID contributes to the UN WFP and supports NGOs in Yemen. Citing the same geo-political concerns as the WFP, USAID announced their reduction in aid to Yemen, specifically in Houthi dominated regions. Food aid represents an immediate desperate need and signifies a systemic failure in the region. Productive assets, including labor and land, are simply not being used to produce food. To be sure, “Land so pervasively underpins human activity that it usually plays some role during war and civil violence.” (Land and Conflict)

Yemen’s civil war is a factional conflict that has evolved into a humanitarian crisis. For civilians, a sustained state of conflict will put the focus on survival and meeting basic human needs, including food and shelter. Disenfranchised groups may be further marginalized and will need to achieve significant gains politically in order to establish power. Specifically, the role of women in poverty-ridden communities connects to my NGO – Landesa. My group is exploring the impact of COVID-19 on women’s land rights, as it is creating additional economic uncertainty. An imbalance we observe is that women farmers comprise a large majority of those who work directly in agricultural, yet only a fraction of those women are actual landowners. While in the short-run, advocating for women’s involvement in the Yemeni government could result in political unrest, having more women as stakeholders could help stabilize the country and its response to the crisis and lay the groundwork for future changes in rural land rights.

From FAO of the United Nations http://www.fao.org/gender/resources/infographics/the-female-face-of-farming/en/

 

 

Thoughts on hunger after contemplative practice

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The most inspiring contemplative practice topic for me is hunger. I’m now feeling hungry. My belly is feeling empty and is urging me to eat some food. The feeling of emptiness is compressing my stomach and makes me feel stressful. But when I close my eyes and try to control my inflation, the feeling of compression is minimized to be unimportant and becomes part of my body. 

    When we think about why we feel hungry, we notice that it’s a natural inner force that help us preserve ourselves. It is not necessarily a desire, but can be rather, a need of energy. We need energy as it is the basic factor of survival. If we cannot feel hungry, we cannot feel the importance of basic resources for humans, and we cannot experience the same feeling our ancestors or some people in the world are experiencing.

Farmers are dumping milk during pandemic.

     As we look at the one week’s food of families around the world, we realize the big gaps between individuals and consider whether we really need that much food or not. A Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp spends $1.23 on their food weekly while a Melander family of Bargteheide spends $500.07 (Menzel, 2008). Why does this happen? Food shortages and climate change comes up into our mind. The droughts and flood destroy harvests and lead to regional lack of food. But when we look at our refrigerator and bins, there might be plenty of food inside. Why can’t we allocate the food fairly? Power disparities, originated from human beings’ greedy nature, lead to the economical imbalance. Nowadays, people not only eat because of hunger, but also because of stress and boredom. Even if we have already fulfill our basic needs, we never stop. The overflow of desire of some people cut the resource available for other people and lead to the economic inequality and hunger.

Reference

Peter Menzel’s and Faith D`Aluisio. Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. Tricycle Press, 2008.

Leighton Schneider. Dairy farmers dumping milk amid COVID-19: Pandemic’s impact on the dairy industry. ABC news, 2020. 

Contemplative Practice and Hunger

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Buddha says “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” This is exactly what contemplative practice is, it is the guiding of your mind to the present, focusing on your body, feelings and only what is going on right now. When I am in a contemplative practice, time moves differently, I don’t realize what’s going on in the outer world. I think of it as going into my subconscious and I only focus on the important things. As I breath in and out during the practice my personal worries melt away and I find myself completely immersed in the subject. One might say that these practices aren’t actually forms of learning and they actually impair it. However, I argue that because I’m not focused on writing notes or assignments, I’m much more capable of interacting with the subject. The best example of this is the contemplative practice on hunger. In a practice that directly involves the body, contemplative practice is the best form of learning. 

The overarching question I grappled with was; what are the effects of food insecurity? I  feel extremely privileged that I’m just contemplating this and I haven’t had to experience it. There is a direct correlation between food insecurity and health issues. The body is much weaker and is unable to fight off infections and diseases. In fact 3.1 million children under 5 die due to poor nutrition every year. Another major issue of hunger and malnutrition is that it stunts children’s brain development and makes concentrating in school or even getting an education to be extremely hard. This is especially important to mention during a contemplative practice, I wouldn’t have been able to experience the benefits of it if I was hungry. My concentration would be wavering as my hunger overtook my conscious and subconscious thoughts. This question and subsequent feelings are what made this practice the most impactful for me. 

https://www.bbfloudoun.org/news/2019/5/2/effects-of-starvation-on-adults-and-children

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190429-why-food-poverty-is-a-health-time-bomb