Food shortages at the household level
Professor of Social and public policy Tiina Silvasti, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Background and forthcoming…
• First World Hunger Revisited. Right to food or Food Charity? Graham Riches & Tiina Silvasti (ed.) PalgraveMacmillan (2014)
• The New Sosial Division. Making and Unmaking Precariousness. della Porta, Hänninen, Siisiäinen &
Silvasti (ed.) PalgraveMacmillan, forthcoming in October 2015
First World Hunger - Lessons
• Collection of 12 national case studies from wealthy countries, wich at aggregate terms, are food secure by internal production or import…
BUT • Where charitable food aid is established
• UK, USA, NZ, Australia, Canada, Finland, Estonia, Spain,Turkey, Hong Kong, Brazil, South Africa
Who are the hungry and why?
1. Domestic food insecurity has increased particularly since the global financial crisis 2007-09 (except in Brazil);
2. Food charity has expanded and became more deeply entrenched; and
3. Governments ignore their obligations under international law progressively to realise the human right to adequate food.
What’s the problem / solution?
4. People living outside or on the fringe of the labour market (un- or underemployed, pensioners, low paid jobs, precarious, indigenous) have difficulties to provide adequate food and nutrition 5. Food expenditures are the most elastic part of family budgets: often the only way to afford all the basic necessities (housing, gas, electricity, medications…) is to limit diets or go without eating.
What’s the problem /solution?
6. These problems – caused and strengthened by neo-liberal economic and social policies – cannot be solved by producing more food without any commitment to equitable distribution of food.
7. Food charity functions as a moral safety valve and de-politicizes first world hunger as an issue requiring the full attention of states and their governments. It is a part of the problem, not a solution.
What’s the problem /solution?
10. Charitable food aid as a practical response to hunger involves disturbing dilemmas:
By substituting for the role of welfare systems, institutionalised food aid programmes allow politiciansto neglect the problem of food poverty and de-politicize the hunger issue.
It deflects public discussion away from governmentalresponsibilities and the human right to food.
In spite of good will, charitable food aid is nothing more than a gift. It is not an entitlement that can be claimed by a hungry person in need of food.
Conclusions
• Ethical evaluation of food aid should adopt broad social and environmental justice view, if it wishes to advance ecosocial transition
• Justifiable food aid must meet all dimensions of justice (distribution, recognition, representation) → charity is not the solution, nor the waste
• Promoting sustainable and empowering, just food security will probably mean shifting the emphasis from production and distribution to access to food.
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