Emergency Food Relief

8/14/2019 Emergency Food Relief

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/emergency-food-relief 1/5

Emergency Food Relief – A Response to Capitalism’s Inequities

Hunger advocates throughout the world are mourning the death of John Van Hengel,

founder of the modern food bank. In 1967, Van Hengel persuaded food businesses to

donate surplus goods to the soup kitchen where he volunteered. When the soup kitchen

received more food than it could use, they redistributed it to other community

organizations. His idea grew into America’s Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank

Network, the nexus for over 200 food banks and food rescue organizations that

collectively distribute 1.941 billion pounds of food to 23 million Americans in 2004.

This is an honorable endeavor, given the tremendous over-production and over-

consumption of food and other products in the United States.

Food banks are large warehouses that distribute food to 501c(3) nonprofit organizations

within a specific geographic region. Organizations that receive product from food banks,

called member agencies, include food pantries, which provide food directly to people in

need, soup kitchens, after school programs, senior centers, and residential treatment

centers. In addition to food distribution, many food banks engage in complementary

activities such as culinary training, grassroots organizing, and advocacy.

Food producers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers utilize the food bank network to

dispose of products that cannot be sold on the market. Donated food products include

overruns, discontinued products, seasonal foods, food with damaged packaging,

perishable food approaching the sell by date, and aging produce. In exchange for their

contribution, donors receive a tax write-off and, usually, good publicity. Hundreds of

corporations donate cash or products to America’s Second Harvest and its local affiliates.

According to America’s Second Harvest’s 2005 Annual Report, Altria Group, Inc.,

ConAgra Foods, Kraft Foods, Inc., The Kroger Co., and The Pampered Chef, Ltd., made

the largest financial contributions in 2004 (between 1,000,0001 and 9,999,999 each).

Many individuals and community groups also donate food and/or money to the food bank

network. Through food drives, groups including the National Association of Letter



Carriers, congregations, and service clubs encourage their patrons to clean out their

pantries at home and contribute unwanted non-perishable food for the cause. Money that

is donated to food banks is used to pay staff and overhead, purchase additional food items

at wholesale, and transport food to member agencies.

There are a few other types of community-based emergency food assistance programs.

Food rescue organizations collect and distribute prepared and perishable foods to people

in need. These products include baked goods, catered foods, and cafeteria leftovers.

Gleaning programs pick fruits and vegetables that machines miss and donate them to

food banks. Food not Bombs is a voluntary organization whose members prepare and

share free vegetarian food with people who are hungry, complemented by anti-war, anti-

poverty, and anti-globalization protests.

In addition, the federal government has instituted several food distribution programs that

are administered by the United States Department of Agriculture. The purpose of these

programs is two-fold: to support American farmers and to feed people in need. Through

The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), the government purchases

commodities in order to control agriculture prices and stabilize farm income. These

products, which include milk, beef, and fruits and vegetables, are then packaged and

distributed to emergency food providers, such as food pantries, soup kitchens, and

shelters, through the food bank network. Individuals who receive this food must meet

income eligibility guidelines determined by each state. Agencies who provide the food to

individuals are not permitted to accept payment. The emergency food distribution

network is intended to be a stop-gap measure to temporarily relieve and prevent hunger.

These programs complement other federal nutrition programs. The largest and most

highly utilized of these are The Food Stamp Program, the National School Lunch

Program, and the Special Supplementary Program for Women, Infants, and Children

(WIC). The Food Stamp Program, our nation’s first line of defense against hunger,

provides over 25 million Americans with a monthly cash grant, based on income and

family size, that can be used to purchase groceries using a debit card. The National



School Lunch Program subsidizes all participating schools’ meals, regardless of family

income, and increases this subsidy so that families under 185% of the federal poverty

level are able to pay a reduced price for lunch and those under 130% of the federal

poverty level do not pay anything toward the cost of the meal. Many schools also

participate in the School Breakfast Program, which similarly provides funding so that an

additional meal can be provided for free or at a reduced price. WIC provides coupons to

pregnant and postpartum women, and children under 5 that can be redeemed in grocery

stores for certain pre-selected foods.

The provision of emergency food relief to needy Americans is indicative of a caring and

compassionate society. Individuals, community groups, food companies, and legislators

work together to ensure that people in need are able to meet their most basic needs.

However, all of these sources of food also represent artifacts of our excessive, unjust, and

inefficient capitalist system. And although the food distribution network prudently

provides food to people who would otherwise not have sufficient access, it does not

effectively address the underlying cause of hunger: poverty.

While it is wonderful and appreciated that corporations share their excess with charitable

food relief organizations, that money is surely a product of measures taken to ensure

corporate profitability, including worker exploitation and environmental degradation.

The principles upon which corporate enterprises operate naturally lead to low-wage

employment and a certain level of unemployment, leaving many people destitute and

hungry.

Product innovation and technology drives much of the supply for food banks. New

products replace those that are no longer in fashion. Technology expedites the process of

bringing new foods to the market. Because foods have a limited shelf life, supply

constantly rotates so that safe foods are available. In order to ensure sufficient supply on

the global market, excess food products are produced. Of course, there is some

unreliability in the harvesting of agricultural goods; crop yields vary from year to year.



Technology has also intervened in agricultural processes; new techniques have replaced

ancient farming methods and genetically engineered foods have made it possible for the

average meal to travel 1500 miles from field to plate. Rather than diminish the quality of

our food and flooding the market with excess goods, technology should be used to

develop new manufacturing and distribution processes that minimize waste; the money

saved could be used to pay agricultural and other food industry workers better wages.

The family farm, too, has been replaced by the corporate machine. Those family farms

that remain are subject to the lobbying and market-controlling power of large farms and

are under constant threat of elimination. Farm subsidies reward those who grow certain

crops, such as corn which is used to fatten cows and hogs that will become food and to

fatten Americans who eat processed food containing high fructose corn syrup. Land and

the food it yields have been reduced to a commodity. As have farmworkers. Thousands

of migrant farmworkers, surrounded by food all day, are unable to feed themselves

because of the minimal pay they receive.

Community food drives are based on the premise that people purchase more food than

they intend to eat or that people will give/receive gifts of food that are unwelcome. They

are also based on the feel-good nature of sharing one’s possessions with another who is in

need. Though inefficient, community food drives are promoted as a mechanism to deal

with both American over-consumption and guilt related to having more resources than are

truly needed. Most food banks, somewhat secretly in many cases, prefer to receive cash

donations than food donations from individuals. Cash donations can be used to acquire

food at lower prices than are available to individual consumers, to pay for gas and truck

maintenance to transport food where it is needed, and to maintain the warehouses where

food is stored before being distributed.

The food bank network and government nutrition programs provide short-term relief for

those who do not have enough to eat. Long-term systemic change is needed for poverty

elimination as well as economically and environmentally just and sustainable food

production and distribution. According to a United States Department of Agriculture



report, 11.9% of American households experienced food insecurity, the inability to access

enough food without assistance, and 3.9% if American households experienced hunger in

2004. Despite the compressive effort of thousands of well-meaning individuals and

organizations, people in the United States (not to mention around the world) continue to

experience mal- and under-nutrition. This struggle will continue until everyone has

adequate access to nutritious food, the opportunity to purchase or otherwise obtain

enough food, and a stake in the farms and factories that produce the food we eat.

This article has highlighted the failure of capitalism and the consequential development

of an emergency food assistance partnership consisting of the food industry, nonprofit

organizations, and government. America’s system of feeding hungry people seems rather

inefficient to me; by only producing what is needed and sharing resources at all times we

could minimize or even eliminate the possibility of hunger in our country.

As Socialists, we can affect incremental and systemic change to prevent and alleviate

hunger, as well as to promote economically and environmentally sustainable food

production and distribution. Here are some suggestions:

• Support local, family farmers and encourage them to share their excess harvest

with emergency food providers• Start or work with a community garden that returns control of the land to working

people

• Patronize worker-owned supermarkets, such as Redner’s Warehouse Market and

Publix Super Market, and cooperatively owned grocery stores

• Get to know the hungry and food insecure people in your community by

volunteering at a soup kitchen, food pantry, or with Food not Bombs. If you are

so inclined, share your surplus by inviting a family in need over for dinner.

• Remember the millions of food insecure Americans and incorporate their message

into our organizing and advocacy efforts

Documents

Emergency Food Relief