What is Food Insecurity & Food Justice? - By Katie German
Reet asked me to do a post about the work I do in food security and food justice and she knows I could talk about this for days, ha! Here is a (sorta) brief answer to the question of what is food justice and how do we fix food insecurity.
Food insecurity & food justice:
Prior to the economic recession in the 1980’s we didn’t have food banks – they are a relatively recent phenomenon and while they serve to provide much needed immediate support for people who do not have enough food in their fridge, they will not ever solve the issue of food insecurity.
The way we fix food insecurity is twofold – (1) raising income levels and (2) dismantling systemic racism.
Income levels:
In Canada the majority of people who are food insecure report wages as their main source of household income, this means the majority of food insecure folks are working. The picture in our heads of the food bank client who is unemployed and temporarily down on their luck is a myth. Having a full-time job is no longer enough protection against food insecurity. As wages fall and the cost of living increases, as people move into more contract and precarious work, food insecurity rates continue to rise.
Any politician that takes a photo of themselves donating a can of food to a food drive should be asked direct questions about what they are doing to raise the income floor for people in our community. This includes:
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Livable minimum wages. The minimum wage in Ontario right now is $14.25 but the living wage in Toronto (what you actually need to make per hour in order to cover basic living costs in the city) is $22.08. At my work we recently became a living wage employer which means no one in our workplace will earn less than $22.08 per hour. We also instituted a 1:3 ratio of lowest paid worker to highest paid worker – meaning if the highest paid staff want a raise, the lowest paid staff get one too. There are other employers that are doing this good work, but it can’t be left up to individual employers – this higher minimum wage must be a legislated requirement (along with paid sick days!). If a non-profit charity like ours can make this change, I promise you corporations can do the same.
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Guaranteed livable income for all. This recognizes that no one should live in poverty. Think about a parent who stays home to do the hard work of raising children, or people with disabilities, or chronic pain, who need to take time off work to manage a disability. If our society is going to charge us money just to live, then people need enough money to live, whether they can work or not. A guaranteed livable income (which is *more* than a basic income) would ensure that people do not need to choose between rent and food, or medicine and food, and would ensure that workers aren’t tied to precarious jobs. Research shows that the monthly government pension payments that seniors receive positively impact food insecurity rates among seniors – when the monthly payment kicks in at 65, food insecurity rates decline. The money supports their ability to afford the foods they need and want. This is a model that could be expanded to all, while still ensuring other social benefits are protected.
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Defunding police and refunding community services. In Toronto, policing is the single largest line item in the City’s budget. We spend more than $1 billion (!) dollars a year on policing – imagine what would happen to food insecurity if we moved even a portion of that money to reducing people’s housing costs, childcare costs, or transit fees? In Quebec you can find childcare for $8.50/day, here in Toronto I pay $65/day and that’s considered a good deal! Governments choose to subsidize things all the time – there is no reason why we cannot further subsidize the things that would free up more household income for families to afford the foods they need and want.
Dismantling systemic racism:
My colleagues at work partnered with the PROOF Food Insecurity Policy Research centre to look at the food insecurity data with a specific focus on Black households. We found that Black households in Canada are 1.88 times more likely to be food insecure than white households even after adjusting for factors like income, education, and homeownership. The picture is worse for kids – while 12% of white kids in Canada are food insecure, 34% of Black kids are struggling with food insecurity. The research shows that it is not income alone that leads to food insecurity – race must also (always) be considered.
The picture looks quite similar for Indigenous households as well, 28% of Indigenous households are food insecure, while only 11% of white households are food insecure. The 11% is still a problem to take seriously, but if we don’t ask critical questions about who is most impacted by a problem, we won’t design the right solutions.
A key way to drive real change on these issues is to make sure that Black and Indigenous people, people with lived experience with food insecurity, are in leadership positions in non-profits, in government, and at any table designing solutions. People tend to focus on what they know, and if white folks are in the driver seat, they will come up with programs and policies that work for white people at best, or to be honest, will most likely replicate existing systems of white supremacy and exploitation.
Shifting to food justice:
Asking critical questions about power when it comes to food is what moves us from doing food insecurity work to instead focusing on food justice. Food insecurity asks the question “does everyone have enough food?” Food justice asks “who specifically does not have enough, who holds the power, who is exploited in the process, how can communities obtain control over their food system?”
The way to truly solve issues of food insecurity, we need to wrestle with the reality that our food system was built on and is sustained by the exploitation and Black and brown people. Our food system would not exist today without the dispossession of Indigenous communities, the brutal forced migration of African people, agricultural slavery, sharecropping, and modern day farm worker programs that deny migrants the same rights that are afforded to other workers. The people doing the low wage, precarious, temporary and frankly dangerous roles in our food system are Black and brown people, often migrants, and the people profiting hand over fist are white.
Solving food insecurity will require a focus on racism, and more specifically anti-Black racism, anti-Indigeneity, and engaging meaningfully in the process of decolonization and reconciliation. This means giving land back to Indigenous nations, paying reparations to Black families, and building Black and Indigenous food sovereignty – ensuring communities have the land and resources required to produce foods for their communities in ways that are self-determined. The solutions are there – we just need the political will to make it happen.
You can be part of the change and make a donation at Foodshare
This is an amazing non-profit organization creating change and making a necessary difference.