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food security
How to Solve Food Insecurity? Treat Healthy Food as a Human Right
There’s more than enough food to feed everyone in the U.S., but the food distribution system is built for profit, not people.
Feb 01, 2024
Here’s a milestone I didn’t even envision when I founded the nonprofit Dion’s Chicago Dream: 1 million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables purchased, packed, and delivered to people who didn’t have regular access to healthy food.
But that’s what the Dream Team has done, in just three-and-a-half ears, from a standing start as a brand-new organization. For us, it is a day of celebration: We rejoice and take pride in the fact that thousands of our Chicagoland neighbors are incorporating more healthy fruits and vegetables into their diets—and they speak of being healthier, both mentally and physically, as a result.
How do we know this? Every 15 days or so, we survey each of the households receiving our weekly Dream Deliveries of top-quality fresh produce. But don’t take our word for it. Our partners at the American Diabetes Association commissioned a study that found “participants stated that the produce boxes help them maintain or return to a healthier eating track, particularly by increasing their daily intake of fruits and vegetables. As a result, they reported better health outcomes such as reduced blood pressure, improved energy levels, better sugar level management for diabetics, and a sense of overall well-being.”
Apart from programs like ours that take the time to build trusting relationships with recipients, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in understanding exactly who is food insecure and why, so there’s not a lot of understanding about durable solutions to the problem.
I founded Dion’s Chicago Dream because in our city, 1 in 5 households are at risk of food insecurity—they don’t have regular access to enough nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy life. We started with this vision statement: Ending food insecurity in Chicago so that every resident has consistent access to fresh, nutritious food.
I like bold vision statements as much as the next guy. But after working to get healthy food to people who need it for the past few years and finding a level of success that blows me away, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to envision an end to food insecurity, in Chicago or anywhere else in the country. After three-and-a-half years of hard work and innovation, we’ve made a big difference in some people’s lives, but the problem of food insecurity itself is as big as it ever was. I’m convinced that food insecurity cannot be solved as long as our country fails to treat consistent access to healthy food as a human right.
But while food insecurity cannot be solved, it can be managed—and that’s something I can see our society doing a lot better. As a Black man who grew up often hungry and sometimes homeless in the South Side neighborhood of Englewood—and as a Navy veteran who found himself homeless and hungry once again, after leaving the military—I understand the realities of food insecurity. I knew that if Dion’s Chicago Dream was going to make a difference, it was essential that we always put the needs of our recipients first.
For example, for a lot of the people in my neighborhood, getting to a faraway food pantry during opening hours is dangerous or unrealistic. So instead of asking recipients to come to us, we bring healthy food to people who need it. We started with a single Dream Fridge stocked with healthy food. Then we rolled out our flagship weekly Dream Deliveries of fresh produce, and our sprinter vans fanned out across the city. Then we developed network-enabled Dream Vaults, each of which can serve up to 175 families a week from a neighborhood store or other gathering spot.
We developed processes and procedures, built out infrastructure, and tracked metrics to hold ourselves accountable. As a result, we know not only how many pounds of produce we delivered, but also how the people who received that food feel about their deliveries, and what the effect on their lives has been. I believe food philanthropy—and the entire food sector—need to pay a lot more attention to tracking whether they’re truly making a difference in terms of supplying consistent and nutritious food, and to the physical and mental health effects of increased food security.
It’s frustrating: There’s more than enough food to feed everyone in the U.S. But the food distribution system is built for profit, not people, and nobody’s in charge of tracking who isn’t getting the healthy food they need, let alone figuring out and scaling up solutions. Apart from programs like ours that take the time to build trusting relationships with recipients, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest in understanding exactly who is food insecure and why, so there’s not a lot of understanding about durable solutions to the problem. That makes managing food insecurity much harder than it needs to be.
Food nonprofits and philanthropists have good intentions, but that’s not enough. We need to listen to the people we serve, focus on execution, and measure our results. We need to be willing to change and innovate, and to work for the day that as many people as possible have regular access to the healthy food we all need to thrive.
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How We Can Fight Hunger Even as the Planet Warms
These approaches are proven to help communities adapt to the damage already done and can transform current systems to help minimize future consequences.
Nov 21, 2023
Where I live in Kenya, weeks of heavy rainfall and severe flooding have caused deaths, displacement, and damage to crops and infrastructure. So far, 33 people have died and more than 121,000 have been forced to relocate. We were already struggling with hunger and poverty after a severe, prolonged drought, which affected more than 4 million Kenyans. This climate whiplash from extreme drought to extreme flooding is unprecedented, and we need to build new systems for adaptation and resilience.
The situation is not unique to Kenya. Many of the world’s poorest countries bear the brunt of the climate crisis, despite contributing the least to the problem. Somalia experienced its worst drought in 40 years, floods have devastated Pakistan, and the impacts of a worsened El Niño in Central America are not just tragedies, but a great injustice.
Rising global temperatures are having immediate impacts on the world’s most vulnerable people. As temperatures rise and weather patterns grow more unpredictable, basic necessities are becoming increasingly scarce. Already more than 783 million people go to bed hungry every night. The Lancet predicts that 525 million more people could face climate-induced hunger as soon as 2041.
Climate and hunger are intimately linked and current systems have failed the world’s most vulnerable communities.
With the world’s largest climate gathering, COP28, around the corner, these urgent implications are top of mind, with a full day dedicated to how climate is impacting food, agriculture, and water—something our teams deal with every day.
Our teams work in 55 countries, responding to climate catastrophes that undermine food security and livelihoods all over the world. Increasingly, climate collapse is forcing people to leave their homes and start anew. Women are particularly vulnerable, since in some regions, women make up more than 60% of the agricultural workforce yet own only 20% of the land. The impacts of biodiversity loss, extreme weather events, and shorter growing seasons are being felt globally.
At COP28, Action Against Hunger is calling for governments to take action in these five ways:
- Increase Access to Climate Finance For the Most Vulnerable: The U.N.’s $100 billion-per-year target for international climate finance has been missed repeatedly, leaving vulnerable communities bearing the brunt of climate breakdown without sufficient support. Industrialized countries must at least double their contributions to the Green Climate Fund, make funds easier to access, increase the proportion of grants (since loans can worsen the debt crisis for low-income countries), and explore innovative sources of finance such as taxation based on the “polluters pay” principle.
- Agroecological Food System Transformation: The climate crisis is one reason 783 million people go to bed hungry each night. Paradoxically, global food systems cause one-third of greenhouse gas emissions and destroy ecosystems. Now, the agricultural industry is promoting technological solutions to reduce and offset emissions, an approach that can make smallholder farmers more dependent on outside resources, increasing poverty and decreasing resilience. Agroecology, a form of sustainable farming that helps people make the most of their local natural resources, can diversify and localize food production, promoting health, sustainability, and social justice. Governments should implement policies and provide funding for agroecological approaches based on local and Indigenous knowledge that empower smallholder farmers and workers, especially women.
- Safeguard the Right to Water: Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) investments can prevent disease, promote food security, and help communities adapt to the climate crisis. Yet, half the world’s population is already experiencing severe water scarcity, meaning water security must top the COP agenda. We are calling for investments in WASH infrastructure and more resilient health facilities that can withstand disasters, as well as nature-based solutions for water management.
- Recognize and Support Women as Agents of Change: Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate collapse since their livelihoods often rely on local food systems and they have fewer safety nets such as land, property, and other assets. Women also hold many solutions, as they are often custodians of biodiversity, pioneers in agroecology, and at the forefront of adaptation efforts. Women from diverse backgrounds must be included in negotiations, and governments and companies must listen to their voices and the transformative approaches they promote.
- Anticipate and Address Rising Humanitarian Needs: Extreme weather exacerbates humanitarian crises and can create situations of acute hunger, especially in combination with conflict and economic instability. The global community must scale up humanitarian funding that is flexible, multi-year, and forecast-based.
Climate and hunger are intimately linked and current systems have failed the world’s most vulnerable communities. These five approaches are proven to help communities adapt to the damage already done and can transform current systems to help minimize future consequences. Without serious intervention, hunger will rise. Despite the dire outlook, climate-resilient solutions are available and effective. But we have to act now.
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Most Vulnerable Will Bear the Brunt as Russia Pulls Plug on Ukraine Grain Deal
Urgent action is needed now more than ever to help countries rebuild their capacity to produce the food they require to break their dependence on the global market.
Jul 22, 2023
Russia announced on Monday that it was suspending a crucial deal that allows grain to be exported from Ukraine to countries in Africa and the Middle East.
The grain agreement, which was brokered in July 2022 by the United Nations and Turkey to allow grain that had been blocked by the conflict to be exported through the Black Sea, was aimed at alleviating the global food crisis, which had been worsened by the war in Ukraine.
And it was effective too. Prices of global foods have been declining in recent months thanks in large part to this initiative. The U.N. FAO Food Price Index shows that prices are now 13% lower than they were in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Local communities in the Global South are on average now spending twice as much on a loaf of bread, fertilizer, and petrol as before the war.
But not everywhere experienced this relief. In 14 countries surveyed as part of ActionAid’s recent research into the human impacts of the cost-of-living crisis across Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, the cost of essential items has been continuing to escalate to crisis levels over the past 18 months. Local communities in the Global South are on average now spending twice as much on a loaf of bread, fertilizer, and petrol as before the war.
It’s a far worse picture than the last time we looked. Research released in May 2022 indicated that at worst, some local communities were paying up to quadruple the food, fuel, and fertilizer prices from before the war began. Now, in Zimbabwe, where an estimated 2.8 million people are unemployed, families are spending up to 10 times more. In some districts, petrol prices reportedly rose by more than 900%, pasta by up to 750%, fertilizer costs by more than 700%, and period pads by an extra 600%.
So what will happen now that the grain deal is dead? While the U.N. is hard at work to find a solution to this problem and ensure that Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertilizer can still make it out on the global market, I simply can’t agree with those who suggest that the move will have little immediate impact due to the current harvest season in the Northern Hemisphere. While the E.U.’s “Solidarity Lanes” should be applauded for enabling the export of about 25 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain, oilseeds, and related products to world markets between May and October last year, communities in the Global South are still suffering. We can’t take the chance that prices will increase even more, further exacerbating the harsh situations faced by many vulnerable countries already facing acute hunger.
If the situation worsens, women and girls will be the hardest hit. They already are: Community leaders in 10 out of 11 of the countries ActionAid surveyed said that rates of child marriage were increasing in their local areas, while almost half of survey respondents said mothers in their communities were reducing their food intake so their children could eat. More than half of those we spoke to said the price hikes made them feel sad or hopeless.
East Africa has faced four years of failed harvests, unpredictable rainfall, and rocketing global food prices. In Somaliland, people have been pushed to the brink since war broke out more than 3,000 miles away and are facing an extreme drought which scientists say would not have happened without climate change. Hibo Aden, women’s rights officer at ActionAid Somaliland, says that the situation has become so desperate for some families in a country where in one district, the price of cooking oil has risen by 224%, that girls are being forced to marry in exchange for food and water.
Russia pulling out of the Black Sea grain initiative could plunge food consumers in countries dependent on Ukrainian and Russian food supplies, like Somaliland, into food shortage, and re-ignite food price rises and volatility. If prices go up again, with the current dollar depreciation, the food import bills for countries already suffering will become even more unaffordable, leading to millions experiencing famine.
Our food system is to blame: 75% of the world’s nutrition comes from
12 crops and five animal species, while an even smaller group of just three crops—maize, wheat, and rice—constitute nearly 60% of humans’ caloric needs. Production of these three grains, plus soybeans, is concentrated in a few key regions, and is dominated by less than 15 companies. These factors combined make it easy for any industry to maintain high prices and reduce the number of farmers, making food production highly susceptible to shocks.
Ever-rising prices are likely to continue to push communities to their limits, and the devastating impacts we are seeing—both in Ukraine and across the Global South—will only intensify. Urgent action is needed now more than ever to help countries rebuild their capacity to produce the food they require to break their dependence on the global market. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and private banks have a role to play here. By cancelling the debts of countries like Malawi, where in one district the price of bread has risen by up to 233%, they would enable them to invest in greater domestic food security, shifting their focus towards climate-resilient agroecological farming, strengthening local food systems to help stabilize food supplies and prices.
Don’t take it from me—Meem, a student from the remote village of Kolpara in southern Bangladesh puts it best: “The rich may get away with price hikes, but the poor will struggle. Something has to be done, or society will suffer a lot.”
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