February 2017
Announcing...The New and Re-imagined Nourishing Change Newsletter!
For 20 years, WhyHunger has been publishing a newsletter to share information and resources with organizations providing access to food throughout the United States. Each month we have produced an  electronic newsletter with original articles and resources, as well as articles and resources from our partners to over 5,200 subscribers. It has been our privilege to curate this information and share it with all of you and we will continue to do so on a bi-monthly basis with a more deliberate framing around the right to food

Why the change?  When we frame nutritious food squarely as a human right, we begin to not only shift the conversation beyond food access and charity, but uncover solutions that strike at the root causes of hunger and poverty to build social justice. After 42 years of working in the U.S. and around the world to end hunger and build social justice for all, we know firsthand that the just, plentiful world we are working to build has no room for oppressive or discriminatory rhetoric, or actions. With federal policies and practices that threaten those values unfolding at a rapid pace, we need to build power together and stand up for and with our community-based partners and work together to build a just, hunger free world.  

WhyHunger's Theory of Change and programmatic strategies echo our belief that it will take resilient networks and alliances of grassroots leaders and community-based organizations working at the intersection of the root causes of poverty to end hunger. We are committed to building and strengthening movements to transform our current food system into one that nourishes whole communities and ensures the rights of all people to food, land, water and sustainable livelihoods.

Together with you, our partners, we are striving to organize across sectors -- from the environment to health to immigration to gender and race to food and farming - standing in solidarity with our partners, allies and supporters on the frontlines of the struggle to ensure that all people have the right and opportunity to live a dignified life free from hunger and oppression. The Nourishing Change newsletter will strive to be one forum for sharing information and resources that will enrich our conversations and our efforts to organize for the most basic of human rights - the right to food.

How will the newsletter be different?   
 
This year the content of the Nourishing Change newsletter will be framed around the right to food and the struggle for a food system where everyone has the power to provide nutritious food for themselves and their communities in a just, dignified, healthy and sustainable way. Smita Narula, human rights practitioner, academic and expert advisor in the field of international human rights and public policy, stated at the World Social Forum in Montreal last year : "The right to food is the right of all people to be free from hunger and to have physical and economic access at all times to sufficient, nutritious and culturally acceptable food that is produced and consumed sustainably, preserving access to food for future generations." 

The right to food  is not a recognized legal framework that defines a set of policies in the United States, as it is in so many other countries around the world. However, we can use the right to food framework as a tool to explore, discuss and debate how accessibility, adequacy, affordability and sustainability play a role in food security, food justice and food sovereignty.

So, the content of this newsletter going forward will be organized around three distinct qualities that, when all are realized, define the right to food. These three qualities -- accessibility, availability, and sustainability -- are described in greater detail below. In each bi-monthly issue, we'll delve into all kinds of topics through the lens of each of these attributes and how they intersect with health and the food system - topics such as education, economic opportunities, medical treatment, safety net programs, immigration, indigenous rights, climate change, racism, and much more, to underscore how food issues live at many different intersections of social justice. We will still offer compelling stories from the frontlines of community-based food access organizations, highlighting model programs, and we will continue to provide summaries of the latest research and findings relevant to our sector, and explore new frontiers as we use a right to food lens to bring into focus the changing landscape of food access efforts from one characterized by charity to one generating greater social justice and an end to hunger.
Accessibility

Definition: 
The quality of being easy to obtain or use, and sufficient. 

Economic accessibility (Affordability):  1 in 8 Americans lack access to enough nourishing food, meaning they have to regularly make tradeoffs between the quality and the quantity of their food, between feeding their children and paying their medical bills, keeping their heat on or having a roof over their heads. Physical accessibility: 23.5 million people in the United States live more than a mile away from a grocery store that carries produce, grains and meats. Food has to be physically accessible to people, including victims of natural disasters, but also people have to live in proximity to areas where they can access healthy food.

Nutritious food and clean water is increasingly treated as a commodity and therefore a privilege, unevenly available depending on socio-economic status. Food insecurity in the United States is often characterized as disproportionate among people of color - especially  African Americans and Latinx  - and among seniors and children. While this is certainly reflected in official statistics, what is also noteworthy is the increasing numbers of college students, people with full-time low-wage employment, those suffering from chronic illness, families living in the suburbs, young adults and even farmers who live in rural areas, both whites and people of color, who are experiencing increasing levels of food insecurity. For example, in recent years, as college tuition has skyrocketed, hundreds of college campuses have established their own pantries to distribute food to those in need. More than half of college students using food pantries held paying jobs, received financial aid, and many were enrolled in a meal plan, according to a national survey . Forty-four percent of students surveyed said that they had been forced to cut back on the size of their meals or skip meals entirely in the last 30 days due to lack of money, and 35 percent said that they were hungry but didn't eat because there wasn't enough money for food, therefore making it necessary to use the college pantry. Whether it is low wages, high rent and/or utility bills, childcare or tuition, among struggling Americans food often falls to the bottom of the list. 

Accessibility also means that food is adequate. In other words, is the quality such that it nourishes and even heals mind and body? Is it culturally appropriate? The question we need to start with here is: adequate for whom? We all have the right to feed ourselves healthy, affordable food that we deem is culturally appropriate, nutritious and abundant. What that looks and tastes like is different depending on the local ecology and climate, the cultural norms and values, as well as the needs of particular subsets of the population, like growing children, pregnant women, and those with chronic illness.  When it comes to ensuring adequacy of food, Food is Medicine is a growing trend in the non-profit food access sector. Public funds for the purpose of ensuring those living with chronic illness are supported nutritionally in order to live the best possible life and have the best possible outcomes is very limited. Meanwhile, taking charge of your health and wellbeing through the lens of food is a popular theme in the media and a growing sector in the food industry, reminding us that f ood access is an equity issue when all communities cannot easily obtain healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food.  
Availability

  Definition: 
Able to be used or obtained; at someone's disposal 

If you take the question of accessibility and adequacy out of the equation, food is readily available in the United States in most places.  That is, we have an abundance of grocery stores, corner stores, fast food restaurants and a fraying but still existent social safety net. Availability of food takes on a different hue when we look at access to land, water, seeds, and the knowledge necessary to produce, prepare and distribute food. At issue is the following: Are we creating the conditions for farmers and others that want to produce food to have access to land and other resources to produce that food with dignity, to be able to provide for themselves and provide nourishment for us all? And are we protecting and shoring up the important government programs that provide food, health care, access to clean water, and fill other critical needs that low-income Americans depend on? For instance, 43 million Americans depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), while 21.5 million low-income children participate in the National School Lunch Program. For millions across America these programs provide people with the nourishment they need and depend on. Protecting these vital programs is important while we continue to advocate for living wages, a lower cost of secondary education, and a robust Food and   Farm Bill that supports small- and medium-sized farmers who are critical to rebuilding local and regional food and farm economies. A ccording to EWG's Farm Subsidy Database , 77 percent of farm subsidies paid between 1995 and 2014 flowed to the largest 10 percent of subsidy recipients. This means that the top 1 percent of subsidy recipients received 26 percent of all payments. So, while some very large operations receive more than $1 million annually in subsidies, the bottom 80 percent of subsidy recipients annually collect less than $10,000 . This inequity needs to be addressed
Sustainability

Definition:
The ability to be supported, upheld; the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources and thereby, supporting long-term ecological balance.

The accessibility and availability of food for us now and for future generations depends on the sustainability of the natural resources required for food production. Around the world, there has been a precipitous change in the last 70 years in how food travels from farm to plate. The average of the American farmer these days is 58, with fewer individuals choosing farming as an occupation than ever before. While there are certainly exceptions, young adults are largely not staying in rural areas or returning after college to take on the family farm.  This shift coincides with the increasing commodification of all natural resources rooted in a food system that values earnings over health and accumulation over community. In ensuring the right to food, production of fruits, vegetables, grains and meats in concert with the local ecology is critical, and it's just one piece of what makes up a sustainable food system. Wages of workers all along the food chain - from harvesters to packers to servers - must be able to sustain a dignified life for themselves and their families.  Thirteen percent of all food workers, nearly 2.8 million workers , relied on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) to feed their household in 2016.  Every person involved in the food system-growers, food processors, distributors, retailers, consumers, eaters, and waste managers-play a part in guaranteeing a sustainable agricultural system.   
So, welcome to the new and re-imagined Nourishing Change newsletter!  And join us as we work with our partners -- emergency food providers, food access organizations, community health organizations and other grassroots and national allies -- to transform the charitable response to hunger in the U.S. into a more equitable and inclusive social justice movement that recognizes nutritious food as a human right.
 
To share your ideas, submit articles, provide feedback, contact: Betty Fermin, nourish@whyhunger.org
In This Issue
 
Please verify that your organization's profile is accurate in the  database . To update your record, email
database@whyhunger.org. If your organization is not in the database, please join us  here.  The WhyHunger Hotline number is 1-800-5-HUNGRY. Please update your records and find outreach materials  here.   
Nourishing Change is a  space to share critical thoughts around the systemic change that needs to happen to end hunger and transform the emergency food system. 

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Nourish Network for the Right to Food
WhyHunger
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Contributor: Betty Fermin