Nourishing Change - December 2016

December 2016

NEWS

2016 Year In Review

We covered a variety of topics in the newsletter this past year underscoring the many intersections at the struggle to end hunger and poverty. Three themes in particular -- water, climate change and the threat to our social safety net -- were recurrent and will no doubt still be making headlines in 2017. Read below to see where we stand on these issues as we say goodbye to 2016. And, while it's difficult to predict where things will go next year, the communities that have been organizing and the organizations behind them aren't going anywhere. So the work continues.

Water crisis in the United States

Flint, Michigan: Many residents are still waiting for safe, clean water more than 400 days after the pipes were publicly declared to be corroded by the water from Flint River, contaminating the city's water supply with lead. The Senate finally authorized $170 million in aid for 29,000+ pipes to be replaced. This means concrete results are still months, if not years, away, and the physical, mental and financial damage that has been done to the people and the city are overwhelming.
Standing Rock, North Dakota: Since April, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their allies have been protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) which is planned to stretch across 1,100 miles of land and infiltrate important water sources and historic sacred sites. DAPL threatens the safety of Standing Rock's water supply as well as their cultural heritage. The Sioux Tribe and water protectors celebrated when the executive order to halt the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline came through. This victory does not erase the need for justice and amends for the string of shocking human-rights violations against the mainly indigenous water protectors-the water cannons, the dog attacks, the hundreds arrested, the grave injuries inflicted by supposedly non-lethal weapons. It does not erase the need to continue to organize and struggle as the company behind the construction will challenge the decision and the Trump administration will attempt to overturn it. Meanwhile, 150 miles away from where protestors are fighting the construction of the pipeline, 176,000 gallons of oil have leaked from the Belle Fourche Pipeline in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. These spills happen frequently and our joined voices are needed to expose the harm caused. Water justice is food justice. Ample, clean water is critical to bodily health and for growing food. Still the victory at Standing Rock does offer hope for those continuing to fight for justice. As we head into 2017, we must learn from Standing Rock and continue to build power together. Read more from the water protectors here.

The Paris Agreement and Climate Change

The success of the Paris Agreement is up for debate in many circles. Many claim that it does not go far enough, that there no actual strategies and projects attached to the agreements signed by participating governments, making realistic and measurable change impossible. However, major world economies like China, the European Union, and Brazil have all expressed their support for this agreement and believe it is critical to lowering air pollution and improving energy security . Meanwhile, the It Takes Roots Delegation, anchored by the Global Grassroots Alliance, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Climate Justice Alliance representing the frontline communities most impacted by climate change, take issue with the fact that the Paris Agreement is tainted by the heavy influence of the fossil fuel industry, relies on voluntary emissions cuts, and allows for the continued privatization of our natural resources. While Trump's win seems to have stifled enthusiasm for the Paris Agreement rooted in his campaign's insistence that climate change is not real, other countries and some U.S companies say they are not going to let such a big issue fall to the wayside. Clean energy, these proponents of the Paris Agreement claim, is imperative and the United States, according to some reports, is seeing reductions earlier than expected .

Meanwhile, the indigenous-led social movement to protect Mother Earth continues apace. Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said at the end of COP 21: "We are the defenders of the world's most biologically and culturally diverse regions. We will protect our sacred lands. Our knowledge has much of the solutions to climate change that humanity seeks. It's only when they listen to our message that ecosystems of the world will be renewed."

SNAP & CNR

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) serves millions of Americans and has been a target of some legislators for years now. Back in May , Republicans called for a $23 billion cut to SNAP's annual funding, which currently costs about $74 billion. Congress, led by the GOP, has attempted a number of tactics to undermine the program - ranging from promoting drug testing to mandating employment requirements, which have been shot down and shown not to work. Recently, the GOP majority on the House Agriculture Committee released a two-year review of SNAP that does not make explicit policy recommendations, but hints at making eligibility requirements more difficult by strengthening work requirements and possibly issuing new ones. Early this month, after two years of negotiations, Congress dropped the news that the Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) bill is delayed once again. Child Nutrition Reauthorization ensures nutrition quality; and expands low-income children's access to programs and improvements in the school meals nutrition standards and the overall school nutrition environment. There are senate leaders that are fighting to protect the program from detrimental proposals, so advocacy in support making federal nutrition programs stronger is critical at this juncture. Food is often the first thing trimmed from household budgets, so making it harder to apply to SNAP and diminishing important child nutrition programs will only increase food insecurity. Moreover, we must continue to fight for economic justice so that families can afford to feed themselves.

What We're Reading Now

Fight for $15 has brought $62 billion in raises and counting to underpaid workers

Since the Fight for $15 launched in 2012, when 200 fast-food workers walked off their jobs in New York City, underpaid workers have won a stunning $61.5 billion in raises. By convincing states, cities and private employers to increase pay, workers in the Fight for $15 put more money in the pockets of 19 million workers nationwide in the last four years. To put the scale of these raises in context, that's more than 12 times larger than the $5 billion raise for 5 million workers that Congress delivered the last time it raised the federal minimum wage in 2007. If the fight for higher wages had a lot of pessimists believing these underpaid workers couldn't do it, they showed them wrong.

Read the report released by the National Employment Law Project here .

Obesity and Hunger Are Twin Crises

Despite decades of warnings, obesity poses a growing problem worldwide. Once it was thought to afflict just affluent countries, where excess can easily become a way of life. In reality, obesity is a global issue affecting poorer countries on a grand scale. While there has been progress in reducing hunger globally, the next stage doesn't look too promising.

One-third of the world's population-more than 2.1 billion people-is obese or overweight, with the majority in developing countries, according to recent studies and reports from experts including the World Health Organization and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation . What's more, these countries are grappling with what health experts call the "double burden of malnutrition": undernutrition and overnutrition. So while one part of the population goes hungry, another is obese and overweight, becoming more prone to chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.

Read more here .

Resources

Maryland Grown Series

John Hopkins: Center for A Livable Future has released the final report in the Maryland Grown series. These reports compare what and how much Maryland farmers produce with estimates of how much Marylanders eat, the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans, historical production in Maryland, season extension alternatives, and institutional purchasing and consumption.

The final report, Maryland Grown IV: How What We Grow Compares with School Lunches looks at the nutrition standards for the National School Lunch Program to create estimates of fruits and vegetables required for Maryland public schools and students who eat school lunch. This report then compares these estimates with Maryland agriculture. This comparison provides a unique analysis, linking data on agriculture and school lunches to better understand the potential for Maryland agriculture to participate in farm-to-school efforts.

The three previous reports in the Maryland Grown series are below:

Help Update the Find Food Database

WhyHunger continues to expand the comprehensive Find Food database of emergency food providers (food banks, food pantries, food access sites) to include information about the types of programs that can be found at each site. Program types will help users filter their searches according to their specific needs and also inform them of sites that have co-located services, such as medically tailored meals and meal delivery; or a mobile pantry that provides assistance with federal nutrition programs.

We need your help! Please verify that your organization's profile is accurate in the database. These are the new categories:

TEFAP are commodity foods are made available to states by the USDA, distributed by food banks and pantries.
CSFP is a federal food program made available USDA to pregnant, breast-feeding, and postpartum women, children, and the elderly.
Food Banks distribute food to soup kitchens, food pantries, after-school programs, shelters, and other feeding programs.
Food Pantry (also known Food Shelf, Food Closet) directly provide food/commodities (canned goods, produce, and sometimes toiletries) to people who need it.
Soup Kitchen is a place where hot meals are offered for free or at a reasonably low price to people who need it.
Mobile Pantry travel to areas of high need to distribute food in pre-packed boxes or through a farmer's market-style.
Medically-Tailored Food are home-delivered meals that are nutritionally appropriate for specific medical conditions
Meal Delivery- individually-tailored meals to people who have low mobility to cook or shop for themselves.
Advocacy- connect/assist people directly to food nutrition programs, activism, and or education on policy work.

These new categories will more comprehensively capture the work that organizations are doing to better serve their communities, including addressing hunger and health. We will continue to update our database to offer the most comprehensive, dynamic tool for people in need.

If you need to update your record, please email database@whyhunger.org . If your organization is not in the database, please join us here .

Making the database as comprehensive as possible is critical in making food even more accessible to those calling and texting our WhyHunger Hotline. Please consider helping us spread the word by downloading and sharing Hotline flyers with your networks and on social media.

In This Issue

2016 Year In Review

Fight for $15 has brought $62 billion in raises and counting to underpaid workers

Obesity and Hunger Are Twin Crises

Maryland Grown Series

Help Update the Find Food Database

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. We want to hear from you! Email us at nourish@whyhunger.org

Nourish Network for the Right to Food

WhyHunger

505 Eighth Avenue, Suite 2100

New York, New York 10018

nourish@whyhunger.org

212-629-8850

Contributors: Betty Fermin