-
Gender, Nutrition, and the Human Right to Adequate Food: Toward an Inclusive Framework
Anne C. Bellows
The food crisis of 2008 was not an isolated incident or unique event from which the world economy and food security has re-stabilized. Rather, as Valente and Suárez Franco (2010, 455) state, "[the 2008 food crisis] is not new for more than 840 million people who have constantly been subjected to hunger over the last thirty years, millions of whom died of malnutrition and associated diseases, or had their quality of life severely affected by the consequences of malnutrition." Although estimates of food insecurity differ, the geography and socio-demographic profile of the food insecure remains unaltered (FAO, WFP, IFAD 2012; HRC 2011, para. 6). Among the most food insecure population groups are food producing peasants, including small-scale and family farm holders, landless farmers surviving as tenants or agricultural workers, hunters and gatherers, pastoralists and fisherfolk, more particularly those living in higher risk environments and remote areas, as well as non-farm rural households, and the urban poor (HRC 2014, para.44; Scherr 2003, 15). Within these, women and girls face violations of their right to adequate food and nutrition at a 60:40 ratio relative to men and boys (UN ECOSOC 2007) and comprise 70 percent of the poor (HRC 2012; World Bank, FAO, IFAD 2009). Obviously, not all women everywhere are hungry and gender does not connote the "last" or "worst" basis for discrimination but is further complicated by differences of age, social status, sexuality, and dis/ability, among others. Nevertheless, available data reveal that the structural power inequalities reflected in food and nutrition insecurity according to different status of livelihood, rural-urban location, nation, ethnicity, race, and class are consistently compounded by and manifested within gender discrimination.
-
Food Safety Education and Disparities in North Carolina Emergency Food
Ashley Chaifetz and Benjamin Chapman
Each year, an estimated 48 million Americans (1 in 6) contract foodborne illness (Scallan, 2011) stemming from grocery stores, hospitals, day care centers, church banquets, county fairs, restaurants, private homes, schools, and even food banks (CDC FOOD, 2011). However, little research has explored the potential connection between food-insecure populations and risk of foodborne illness, especially for emergency foods (c.f. Henley et al., 2012; Koro et al., 2010; Quinlan, 2013). For the majority of people who seek food assistance, food pantries are a fixed part of food sources; that is, the pantries are for subsistence and no longer just “emergency food” (Feeding America, 2010).
Food pantries in North Carolina, like in many states, exist in a regulatory desert outside of food inspection requirements at any level of government, leaving pantry managers and volunteers serving a vulnerable population without written operating procedures, formal food handling training, or guidance regarding foodborne illness risk. In North Carolina, there are approximately 2,500 food pantries, many that partner with local Feeding America food banks and others that operate completely independently, many that receive food donations from numerous local and distant sources each week, and all that operate outside the traditional food system. With an ardent concentration on food access and availability, the managers who run the pantries have varying levels of food safety education. This mixed-methods research is compiled from interviews and observations in 105 urban, rural, and suburban food pantries in 12 counties across North Carolina and explores the dissimilarities within its food pantry system.
-
The Vermont Youth Conservation Corps Health Care Share: An Immunization for the Future
Paul Feenan
In 2012, The Farm at VYCC partnered with Central Vermont Medical Center (CVMC) to pilot the Health Care Share (HCS), a food security initiative that provides farm fresh produce and poultry to families in need. In 2013, the University of Vermont Medical Center (then Fletcher Allen Health Care), joined the program. Medical providers identify patient and employee families who are unable to afford or access fresh, nutritious food. Families enrolled in the HCS receive a weekly allotment of fresh produce, information on food storage and preparation, and increased access to nutritional counseling.
The HCS relies on a constellation of local partners passionate about effecting change in our communities. Medical centers, public schools, and corporate volunteer groups along with the Vermont Department of Labor, Vermont Foodbank, and Hunger Free Vermont all provide support for the HCS. These combined efforts and interests build a program that benefits both the community and the individual. In addition to providing food insecure families with high quality produce and poultry, this reciprocal relationship supports youth education and employment on the Farm.
-
New England's Food Vision: 50% by 2060 -- Biophysical Opportunities & Constraints
Ellen Kahler
Vermont's Farm to Plate Initiative is recognized as a national leader in food systems development activity. The initiative was originally created by act of the Vermont Legislature in 2009, which directed the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, in collaboration with a wide array of stakeholders, to develop a 10 year strategic plan to increase jobs and economic activity in the farm and food sector and to increase access to healthy, local food for all Vermonters.
-
Cultivating the Right to Food? The Contribution of Urban Community Food Gardens to Food Sovereignty in Johannesburg, South Africa
Brittany Kesselman
This proposal presents on-going research towards a PhD in Development Studies. The objective of this research is to understand if and how urban community gardens contribute to food sovereignty in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the aim of determining what actions can be taken to enhance their contribution.
The research examines the way in which urban community gardens contribute to six key elements of food sovereignty, namely: Access to adequate, nutritious, culturally appropriate foods; Sustainable income/ livelihoods; Localisation as well as democratisation of the food system; Environmental sustainability of the food system; Empowerment of marginalised groups; and Empowerment of women/ promotion of gender equity.
-
Does the Human Right to Food Include an Implicit Right to a Healthy Environment?
Anastasia Telesetsky
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights defines the human right to food as "the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear." Notably, this definition provides no explicit mention of the environment. The General Comment on the Right to Food by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights references "sustainability" but not in the broader context of environmental protection. Instead, sustainability simply refers to "food being accessible for both present and future generations."
This presentation queries to what extent ecological sustainability is a component of the human right to food as understood by States in designing national food security strategies. Is it possible to read the right to food coherently with the right to a healthy environment or do these rights only overlap for those States that have formally recognized both the right to food and the right to a healthy environment through constitutional or statutory measures. What implications do these two rights have for international food production? Is the right to a healthy environment embedded with the right to food? Or is it acceptable for most of the United States (with the possible exception of Montana, Hawaii, and Illinois who have explicit state constitutional rights to a healthy environment) to sanction existing industrial food production practices as fulfilling the human right to food for both US nationals and international citizens because these activities satisfy the requirement to "provide adequate and sufficient food" even when some of these operations such as feedlots and pesticide-treated agricultural operations pose contamination risks to the environment?
-
Barriers and Opportunities to Promote Rights to Sustainable Production of Smallholders in the Context of Climate Stresses in Central America
Raffaele Vignola
Under a systemic approach, right to food implies also considering two aspects such as the implementation of and correspondent support to sustainable agricultural production by smallholders. Given the observed and projected trends, this requires also considering how such practices can help these vulnerable producers cope with and recover from the increasing climate stresses affecting them. We here focus on these two complementary aspects for the case of coffee and basic grains smallholders: the identification of adaptive benefits of sustainable practices and the barriers and strengths of cross-scale governance to support their implementation in Central America (a highly climate-vulnerable region).
Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.
