Nourishing Change - January 2016

January 2016

News

Special Report: America's Food Banks Say Charity Won't End Hunger

Just released! We are excited to share a new report and video made in collaboration with WhyHunger and food access organizations from around the country that participated in the recent national Closing the Hunger Gap "Cultivating Food Justice" Conference.

Special Report: America's Food Banks Say Charity Won't End Hunger calls for a transformation from charity to justice and explores the growing conversation among food access organizations that ending hunger will take much more than food distribution. When the goal is to transform the systems and policies that perpetuate hunger, what role do emergency food providers play in achieving long-term change? How are resources allocated and how is success measured? Why is a focus on social justice essential?

Read the full report and watch the video to learn how America's emergency food system is rethinking charity.

Building The Movement

Pediatricians Are Screening for Hunger

Pediatricians keep tabs on many aspects of their patients' health, but some might not include as a part of their exam protocol whether the children they see might be going hungry. As of October, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that pediatricians screen all patients, regardless of their household income, for food insecurity, as part of a new effort in which doctors and advocates hope to get more involved in the fight to prevent childhood hunger.

Hunger is particularly harmful to the developing minds and bodies of children, so the more often that doctors can ask the questions and connect the families to resources for help, the better. Pediatricians are well-positioned to ask families about food insecurity, since families trust them and doctors can ask sensitive questions in a non-judgmental way. AAP advised pediatricians to add two questions to those they ask caregivers or children at well visits: Whether, in the past year, they worried about food running out before they had money to buy more; and whether, in the past year, food they bought did not last and they could not afford to get more. Children and their parents or guardians may be reluctant to self-identify as hungry. Giving pediatricians guidance on questions that can assess child hunger and connecting families to local resources are important steps in raising awareness of the problem and getting people the help they need.

Our continual outreach is expanding to the network of pediatricians so they know that our hunger hotline is a national resource that they can rely on. The WhyHunger Hotline 1-800-5 HUNGRY (1-800-548-6479) refers people in need of emergency food assistance to food pantries, government programs, and model grassroots organizations nationally that work to improve access to healthy, nutritious food, and build self-reliance. Help is available Monday through Friday from 9am-6pm EST. You can download our new posters in English or Spanish to promote the WhyHunger Hotline. WhyHunger is constantly and strategically adding resources (food banks, food pantries, food access sites) to its Find Food database of emergency food providers with the most up to date information about access to healthy food and nutrition services. So when pediatricians ask these important questions about food security, they know that the information is available to patients who need access to healthy food and related services.

Food Justice Voices: What Ferguson Means for the Food Justice Movement: Issue 2

WhyHunger's What Ferguson Means for the Food Justice Movement series is a bold attempt to explore the way in which police violence and institutionalized anti-black racism is deeply interconnected to food, land and Black bodies. What is the connection between the death of Black people at the hands of the state (police shootings) and the death of Black people at the hands of the corporate food system (diet-related disease/ land displacement/redlining)?

To lift up critical voices of the movement, WhyHunger's Beatriz Beckford facilitated a national call with dynamic organizers and activists across the country to gather a collective interrogation of these issues from the perspective of Black activists organizing around food justice. Issue #2 featuring activist Dara Cooper focuses on the power of people organizing and the creation of sustainable, self-determining communities and introduces the National Black Food and Justice Alliance (NBFJA).

Read the issue here.

Hunger and Health

Unclean water affecting those most food insecure in Flint, MI

Imagine trying to do anything with unclean water. Imagine trying to cook with tainted water, keep dishes clean, or maintain personal hygiene. Imagine if your only source for clean water was bottled water trucked in from outside of your community. Imagine paying for bottled water on top of your other expenses. In the United States the link between water and health is often abstract as, for most of us, it readily flows safely out of our kitchen sinks. For 1.6 billion people living mostly in developing countries, absolute water scarcity is a daily struggle. And yet for the past few years we have been seeing headlines here in the United States about lack of access to this most basic of life's necessities: clean water. Most recently, lack of access to clean water is a reality for the residents of Flint, Michigan; 40% of whom are black families living below the poverty level.

Today Flint, Michigan is in a state of emergency. For almost two years, Flint's public water supply has been tainted with toxic levels of lead when the water supply was switched by officials to a more affordable supply - the Flint River. Yet the water supply flowing from this source was not treated properly to deal with the corrosion. It's gotten to the point where residents can't drink their water or take showers and the President has declared a state of emergency. Even the food banks are now distributing bottled water. Lead poisoning and Legionnaire's Disease has been reported. This public health issue has dire consequences for children and the elderly who are more harmed by exposure to lead and other diseases that result from drinking unclean water, not to mention the exposure from food that is prepared using toxic water. Read more about how this public health crisis has come about here.

What We're Reading Now

Oh SNAP!

At President Obama's last State of the Union, he made a powerful statement about the SNAP program. "Food stamp recipients didn't cause the financial crisis. Recklessness on Wall Street did." While during Obama's administration there have been bills signed that would cut food stamps continually over several years, the SNAP program is a crucial anti-poverty program. "One of the most destructive ideas in poverty policy is what supporters, such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, call 'opportunity grants' and what the rest of us call block grants." Read more here.

Black Farmers in the Organic Movement

"When you talk about the history of agriculture, the African American farmer has been growing organically for a long time. This is not new to us."

According to the Southeastern African American Farmers' Organic Network (SAAFON) in Savannah, Georgia, there is a lack of concrete data on Black organic farmers .The organization represents more than 120 farmer members in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and the Virgin Islands. The group provides education and training for Black farmers on best practices for organic and sustainable farming. "The history of discrimination, mass land loss, lack of start-up capital, lack of collateral for loans, and a multi-generational distrust of federal programs has put Black farmers behind in the organic movement." Read more about this here.

Agricultural Apartheid Is Alive and Well in South Africa: 14 Million People are Hungry

1994 was an historic year in South Africa, the beginning of the dismantling of political Apartheid. The Anti- Apartheid Movement in South Africa in partnership with similar movements all over the world brought down the hated tyrannical government that had enslaved the Black majority for so many years. The people were finally free. A new government representing the Black majority was now in control that would protect and strengthen the rights of all. Millions in the U.S.A. who had supported the movement, marched in demonstrations and even been arrested, finally rejoiced.

Now, more than twenty years later South Africa has indeed made significant progress in many important ways. However, there are some shocking injustices that remain which are impoverishing millions. Read more here.

Resources

Webinar on FEAST (Food, Education, Agriculture Solutions Together)

Oregon Food Bank is hosting a webinar on their community organizing model

FEAST. FEAST: food, education, agriculture, solutions together is a community organizing process that allows participants to engage in a facilitated discussion around their local food system.

They are hosting a webinar on FEAST, Thursday January 28 from 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PST. In this 90 minute webinar they'll be sharing insight into best practices, community engagement, and detail out their agenda and processes. The creator of FEAST, Sharon Thornberry, the Rural Communities Liaison for the Oregon Food Bank, will be joined by Spencer Masterson, the Community Food System Manager, who has been actively facilitating FEAST for the last four years. While the webinar has surpassed capacity, there will be a recording of the webinar on their website on the week of February 7th. If this is of interest, keep an eye on their website here.

Dietary Guidelines for Americans for 2015-2020

Every five years the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services update the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans which provides Americans with advice on healthy eating. In a huge step forward, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee -- the panel of experts who help inform what goes into the dietary advice for our nation -- has recommended that Americans eat less resource-intensive meat and more plant-based foods for the sake of our health and that of the environment. The DGAC's 2015 Scientific Report found that long-term food security for Americans should not be separated from the need to promote sustainable dietary patterns that protect our nation's natural resources. Read the guidelines here.

Report: Freedom from Hunger: An Achievable Goal for the United States of America

The National Commission on Hunger, a congressionally appointed bipartisan commission, released its 2015 final report "

Freedom from Hunger: An Achievable Goal for the United States of America." The report is based on the commission's agreement that hunger cannot be solved by food alone or by government efforts alone. The solutions to hunger require a stronger economy, robust community engagement, corporate partnerships, and greater personal responsibility, as well as strong government programs. Read the report here.

Annual Adjustment to Summer Meals Reimbursement Rates

The Summer Food Service Program for Children has released a notice that informs the annual adjustments to the reimbursement rates for meals. These adjustments address changes in the Consumer Price Index, as required under the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. The 2016 rates are also presented individually, as separate operating and administrative rates of reimbursement, to show the effect of the Consumer Price Index adjustment on each rate. Read more here.

In This Issue

Special Report: America's Food Banks Say Charity Won't End Hunger

Pediatricians Are Screening for Hunger

Food Justice Voices: What Ferguson Means for the Food Justice Movement: Issue 2

Unclean water affecting those most food insecure in Flint, MI

Oh SNAP!

Black Farmers in the Organic Movement

Agricultural Apartheid is Alive and Well in South Africa: 14 Million People are Hungry

Webinar on FEAST (Food, Education, Agriculture Solutions Together)

Dietary Guidelines for Americans for 2015-2020

Report: Freedom from Hunger: An Achievable Goal for the United States of America

Annual Adjustment to Summer Meals Reimbursement Rates

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.

Our Hotline number has changed to 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, Bill Ayres & Calondra McArthur