[1] This encompasses farm labor work, land disputes, issues of status and class, environmental justice, public politics, and advocacy.
It is the right to have continuous access to the resources that will enable you to produce, earn or purchase enough food to not only prevent hunger, but also to ensure health and well-being.
[10] In the early twentieth century, Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation, and “relegated Black Americans in the nation’s capital to segregated ghettos where housing was substandard, healthcare and education were inadequate, municipal services were limited, and environmental and food security were perpetually threatened by the forces of racial capitalism.”[11] Igor Vojnovic, Professor of Geography and Urban and Regional Planning at Michigan State University, connects disinvestment to food accessibility.
“Within this context, considerable research interest has been placed on examining the availability, accessibility, and quality of healthy food options within urban neighborhoods experiencing disinvestment and decline.
Particular vulnerabilities have been recognized among poor, minority populations living within cities, who are faced with limited access to culturally appropriate and nutritious food within their neighborhoods.”[12] A study published in 2022 “revealed evidence that living in historically redlined areas is associated with multiple adverse health outcomes including gunshot-related injuries, asthma, preterm birth, some cancer types, heat-related illnesses, and chronic diseases when compared to those living in non-redlined areas.”[12] Individuals throughout the food system have petitioned for increased wages and improved working conditions, adding the treatment of workers to the conversation around sustainably produced food.
The United Farm Workers Movement (UFW) of the 1960s is an example of individuals in the agricultural sector organizing to advance their labor rights, such as improving working conditions and wages for farmworkers.
[13] In collaboration with California grape growers, organizers of UFW helped workers gain rights to make decisions about health and safety risks in the workplace through collective action.
President Obama passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010, calling for a raised nutrition standard in the National School Lunch Program.
[20] Supplementing the legal action taken by the President, Michelle Obama's activism in the political sphere led to the onset of programs like Let's Move!, that targeted decreasing adolescent obesity across the United States.
To address white and middle class culture dominating the discussion and priorities of organic food and sustainability practices, a more multi-cultural and intersectional approach is suggested that includes the narratives of historically marginalized communities.
[32] Organizations and festivals such as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Familias Unidas por la Justicia,[33] and Farm Aid are credited as working to raise awareness of or assist with food justice by fighting for family farmers to keep and sustain their land, fair pay and treatment of workers, and ensuring access to healthy foods to those previously denied affordable nourishment.
In a Report to Congress done by the United States Department of Agriculture, it was found that 23.5 million Americans live more than one mile away from a grocery store and do not have access to a car.
Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan, the executive director of the Center for Indigenous Health Research and Policy, posited that these levels of food insecurity were a direct result of colonization.
Jernigan commented that reform would be necessary to target unequal health outcomes for Native Americans, explaining that her ideal solution was increased efforts to focus on providing Indigenous food sovereignty, a specific policy approach that would work to mobilize communities using multi-millennial cultural harvesting strategies.
Additionally, other scholars have proposed nutrition incentive programs that would provide cash matches for food stamps spent on fruits and vegetables in markets and grocery stores.
[48] Interpersonal factors that are more common in Hispanic/Latinx families and contribute to higher rates of food insecurity include intergenerational poverty, sending funds to family outside the USA, limited English proficiency, lower education, higher likelihood of being a single parent household, cultural traditions limiting food access or choice, and lack of sufficient social support.
The more affluent inhabitants, with sufficient money to relocate and the greatest capacity to pay taxes, exited the city, rendering municipal governments susceptible to fiscal crises.” [52] These policies have all interacted over time to contribute to health disparities among communities.
[57] Grocery stores and retailers alike, were supported by the United States government to relocate to the suburbs—catering to the White middle class and leaving the cities desolate.
This was seen in Oakland, California, when a community garden started by the food justice organization Phat Beets was shown in a real estate ad.
[60] This discrepancy is an example of how structural inequalities such as lack of access to healthy foods perpetuate high levels of type 2 diabetes in the black community.
[61] Throughout North America, there has been a large movement from students and administrations to incorporate more sustainable food systems into higher education institutions through creating new academic programs, promoting farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture, making changes to dining operations, and/or establishing campus farms and gardens.
[21] Other common areas of food sovereignty discourse include issues of scarcity, environmental factors, population growth, and allocation of resources.
In Burma (also referred to as Myanmar), where 90% of the population lives in poverty, the ruling junta spends 40% of its budget on the military which is quick to shut down protests over the high cost of food.
Natural disasters such as typhoons and hurricanes in the Philippines and Indonesia affect harvests and can decrease food security through increased prices or limited supplies.
The neoliberal model of food security that has been imposed on Indigenous populations negates the cultural diversity, human relations, and ecologies that exist in their communities.
[83] The USDA recognizes that the limited food access in Urban core areas, "are characterized by higher levels of racial segregation and greater income inequality."
Families agree to cooperate with each other and pool their resources—SNAP Benefits and Debit/Credit—on an income-based sliding scale, a week ahead, purchasing in bulk from local, organic farmers.
"[88] The Public Policy Institute has conducted research showing that the introduction of food stamps has reduced illnesses attributed to poor diet such as diabetes and increased average birth weights among adults who had access to the program since their youth.
New items have been added to school lunches, such as frozen rather than canned mixed berries and vegetables, grilled chicken breast fillets, egg patty rounds, and white whole wheat flour.
[95] These interventions also pose risks that threaten other pillars of just and ecologically viable societies; critics of GMOs cite the harms of overproduction, as well as decreasing genetic diversity of crops which can lead to wipe out due to invasive species.