Addressing Food Insecurity
28th March 2023
1. Ensuring people have a sufficient income.
- Support companies that pay the Living Wage (https://www.livingwage.org.uk/)
- Buy Fair Trade products which ensure producers earn a fair wage (https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/)
- Campaign for benefits to match needs – eg via the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), with Mind (https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/campaigns/benefits/)
- Support campaigns focused on food poverty such as End Child Food Poverty (https://endchildfoodpoverty.org/) and the Trussel Trust (https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-involved/campaigns/)
- Support Transform Trade which campaigns to make trade rules person centred ( https://www.transform-trade.org/)
1b.. Growing our own food and enabling others to do likewise.
- https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/beginners-guide/vegetable-basics
- https://www.growforlife.org.uk/
- https://www.incredibleediblelambeth.org/news/growing-together-in-lambeth/
- https://www.capitalgrowth.org/what_we_do/
2. Taking action to limit keep rising global temperatures below 1.5C.
- For this you might want to measure your carbon footprint to help identify areas where you could reduce carbon emissions. Try one of the following – https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?ref=buffer.com https://students.open.ac.uk/candc/carbon_calculator/ https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/ (This looks at a wider range of resources other than just carbon)
- Particularly relating to food, you might choose to reduce – or cut out completely – animal products from your diet. You might choose to only what is in season to avoid importing food over long distances. https://greentau.org/2021/08/14/green-tau-issue-12/
- Campaign to persuade companies and governments for tackle the climate crisis – eg https://christianclimateaction.org/ https://greenchristian.org.uk/ https://www.christianaid.org.uk/ https://www.rspb.org.uk/ and many others .
- You might support charities such as Practical Action that help poorer farmers change their practices to adapt to the new and more extreme climates – https://practicalaction.org/
- You might support charities and organisations that support people whose crops have failed because of the climate crisis such as UNICEF (https://www.unicef.org/), UNHCR (https://www.unhcr.org/horn-of-africa-drought-emergency.html), and Oxfam (https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/current-emergencies/east-africa-food-crisis-appeal/)
- You might campaign to reduce food waste which accounts for about 6% of global carbon emissions – https://wrap.org.uk/taking-action/food-drink/actions/action-on-food-waste
3. Paying a fair price for the food we eat. You might buy direct from a farm or a group of farms, or via a local vegetable box scheme. You might support a local farmers’ market. You might buy from a local independent green grocer. Similarly you might buy milk etc from a milk round where the price reflects the cost to the farmer. For cheeses, look to buy from small scale producers via a local cheese shop. And again buying fair trade options for imported foods can help ensure a fair price for the producer. Alternatively look out for products – coffee beans and chocolate in particularly – that have been sourced directly from the grower. These are often available through local independent shops and cafés.
Another option would be to subscribe to the OddBox fruit and veg scheme which buys food stuffs that would otherwise go to waste because they are misshapen, because the supermarket doesn’t want the crop, or because the crop has been too large or too small for the supermarket buyer – https://www.oddbox.co.uk/
4. Buying from local producers and local retailers helps to improve local supply chains.
- You might also campaign to improve global trading arrangements through organisations such as Transform Trade, the Trade Justice Movement – https://www.tjm.org.uk/ – and Global Justice Now – https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/our-campaigns/trade/
5. Again the best approach to improving global food security and ensuring there is enough food for everyone is to reduce – or cost out completely – animal products.
6. To support and encourage the maintenance of healthy solid, you might choose to buy organic produce (https://www.soilassociation.org/ ), or to supplier items produced using regenerative farming practices (https://regenerativefoodandfarming.co.uk/)
7. To improve the security of our food supplies through diversity, expand the range of foods you eat. Try different sorts and fruit and vegetables, different types of grain – emmer, einkorn, spelt, black barley – and different sorts of nuts, spices etc. This can also improve your health – it is recommended that our diets should include 30 or more different types of fruit, vegetables, nuts, grains etc per week. See for example https://www.theguthealthdoctor.com/how-to-get-your-gut-loving-30-plant-points-a-week and https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/15/go-with-your-gut-tim-spector-power-of-microbiome?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Improving biodiversity as a whole is also a good preventative against diseases that could ravaged farm production . You might therefore choose to grow more wild/ native plants in your garden, or choose plants that support and encourage biodiversity in terms of birds, insects, butterflies, and bats etc. many web sites have suggestions about improving the biodiversity of your garden including those of the RSPB and the Natural History Museum. You might want to support charities and organisations that encourage biodiversity and even extend that to the re-wilding of land, both in the UK – eg https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/explore-rewilding/what-is-rewilding – and overseas – https://www.cleanupthetropicaltimbertrade.org/about , https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/forests_practice/importance_forests/tropical_rainforest/ , http://savetheorangutan.org.uk/
The Green Tau 