6.8 Activity: Literature search on food justice and discussion

Reading through the article written by Charlotte Glennie and Alison Hope Alkon 2018, on food Justice in relation to cultivating the field in the America Farming system, gives me some understanding of how the food justice is defined from Hislop’s (2014) as ‘the struggle against racism, exploitation, and oppression taking place within the food system that addresses inequality’s root causes both within and beyond the food chain.’

In this research, the author identified social injustice as a key driver of food injustice, where an ample of injustice was played against color farmers, and the black Americans depriving them from receiving subsidies making the white farmers more strong and leading the food system array. This has continued over the decades and has subsequently enhanced the white farmers to lead the social network of obtaining high capital investment and land for crop production and animal wearing. The black and color farmers may work hard and receive less dividends, and they can barely establish their own green food shop due to discriminate and unequal access to resources such as land, and oppression by the white supremacy.

 There is injustice in food system from production to consumption. Many studies have revealed the fact that global food production is largely done in the western countries meaning enough food availability, accessible and affordable occur. Food injustice exacerbate food insecurity in Africa as a result of the poverty. Food mile, environmental and climate change issues, land and technology,  political and economic instability and low purchasing power are all  drivers for food injustice and insecurity.

 The global food system is said to be unequally in every aspect, the global obesity and overweight rates 13% and 39% of adults respectively is associated with the availability of food intake. While the 8.9% of people in the world are undernourished represent the food insecurity on the other hand. This clearly explained the inequality in food consumption. The Africa center for Strategic study February 16, 2021 also confirmed by monitoring the points of some Africa countries that are in food crisis as a result of key drivers mentioned above.

The opportunity here is that some many community organization, NGOs and policy makers in the both west and south are promoting and campaign for food justice and equality by for example promoting local farmers, grocery shops in neighbors in America. The proVeg International is an organization creating awareness on reducing the consumption of animal protein all in the bid to promote food justice and environmental problems.  The world Bank and other donors are providing school feeding in Africa, Sierra Leone for example with the Free Education project. in the area of projection, local farmers in Africa receiving subsidies for climate Smart Agriculture and fishermen men in are receiving fishing nets as subsidies and capability building. Locally in Sierra Leone religious institutions (mosques and churches) are campaigning for food shearing with the low income earners especially in the fast months.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aac4b2/pdf

https://africacenter.org/spotlight/food-insecurity-crisis-mounting-africa/

https://proveg.com/za/about/

https://ourworldindata.org/obesity#:~:text=13%25%20of%20adults%20in%20the%20world%20are%20obese.,as%20the%20calories%20have%20become%20more%20readily%20available.

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