An Overburdened Charitable Food System: Making the Case for Increased Government Support During the COVID-19 Crisis

Zack, Rachel M.; Weil, Rachel; Babbin, Molly; Lynn, Catherine Drennan; Velez, Desiree Sierra; Travis, L.; Taitelbaum, Daniel J.; Fiechtner, Lauren

doi:10.2105/ajph.2021.306222

Cited by 27 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…In contrast, public assistance through unemployment insurance and pandemic payments have lent weight to Allen’s ( 1999 ) claims of the centrality of public assistance, over food charity, in preventing food insecurity during crises (Raifman, Bor, & Venkataramani, 2021). Further reforms to welfare eligibility and adequate wages are also required to overcome the limitations of an ‘overburdened’ charitable food system and temporary pandemic measures (Wolfson and Leung 2020 ; Zack et al 2021 ).…”

Section: Covid-19 Responses: Containing or Contesting Business-as-usual?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Containing Hunger, Contesting Injustice? Exploring the Transnational Growth of Foodbanking- and Counter-responses- Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2022

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COVID-19 caused levels of household food insecurity to spike, but the precarity of so many people in wealthy countries is an outgrowth of decades of eroding public provisions and labour protections that once protected people from hunger, setting the stage for the virus’ unevenly-distributed harms. The prominence of corporate-sponsored foodbanking as a containment response to pandemic-aggravated food insecurity follows decades of replacing rights with charity. We review structural drivers of charity’s growth to prominence as a hunger solution in North America, and of its spread to countries including the UK. By highlighting pre-pandemic pressures shaping foodbanking, including charities’ efforts to retool themselves as health providers, we ask whether anti-hunger efforts during the pandemic serve to contain ongoing socioeconomic crises and the unjust living conditions they cause, or contest them through transformative pathways to a just food system. We suggest that pandemic-driven philanthropic and state funding flows have bolstered foodbanking and the food system logics that support it. By contextualising the complex and variegated politics of foodbanking in broader movements, from community food security to food sovereignty, we reframe simplistic narratives of charity and highlight the need for justice-oriented structural changes in wealth redistribution and food system organisation if we are to prevent the kinds of emergency-within-emergency that we witnessed as COVID-19 revealed the proximity of many to hunger.

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Section: Covid-19 Responses: Containing or Contesting Business-as-usual?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Containing Hunger, Contesting Injustice? Exploring the Transnational Growth of Foodbanking- and Counter-responses- Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2022

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“…In the US, the prevalence of food insecurity increased by one third from before to during the pandemic [ 54 , 55 ]. Even in the USA, disadvantaged communities have shown signs of severe food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 56 ]. This appears to have been experienced across a wide age range of adults, from college students to the elderly [ 54 ].…”

Section: Food Security In the Covid-19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Nutrition on the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Nutrition

Rodriguez-Leyva

Pierce

2021

Nutrients

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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had significant morbidity, mortality, social and financial implications for the global population. Despite this knowledge, we still know very little about how COVID-19 infection affects quality of life resulting from changes in nutritional behaviour and, conversely, how nutrition could modulate the epidemiology of COVID-19. In addition, the social isolation most have experienced due to the regulations imposed by governments during the COVID-19 pandemic may have also had effects on our nutritional behaviour. It is possible that nutritional interventions may have effects on the incidence of COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the current status of research on the topic of nutrition as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“…As an example of the increased reliance on the charitable food system during the pandemic, The Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB) reported that the number of people who received food assistance through its food pantry 2 of 14 network doubled between May 2019 and May 2020. GBFB also reported a 58% increase in total pounds of food that it distributed to food pantries from March to December 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, highlighting the increased demand for charitable food assistance due to the pandemic [6]. Additionally, federal food assistance increased through the allocation of an extra USD 1 billion investment for The Emergency Food Access Program (TEFAP) and a 15% increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits [7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Food Pantry Use and Barriers in Massachusetts during the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

et al. 2022

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This study sought to describe racial disparities in food insecurity, food pantry use, and barriers to and experiences with food pantries during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We surveyed 2928 adults in Massachusetts regarding food access in the year before and during the first year of the pandemic. Weighted multivariable logistic regression models assessed racial differences in barriers to and experiences with pantry use during the pandemic. Black and Latino adults experienced the highest prevalence of food insecurity and pantry use. Additionally, Black and Latino adults reported more barriers to, but less stigma around, pantry use compared to White adults. Latino adults were less likely to know about pantry hours/locations and encounter staff who spoke their language. Black and Latino adults were also more likely to find pantry hours/locations inconvenient and have difficulty with transportation. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in increased food insecurity, and food access inequities persisted. Programmatic policies to improve pantry access in communities of color could include increasing the hours/days that pantries are open, increasing bilingual staff, providing transportation or delivery, and creating multilingual public awareness campaigns on how to locate pantries.

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An Overburdened Charitable Food System: Making the Case for Increased Government Support During the COVID-19 Crisis

Cited by 27 publications

References 1 publication

Containing Hunger, Contesting Injustice? Exploring the Transnational Growth of Foodbanking- and Counter-responses- Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Containing Hunger, Contesting Injustice? Exploring the Transnational Growth of Foodbanking- and Counter-responses- Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Impact of Nutrition on the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Nutrition

Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Food Pantry Use and Barriers in Massachusetts during the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

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