by Molly Pifko, Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow
Over the past few months as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow, I have found that when I tell people that I work at Hunger Free Oklahoma (HFO), they often ask the same question. “So, do you give people food?” Answering “no” tends to make explaining my job more complicated, but it also provides an opportunity for a conversation about a more holistic view of what anti-hunger work can—and does—look like.
One of my favorite parts of my time at HFO so far has been getting to know the many amazing partners working collaboratively to end hunger in Oklahoma. For many of these groups, the day-to-day movement toward this goal looks very different. It may mean creating more access points for nutrition programs, but it also may mean educating Oklahomans and policymakers about our federal nutrition programs, improving school meals, creating community gardens, or supporting new sites for youth summer meal service. While individual goals may vary, everyone’s service and advocacy becomes more effective when a variety of stakeholders can come together to share resources and ensure that their work complements one another’s.
To support such a collaborative approach, it is helpful to discuss what overarching principles and visions unify the anti-hunger movement. Our most recent session of the Hungry For Action speaker series defined five terms that I think fit this purpose well:
- Food Security: The state of always having physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life (source: IFPRI, UN).
- Food Access: Sufficient opportunity for individuals to have adequate resources for acquiring appropriate foods for a nutritious diet (considering geography, race, income, and their intersections) (source: UN FAO).
- Food Equity: A goal or ideal that expresses an existence where everybody regardless of race, income, and geographic location has equal and ample access to food.
- Food Sovereignty: A community’s right to dictate the types of food and quality of the food that is entering their neighborhood; speaks to who has land ownership and land access that allows people to grow portions of their own food — and grow it in a way that is culturally appropriate, ecologically sound, and sustainable.
- Food Justice: A holistic and structural view of the food system that attempts to address and remove the barriers causing food inequity (partial source: FoodPrint).
Why do these definitions matter? In conversation, terms like “food justice” and “food equity” are sometimes used interchangeably, and it’s true that several of these terms can overlap. But I find them useful as a set of guiding values that allow us to build a holistic approach to hunger, targeting its root causes to create sustainable, lasting change.
For instance, a food equity lens calls us to think about the disproportionate impact that hunger and poverty have on BIPOC communities, and the ways that our past and current food systems reflect patterns of racial exclusion, disinvestment, and disenfranchisement (for more on this topic, see our February blog post.) This awareness leads to a more complete understanding of the barriers to food access and food security and how we can remove them.
As the old proverb goes, “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; but teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” This saying emphasizes the importance of focusing on root causes rather than short-term solutions. But the lens of food justice pushes us to see potential actions that go even deeper than “teaching someone to fish.” In a truly equitable food system, we would also ask the person we were working with whether he has adequate time or equipment to fish, whether the stream near his house has been overfished or polluted, whether he even wants to eat fish (maybe we would be better off teaching him to garden, hunt, or bake!) And we would do all of this while also making sure that his immediate needs are being met. In other words, we must work to find solutions that improve outcomes in the long term as well as the short term, and which transform systems as well as individual circumstances.
What makes this work both challenging and energizing is that it requires a wide variety of approaches which focus on different aspects of hunger. There is a role for everyone to play in building a more equitable food system, whether you are passionate about gardening, public health, transportation and housing, tribal sovereignty, all the above or something else entirely. Whatever your “on-ramp” to food justice, consider starting with these steps:
- Educate yourself: Learn more about racial equity in food systems and the groups currently advocating for a food system that works for all of us.
- Be an ally: support local farmers and food systems by buying and sourcing locally whenever possible.
- Join the movement: Become a member of a coalition to connect with other food justice advocates and make your voice heard.
For more resources and specifics on these three big steps, visit our Food Equity in Action one-pager. Also consider reading the Center for Law and Social Policy’s report on a Community-Driven Anti-Racist Vision for SNAP.
You can also stay up to date about hunger in Oklahoma via our newsletter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and sign up for the final session in our Hungry For Action speaker series, Take Action to End Hunger, January 10, 2023, 10:00-11:30 a.m. CST.
For my part, I am excited to take what I have learned about the landscape of anti-hunger work in Oklahoma and bring it with me as I move to the next stage of the Emerson Fellowship, working at a policy placement in Washington, D.C. Wherever my work takes me in the future, I know that I will continue to push for it to be collaborative, community driven, and informed by the principles I have defined above. As we head into the new year, I hope that you will also reflect on the incredible impact that you can have on hunger in your community and take action to maximize that impact. As always, we at Hunger Free Oklahoma are happy to be sharing this mission with you.