Despite the fact that in the last decade we have been able to reduce acute hunger substantially, famine and malnutrition continue to plague our world. The panel-discussion explained the application and effects of a cash vs. food-based approach to solve global hunger. The four pillars of food security have to be met in order for a society to be successfully devoid of hunger: availability, access, utilization, and stability.

Availability: food must be available in sufficient quantities based on production, carryover stocks, trade, and aid

Access: people must be able to acquire adequate healthy food based on purchase, gifts, and safety nets (which is the biggest problem)

Utilization: translate food accessed into positive health impacts via cooking, storage, and hygiene practices, WASH, and intra-hh allocation

Stability: must be able to maintain access and utilization over time, through lean seasons, disasters, price spikes, etc. resistance is key

While a free meal addresses one or more of these issues, it does not fix all aspects of the problem. Therefore the solution depends of the situation, based on what the impoverished people need and how fast they can receive it.

Cash-based programs are favored when (cash transfers, food vouchers, jobs, or locally purchased foods):

• Reduce delivery delays by 14 weeks
• Reduce basic grains cost by >50%, less for processed foods
• No effect on price levels/volatility in course markets
• Recipient consumers prefer local over imported food

Food is favored when:

• When people/governments can’t contribute cash
• When food availability is limited by infrastructure damage that disrupts commercial supply chain (natural disasters)
• When specialty foods are need and cheaper to send
• When there isn’t enough local food
• There are some context in which a “free lunch” shipped from the US is best

This served as a reminder to me of my privileges of being a student in a university where my priority is not determining where my next meal would come from.

I attended a roundtable that focused upon world hunger and where we were at now. I knew that world hunger was already going down but I didn’t realize that there was now side-issues that were now being created overall. The most prominent being mentioned is the hunger being considered in first-world country. I didn’t know that there was a major problem of hunger not be regarded in first-world country sinces no one never thinks about it being in a heavily wealthy country. I even had a talk with a neighbor afterwards mentioning how things like soup kitchens and poverty overall are signs of a country being in hunger. The main thing I brought up though, was the cheap food and how it makes it look like someone is not starving even though it’s not a lot of calories at times.

On February 3, I ventured out to Kennedy Hall to hear a discussion/forum about free lunch and global hunger. There were speakers who spoke about the work that they do to help end global hunger. They manufacture packaged meals that contain the nutrients needed for people to survive. A Cornell professor also spoke about the economics of free lunch and global hunger. Apparently, access is a big issue in tackling global hunger. Global hunger exists because people don’t have access to nutrient-rich food or because they don’t have access to people who can provide food to them. I thought the issue was very interesting as it is a prevalent issue that I am also learning about in one of my courses.

On the “When is a Free Lunch a Good Idea?: How to Address Global Hunger” seminar:

   I learned last Sunday that some food organizations are shifting towards cash-based programs. One of the benefits of the cash programs is that they secure the “purchasing power” of low-income individuals and families with food insecurity, which food assistance programming hasn’t always done. As I learned last semester, SNAP (formerly known as the food stamps program), for instance, was instituted to address the concurrent issues of rural surplus and urban food insecurity. The first program restricted purchasing power by establishing that one-third of food stamps, AKA blue stamps, could only be used towards foods in surplus. The extent to which recipients should have food choice remains debated today.

   I really appreciated the emphasis House Fellow Chris Barrett put on purchasing power, and agree it is important. I think my biggest takeaway from the purchasing power discussion was that recipients deserve to have influence over and enjoy what they eat.

   One other part of this seminar that stood out to me was the usage of black children for powerpoint imagery. Although I think it is important that we make deliberate efforts to include black families given (1) black marginalization and (2) a history of discriminatory practices in assistance based programs. I think it’s also very important that we avoid the implications that come with making black children the face of hunger… I won’t go into depth on this topic, but want to note that these pictures of black children are nearly always void of black parents, which I hadn’t really processed before now. If we’re constantly seeing hungry, helpless black children who—in our depictions of them—are lacking parents then what implication are we making about the reliability of black adult care… what relationship are we creating between the donors and those children?…

   Being a donor does not make us the missing link in the lives of food insecure children, families, and individuals. It makes us a medium between people and resources, which before our intervention should have otherwise been connected… We must be cognizant of words and imagery that suggests otherwise. We must be careful to avoid paternalism in food assistance.

   Overall it was an interesting lecture, and I think my biggest takeaway is that the donor-recipient relationships must continue to be reshaped. I appreciate the opportunity to think about these topics, and hopefully will make time for more in the future.

At the beginning of the presentation, the lecturer mentioned how many of us didn’t have to worry about whether or not there’d be food on the table.  Nonetheless, many people in other countries are going hungry or becoming malnourished.  An ironic point that was brought up was that the people in these countries are manufacturing and processing the food to be exported, leaving little for themselves.

Additionally, I always thought that the issue of with food hunger was about the lack of food.  I was surprised to discover that the problem is surrounding the distribution of food, not the availability.  We are able to make enough food for everyone; people’s economic and social situations determine where this food is available and accessible.

When they began talking about the efforts enacted to combat the lack of nutritious food, the organization Feed My Starving Children came up.  Feed my Starving Children is a Christian organization that gathers volunteers from local communities to pack nutritious meals, ones filled with vitamins, veggies, soy, rice, and more.  There’s even one in Ithaca, and upon questioning, many people in the audience have volunteered to pack these foods.  It’s amazing how a community could come together to do something amazing for others.

Aside from the packaging process, getting the recipient communities involved and empowered is another important goal.  For example, I remember the presenters mentioning how the volunteers would buy materials or artisan goods from their local markets to help stimulate their economy.  It’s amazing that these organizations are helping these communities become self sufficient.

Overall, there is much more than just hunger at hand; there are underlying social and economic situations that can be improved over time.

The Global Hunger and Free Lunch presentations and panel made me reflect a lot about our policies and our actions towards addressing global hunger. I was very intrigued by how giving money directly to people in areas of food insecurity would help them more efficiently than providing them food. Because the food has to be delivered and shipped from other nations, it takes more time to provide food rather than giving money directly in their bank accounts so that they could go to the local grocery store and spend what they need. However, I did admire the work they put in devising a food package full of various nutrients using the locally grown crops that the organization would buy and use. I also really liked how they redesigned the food stamp system so that it looks like a credit card and so they would not get judged or discriminated by others.

Earlier today, I attended a panel-discussion on how to appropriately address the global issue of world hunger, titled “When is free lunch a good idea? How to address global hunger”. This talk was very eye-opening for me, on a few different levels.

The first and most literally way it was eye-opening is that it highlighted just how little I knew about a topic I had initially thought to be simple. Until this panel, I had been under the impression that global hunger was an availability issue, meaning that there simply wasn’t enough food globally to feed all the human beings. This, however, is incorrect. The vast majority of the issue of world hunger is caused by a lack of accessibility, not necessarily a lack of availability, meaning that socioeconomic status plays a very large role. There are many farming communities that go without food because they cannot afford not to sell their produce. Additionally, I learned that when we speak about world hunger, we don’t necessarily mean those who are starving to death. The vast majority of deaths are due to malnutrition, not a lack of calories. Micronutrient deficiencies are commonplace, and play a large role in food availability.

Perhaps the biggest thing I took away from this event was just how intersectional this issue is. While the problem itself may seem simple at first glance (people aren’t getting the food they need), it is so much more than that. The issue of access is tied into economics, sociology, food science, and almost any field you can think of. And that is exactly why panels like this one are so incredibly important. It’s an opportunity for people of all different backgrounds—religious leaders, academics, engineers—to come together and work on a solution to an immense global issue.