The rise of food insecurity and responses to it in Coventry Wendy Eades, PhD Student: Centre for Human Rights in Practice, Warwick Law School

Defining food insecurity “[food security is]access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life and includes at a minimum: a) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and b) the assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways…Food insecurity exists whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways is limited or uncertain.” (Anderson, 1990, p.1560)

Food Insecurity in UK: Context What’s new about Food Insecurity in 21st Century? Austerity measures Welfare Reform Measuring Food Insecurity – or not

Whose problem? “Both defining and measuring the food insecurity problem will be critical to establishing a policy framework that facilitates effective interventions. The lack of robust definition and measurement is likely to hinder effective policy ownership and action.” (Lambie-Mumford, 2017)

Growth of Foodbanks and related Issues Trussell Trust Foodbanks FareShare Independent Foodbanks Growth of food insecurity and Food Aid response (eg social supermarkets, food pantries)

Issues with Foodbanks Rely on voluntary donations and staff Crisis provision only, not root causes of food poverty Depoliticisation Lack of statutory monitoring Access and geographical spread patchy Need outstrips demand: Oxford University report (Loopstra et al, 2017) Last resort – where do the rest go?

10 facts about food and poverty in Coventry

Feeding Coventry: local responses to food insecurity Established 2016 as result of Feeding Britain Comprises: local community organisers, academics, City Council staff & councillors, business representatives Independent charity since December 2017 Vision: “That Coventry should be a food resilient city where no one goes hungry” Underpinned by 5 key principles of Coventry Food Charter

Coventry Food Charter

Objectives and activities Building food security Protecting people from hunger Low cost foods for vulnerable groups Supporting people in crisis

Warwick University responses RAWKUS: Redistribution of waste food from Halls to local charities RAWKUS: Disco Soup – working with Conferences staff Warwick SU are first signatory to a local Food Charter in UK: involving and supporting students Lacuna

Resources Resources Hungry Britain: the rise of food charity (Hannah Lambie-Mumford, 2017) Hunger Pains: Life inside Foodbank Britain (Kayleigh Garthwaite, 2016) Big Hunger (Andy Fisher, 2017) Family hunger in times of austerity (Rachel Loopstra at al, 2018)   Lacuna www.lacuna.org.uk The Foodbank Dilemma (James Harrison, October 2014) Foodbank Fallacies (James Harrison, May 2015) Foodbank Futures (James Harrison, June 2017) Four Years of Foodbank: How can we move beyond Food Parcels? (Alec Spencer, June 2017) When did emergency food provision stop being so…emergency? (Kayleigh Garthwaite, June 2017) Hungry in the school holidays: are voluntary schemes the answer? (Wendy Eades, July 2017) The American hunger-industrial complex: Do big businesses have a vested interest in food banks? (Andy Fisher, November 2017)