Food Security: There's No Easy Solution

It is difficult to pen a personal reflection on food security and justice when you have never experienced insecurity or injustice. I consider myself fortunate to have never "wanted" for food or any other resource. Granted the closest I've come is being your average "broke" college student and I once lived off PB&Js, but that cannot and will not ever compare to being insecure or the victim of injustice. As a planner, it seems just as insensitive to think I can enter a community I'm not a part of and attempt to "fix" their system. Certainly, in the context of food insecurity/injustice, deserts, and swamps there is a need, but it is very easy to tend towards gentrification, which even farther from the goal of bringing access and healthy solutions to fragile neighborhoods.


Perhaps a worthy approach to the delicate situation is a rational-oriented method. Conducting a neighborhood analysis or community food assessment (re: last week's readings) would be a useful tool to evaluate a community for various measures of performance, quality, etc. Likewise, GIS/mapping and spatial analysis is critical in examining how people move throughout their communities, interact with existing food stores, or how they have to travel to reach them. While all of this analytic research is meant to inform and evidence eventual action, there is also the consideration of policies at work that enable or hinder low income people from accessing commodities.


Programs like food stamps and WIC provide a much needed service to low income individuals and families, but it may not be the answer for the future. That is not to say the programs should be cut, but more sustainable, long-term, and multifaceted action should be pursued. Instead of putting a band-aid on issues (i.e. providing fiscal support for specific goods), we should look more at the systemic, institutional causes for a solution. Economic studies looking at where families/individuals allocate their money indicate rent and food as the most important. Perhaps if we work to de-stigmatize public housing and incentivize private investment in its development to make housing more affordable, to alleviate some of the strain placed on lower income households. Similarly, the price of foods is highly variable because of the controversy surrounding oil. More sustainable, renewable practices won't take effect for a long time, which also makes this issue inherently ecological, as well as highly political. Until we reach that plateau as a society, food stamp programs are the best way to bring food to people in need. However, if we plan to alleviate and resolve food security and justice, we must treat the issue comprehensively and systematically.