Food Security and Access to Healthy Food

Access to Healthy Food

Introduction

Why is access to healthy food without preservatives, additives, or toxic ingredients more expensive than fast food? This question is one that anybody concerned about healthy food has found himself asking over and over again. Healthy food should be more readily available than unhealthy food—yet it is often not, and when it is available it is often more expensive for people to buy than food that contains preservatives and other non-organic compounds or substances.

Overall, it is generally believed that access to healthy food without preservatives, additives, or toxic ingredients is generally more expensive than fast food because of the higher cost of production and sourcing of organic ingredients. Organic farms usually only produce small amounts of crops, which tend to be more labor intensive and require more land, leading to higher costs for farmers. These higher costs are then passed onto the consumer. Additionally, organic produce generally has a shorter shelf life than conventionally grown produce, meaning that food retailers often need to source more frequently and in smaller quantities, resulting in higher prices.

However, governments have a duty to protect their societies and to foster and support health. They should be putting in place infrastructure that supports healthy food access rather than infrastructure that discourages. By allowing major corporations to dictate what types of food will be available to the public and what types will be less available, government essentially enables profiteers to put profits before people. The food industry is held hostage by profiteers who stand to make more money by putting well-preserved, artificial, and pre-packaged food items on shelves instead of fresh, locally-produced, organic foods that support and promote health. The issue is one of corporate profiteering, and it is this issue that inhibits food justice around the world and especially in developed markets, where “convenience” foods are often touted as essential to a modern lifestyle.

The Injustice of Food Monopolization and Appropriate Action

As Bonacich and Alimahomed-Wilson (2011) explain, food monopolization marginalizes and oppresses segments of the global population: “sectors of Black Americans, like many people in the Global South, are being pushed out of the formal system of capitalist employment” (p. 213). However, the situation has a silver lining in the sense that this maneuver pushes these populations to fend for themselves, become self-reliant, and establish their own access to healthy foods by growing and harvesting them themselves via urban gardens (Biewener, 2015). By engaging in small urban farming projects, marginalized populations can engage in self-actualization as “the development of economic experiments rooted in community economic self-determination based on anti-capitalist values” provides a basis for this kind of self-reliance (Bonacich & Alimahomed-Wilson, 2011, p. 213).

Alternative food initiatives (AFIs) such as urban farming can be a way for people to open up their own access to healthy organic food options and get out from under the thumb of corporate-controlled grocery stores, fast food chains, and pre-packaged unhealthy foods offered at convenience stores for their consumption. As Biewener (2015) explains, “AFIs engage in alternative economic practices by relying on non-exploitative forms of work; and…they foster spaces for enabling progressive social change by engaging in a reflexive local politics oriented toward creating sustainable, democratic, and equitable community food systems” (p. 35). If food injustice is a direct result of inequities and tyranny by corporate structures, food justice stands for equitable solutions that promote democratic systems and solutions. Self-reliance and self-determination are its hallmarks.

As Block et al. (2012) show, it is really about food sovereignty. Food activists must take control of their own food access by growing, harvesting, and supplying the healthy foods that people need rather than by passively relying on corporate for-profit entities that seek to manufacture and deliver the cheapest food items possible to the market regardless of what is in those items or how healthy they are. Those entities care for profits as food is an industry for them and their approach is business-oriented. Food activists, however, are people-oriented, and their main goal is to put people before profits by providing access to healthy food and regaining food sovereignty from the for-profit industrialists. Block et al. (2012) note that “the idea of food sovereignty has its roots primarily in the response of small producers in developing countries to decreasing levels of control over land, production practices, and food access” (p. 203). Overall, Block et al. (2012) contend that “the ideas associated with food sovereignty will lead to the construction of solutions to what is often called the ‘food desert’ issue that serve and empower communities in ways that less democratic solutions do not” (p. 203). To overcome the problems of the food desert—where access to healthy food does not exist because of the monopolization of food by corporate entities that either do not provide organic food options to certain communities or else price those options so highly that said communities cannot afford them—Block et al. (2012) show that these same communities must regain food sovereignty by becoming their own farmers and starting their own gardens, which they can do even in urban spaces.

Food Security is Food Sovereignty

Food security is a measure of the availability of food and individuals' access to it, where as food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. However, if food is defined as that which is healthy and good for human consumption, then food security really is no different from food sovereignty—or at the very least the two should not be thought of as exclusive. Food sovereignty puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies, rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It looks at solutions which take into account the environmental, social, economic, and cultural dimensions of food production, distribution and access. In other words, food sovereignty is a way of creating food security by giving people the power to make decisions about their own food production, distribution, and consumption. It is based on the principle that people should have the right to determine their own food and agriculture systems, rather than having them dictated by external forces such as corporations, governments, and international trade agreements. Food sovereignty emphasizes the importance of local production and consumption of food, as well as the right to save, exchange, and sell seeds. It also focuses on protecting traditional knowledge, promoting agroecology, and ensuring access to land, water, and other natural resources. By putting more power in the hands of local communities, food sovereignty helps to ensure that food will be produced, distributed, and consumed in ways that are socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable.

If organic, healthy foods are more expensive than non-organic foods the reason is simple: the corporate entities profit by the price gouging. But food sovereignty is a global movement that aims to shift the power dynamics of the food system away from corporate entities and towards local communities and producers. It seeks to empower communities to take control of their food production and distribution, with a focus on local, sustainable agriculture and food production that is beneficial to both the environment and the health of the people. Food sovereignty can help break the monopolization of the food industry by corporate entities by providing more organic foods directly to communities. This would ensure that communities have access to healthier, fresher, and more sustainable food options that are not controlled by large corporations. Food sovereignty also emphasizes the importance of local production and consumption, which could help reduce the environmental impact of industrial food production and distribution. Additionally, food sovereignty encourages the development of local economies, allowing communities to be more self-reliant and less dependent on large corporations. This could help make communities more resilient in the face of economic and environmental challenges.