The Effects of Income and Class on Food Security

1. The Effects of Income and Class on Food Security Elaine Power, Ph.D. School of Kinesiology & Health Studies Queen’s University

2. Food Security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Canada’s Action Plan on Food Security, 1998

3. Many layers • individual • household • community • region/foodshed • national • global

4. Two main emphases • physical & economic access to healthy food for ind’ls & households; skills & knowledge to prepare healthy food. • sustainable food system - ensuring that food producers are able to produce food that is healthy for humans, the environment and other creatures

5. Contradictory Needs • low income consumers need healthy food at a low cost • local food producers using sustainable methods need fair and adequate compensation for their work

6. Both groups are marginalized from the dominant system but in different ways

7. Marginalization & indignity in the food system • inability to inability to feed one’s family as one would wish • for some, the indignity of having to rely on charity, e.g., the food bank • lack of choice • lack of food

8. Marginalization in health • higher rates for health problems, esp mental health, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, etc. • malnutrition • physiological effects of the stress of living in poverty • not well-treated in the health care system

9. Marginalization in Consumer Society • inability to be “normal” and do “normal” things

10. Consumer ethic often rejected by proponents of fair & just food systems, but most people living in poverty wish only to “belong” to the dominant society to restore their dignity

11. “Logic of Practice”

12. Logic of food practices living on low income • staving off hunger • preventing your child from going hungry • symbolic ways of belonging to consumer society • preventing additional indignity (your own or your child’s) • making the children happy • keeping the man of the household satisfied

13. How do those of us in the middle class keep an open mind and heart to hear the “logic of practice” of those living on low-incomes? i.e., can we walk a mile in the shoes of another?

14. Two modest suggestions: • to make the food system sustainable and just, focus on the middle class • a guaranteed annual income (aka Basic Income) could solve the problems of both low-income consumers and sustainable food producers

15. Proposal: Income security is a necessary but not sufficient condition for food security.

16. The shadow is deepest when the light is brightest