Public Lecture and Debate given at the Centre for Citizenship, Conflict, Identity and Diversity, University of Huddersfield, UK
10 November 2017.
In the United States, food banks and food pantries proliferated after the economic recession of the early 1980s and the welfare cuts which followed. In his book, Fisher argues that what started as an 'emergency response' has now become a highly professional industry. With parallels in the rapid expansion of food charity in the UK following years of austerity, Fisher will ask what does it mean when anti-hunger initiatives are partnering with big businesses? Who profits and who is left behind?
Fisher has worked in the anti-hunger field in the US for twenty-five years and has led successful efforts which resulted in the passage of multiple pieces of federal food and nutrition legislation. In his new book, he argues that anti-hunger advocates and established food charities are missing an essential element of the problem: economic inequality driven by low wages. Reliant on corporate donations of food and money, anti-hunger organisations have failed to hold business accountable for moving jobs offshore, cutting benefits, exploiting workers and rural communities and resisting wage increases.
As he puts it, they have become part of a powerful “hunger industrial complex”:
"We have pretended that the problem is hunger and not poverty. We’ve pretended that the solution to hunger is charity, not ensuring the right to food or increasing the political power of the poor." - Andy Fisher
Videos quoted in the talk are:
Walmart TV Spot, ‘A Chain Reaction’ Song by Joe Cocker 30s 2May17 vimeo.com/215723936
Feeding America Grocer to Pantry PSA English czcams.com/video/CqtnEP2g4n8/video.html
Book
Andrew Fisher (2017) Big Hunger - The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.