A specific social problem/social justice issue/community concern is food insecurity and how it can be addressed by repurposing excess food and food waste.
Concern is food insecurity
● A specific social problem/social justice issue/community concern is food insecurity and how it can be addressed by repurposing excess food and food waste.
An agency dedicated to finding ways to repurpose excess food and potential food waste from restaurants, markets, and farms (also cafeterias, hotels and stadiums). The food would be gathered through partnerships with businesses, organizations and farmers. The food would be repurposed through soup kitchens, food banks, and formal dinner night efforts.
A challenge would be that it is new legal territory when it comes to liability. Innovative efforts could be using the excess food and food waste for composting and community garden projects
● The agency would be Mezzo social work, forming an organization to help the food insecure/homeless Glendale community.
● Agency is located in Glendale, CA. This presentation is being given at a City of Glendale public community meeting to its community stakeholders. And can potentially be presented at a Los Angeles County/Regional community meeting.
● The agency will target food insecure individuals and families, and individuals and families experiencing homelessness in the Glendale community.
● The agency will get startup funding through government grants. The agency will sustain funding through fundraising efforts, business partnerships, and monetary and food donations.
● Top interventions would be providing the community with resources through a food bank, food pantry, weekly soup kitchen and a monthly formal dinner night. At the soup kitchen and dinner nights food waste and excess food would be repurposed into meals made by a gourmet chef. The food bank and pantry would focus on donating fresh and packaged foods.
There will be an educational component in the form of how to utilize food waste for gardening. Our agency will have a small community garden that allows children, and community volunteers to contribute and learn more about what they can do to reduce food waste.
● The top 3 barriers to building and starting the agency would be: acquiring a location and receiving adequate funding, finding organizations that would like to partner with us despite liability, and funding the programs to repurpose foods in a timely, safe and healthy manner.
Food and food waste
Sustainable Food Systems
The production and consumption of sufficient, affordable and nutritious food, while conserving the natural resources and ecosystems on which food systems depend, is vital. Food systems play a central role in all societies and are fundamental to ensuring sustainable development. Sustainable food systems are critical to resolving issues of food security, poverty alleviation and adequate nutrition, and they play an important role in building resilience in communities responding to a rapidly changing global environment.
However, our food systems are under increasing pressure to respond to numerous and complex challenges. These include:
- Increasing demands – for greater quantity, quality and diversity of food –the world population is predicted to grow from 7.2 billion in 2010 to over 9 billion in 2050 with corresponding food demand predicted to increase by 60 per cent.
- Food loss and waste – roughly 30 per cent of the food produced worldwide is lost or wasted every year.
- Chronic hunger worldwide – 12.9 per cent of the population in developing regions suffer from hunger
- Obesity related health conditions – globally over 30 per cent of adults are estimated to be overweight or obese.
- Food price impacts on food security and wellbeing – in poorer areas people spend 50-80 per cent of their income on food and are highly exposed to price volatility.
- Climate change – food systems rely on natural resources, which are extremely vulnerable to rapidly changing climatic conditions.
- Wide-scale ecosystem change – food production itself has caused wide-scale changes in ecosystems, being responsible for 70 per cent of water withdrawals and a significant driver of deforestation and loss of biodiversity. It is also heavily dependent on these natural resources.
What is a sustainable food system?
‘A sustainable food system (SFS) is a food system that delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for (current and) future generations are not compromised.’
‘A food system gathers all the elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructures, institutions, etc.) and activities that relate to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, and the outputs of these activities, including socio-economic and environmental outcomes.’
UNEP Sustainable Food Systems Programme
Moving towards more sustainable food systems is critical. Urgent attention is required to address existing challenges, as well as new and evolving demands on our food systems. UNEP is committed to accelerating action through its Sustainable Food Systems programme of activities which aim to raise awareness as well as catalyse action at local, regional and international level.
We are doing this through 4 main focus areas:
- National Round-Tables on Sustainable Food Systems
- Climate Change, Urbanisation and Food Systems
- Sustainable Food System Thinking (interconnected policy making on food and agriculture)
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