Surely it's great news that Senator Edwards has offered a plan to fight hunger in America. The plan looks perfectly sensible and likely to be somewhat successful, but what's more important to me is that Edwards's plan can be thought of in the context of his broader anti-poverty agenda. Tackling poverty, broadly understood, ought to eliminate hunger and, consequently, the need for an anti-hunger strategy. Still, Edwards's plan begs the question: "Should other candidates show their commitment to ending hunger in particular by putting forward proposals to do so?"
12 December 2007
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Ah yes, but hunger is more complicated than simply ending poverty in today's America. The issue has evolved, which is why we use the term (questionable morality, I know) food insecurity to describe a condition that existed in 1968 America and in developing nations today.
Ending hunger is also about ensuring adequate access to quality foods (think food deserts in low income and rural areas), recalibrating the school lunch program from a surplus commodity outlet to a support of healthy child nutrition, and adopting a national vision for a proper and healthy diet. We can’t end the reality of poverty simply by moving people above a statistical threshold, nor is responding to hunger and its health consequences going to result from just more money in people's pockets.
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