Ethics of Charitable Food: Dilemmas for Policy and Practice 303093599X, 9783030935993

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Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio Esther M. Rebato Ochoa   Editors

Ethics of Charitable Food Dilemmas for Policy and Practice

Ethics of Charitable Food

Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio Esther M. Rebato Ochoa Editors

Ethics of Charitable Food Dilemmas for Policy and Practice

Editors Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio Constitutional Law, and Law and Ethics in the Biosciences University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) Bilbao, Spain

Esther M. Rebato Ochoa Faculty of Science and Technology University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) Bilbao, Spain

ISBN 978-3-030-93599-3 ISBN 978-3-030-93600-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, political institutions – from the local to the global – began to highlight the scandal of food waste. Tons of perfectly edible food were deemed unmarketable before being consumed, destined to be discarded. There have been repeated calls for measures to be implemented to address this scandal, and in 2012, the European Parliament declared food waste to be unacceptable for environmental, economic and ethical reasons. However, almost a decade later, there has been little change in the amount of food discarded. Among the more striking proposals that have emerged in response to food waste is the encouragement to donate surplus food to those in need. Countries such as France now fiscally penalise medium and large-sized shopping centres for discarding edible food, offering them the alternative of donating food to charitable organisations. In the high-income countries of Europe, we have seen an exponential growth in the number of food banks. The simple desire to salvage surplus food is clearly not the only factor in this growth. In North America, as well as in Europe, the increase in food donations obviously reflects an increase in those who, due to their economic circumstances, have to look to food charities to meet their basic needs. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its enormous economic impact, will no doubt result in an exponential increase in the numbers of people experiencing difficulty in accessing food. Further, in the face of crises such as COVID-19, emergency responses may work in the short term, but in the medium and long-term, they may cease to benefit those in need, making it more difficult for them to move beyond their situations of vulnerability. Even before the pandemic, a range of ethical questions had been raised by food charity but had simply not been effectively addressed in our societies. These questions are all the more urgent now. For example, why is it that – unlike other consumer goods – we find it unethical to waste food? And why do so many cultures consider it practically a moral obligation to feed those who are hungry? Is there a single motivation behind such food altruism, or are there a range of diverse motivations behind this behaviour? And from a human rights perspective, how should we critically analyse the different forms of charitable food, which are now becoming part of First World society? Are they all appropriate in recognising the dignity and rights of people? v

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Preface

This book offers a cross-disciplinary analysis of these issues which we hope will enable the reader to develop their own views. Each of the chapters looks at charitable food from a different perspective, based on research and reflection drawing on wideranging bibliographic and documentary sources from across the world. Bilbao, Spain

Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio Esther M. Rebato Ochoa

Acknowledgements

In this prominent place, we, the co-editors and authors of this book, wish to record our gratitude to Elspeth Broady for her efforts and, especially, the affection with which she has contributed to the success of this work. Our best wishes for whatever she undertakes in her personal and professional life.

Multidisciplinary group URBAN ELIKA – Studies on Food and Society (Universidad del País Vasco/EHU). PRs: Leire Escajedo San Epifanio/Esther Rebato Ochoa.

Sortarazi – Claretian Association for Human Development, Biskay (Spain).

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Acknowledgements

Basque University System Research Group on Multilevel Governance and EU Law IT- 1380/19, funded by the Basque Government (Principal Investigator: Alberto López Basaguren, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain).

Project “JAKI-ZUBIAK. Building food bridges: Response to the logistical, legal, nutritional and sanitary hygiene challenges of the strategies against waste and food poverty ”, by URBAN ELIKA, funded by University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, call for University-Society Projects, 2017–2019.

ELIKADURA EGOKIRANTZ Project: Promoting food autonomy and nutritional health in social intervention, funded by a Grant for Knowledge Management Activities oriented towards Social Intervention (Basque Government), 2018–2021. PR: Pilar Maroto Querol. Sortarazi Association.

Contents

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Introduction: Old and New Dilemmas Around Charitable Food. Promoting Reflection on (some) Policies and Practices . . . . . . Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio and Esther M. Rebato Ochoa

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When Wealth Can No Longer Hide Hunger: International Politics, Welfare Policies and the Need to Take Action . . . . . . . . . . Igor Filibi

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Ethical Debates on Global Hunger: Moral Obligations to the Distant Other and Global Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karlos Pérez de Armiño

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Food Sharing and Altruism: Reconstructing Behavioural Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Esther M. Rebato Ochoa

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The Right to Food and the Essential Promotion of Personal Autonomy: The ‘How’ Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio

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Food Sharing in Religious and Indigenous Traditions: Drawing Inspirations for Contemporary Food cum Climate Politics and Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Raymond Anthony

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Criminalising Poverty: The Stigma of Social Inequalities Within the Constitutional Framework of the European Union ‘Workfare State’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Ainhoa Lasa López

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Other Ways of Eating in Spain: Food Itineraries in a Context of Increasing Precarisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Mabel Gracia-Arnaiz ix

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Contents

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The Clash Between Charitable Food and the Human Right to Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Amaia Inza-Bartolomé

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The Corporatization of Food Charity in Canada: Implications for Domestic Hunger, Poverty Reduction, and Public Policy . . . . . . 151 Graham Riches

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Epilogue. Charitable Food: More Reflection Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio

Chapter 1

Introduction: Old and New Dilemmas Around Charitable Food. Promoting Reflection on (some) Policies and Practices Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio

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and Esther M. Rebato Ochoa

Feeding the Hungry: What Are the Issues and Dilemma(s)?

“There are many other worlds, but they are all in this one,” said the French poet Paul Eluard (quoted by Rincón, 1976). While we may be able to describe fairly easily what all human beings have in common, people occupy themselves with, and care about, very different things, even when living within a few metres of each other. What motivates and excites them, what scares or worries them, their hopes and their dreams: these are aspects of human life which show such great diversity that it is difficult -indeed, very difficult- to believe that all these different ways of living co-exist side by side. Abraham Maslow placed human nutritional needs in the first layer of his pyramid, among physiological needs (Maslow, 1943), but even in the satisfaction of nutritional needs, not all human beings are the same. It is true that no human being can survive without absorbing nutrients or access to clean water. For some lucky ones, there is a great abundance of foodstuffs within their reach – in many cases, easily available in the pantries and refrigerators of their homes – and drinking water is also easily accessible. For others, however, today will bring no food and no water. Already before the terrible Coronavirus pandemic that has spread around the world in 2020, it was estimated that hundreds of millions of people were suffering

L. Escajedo San-Epifanio Constitutional Law, and Law and Ethics in the Biosciences, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain e-mail: [email protected] E. M. Rebato Ochoa (*) Physical Anthropology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_1

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from severe hunger. The Coronavirus pandemic is dramatically worsening those extreme conditions; in some areas of the world, it is generating a humanitarian and food catastrophe. According to the World Food Programme, about 265 million people globally are forecast to be facing acute food insecurity by the end of 2020, a doubling of the 130 million estimated in 2019. The most pessimistic views estimate that the number of people in chronic hunger could double to more than 1.6 billion as a result of the pandemic (Diwakar, 2020). Of all the famines that have haunted the planet over recent decades, this one looks like being one of the most severe. The focus of this edited volume is not so much on how individuals or groups access food, but on how people and communities contemplate the fact that another human being needs access to food. It reflects on how we conceive of responsibility for ensuring that others have access to adequate food. In other words, it explores how we judge behaviours, active or passive, that affect whether others have access to food. Do we have a food responsibility towards ‘the other’? What does that responsibility entail? Is it a collective obligation, or the duty of individuals? Science has established, as we will see in the work of anthropologist Esther Rebato Ochoa, that sharing food is an anthropo-biologically traceable behaviour in human beings and in species close to them. There are prosocial behaviors that instinctively lead us to share food, but if we analyse them from the point of view of people’s beliefs and values, it becomes clear that not all such behaviours generate the same impact on recipients and on our relationships with them. Prosocial behaviour is the term applied to any intentional behaviour that results in benefits for another person; within this category of behaviours, generically described as ‘altruistic’, are those that are motivated by a genuine desire to benefit another person, without any expectation of benefits to oneself (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). However, researchers disagree as to whether, among prosocial behaviours, any behaviours really exist that can be described as ‘purely altruistic’ (Feigin et al., 2014). Most believe the answer is ‘no’. Behind every prosocial act, there is likely to be not one, but a whole host of very different motives, from empathy or compassion or perhaps expiation of guilt, to other desires such as wanting to feel socially recognised or, simply, good about oneself. If this kind of endless debate about motives arises in relation to an individual act, what about those actions that involve creating different types of structures or, even, institutions, that seek to do good for other people? We start out by looking at the complexity of situations, scenarios and relationships where there is a prosocial motive. The action of feeding the hungry is not easy to address from an ethical perspective. “What might be morally right to do in some situations”, warned Joseph Fletcher, “could be wrong in other situations”. This, observed Fletcher, highlights the relativity of ethics (Fletcher, 1976). “Like most of the classic virtues, generosity is two-faced and double-edged”, he cautioned, and in its practice, it is vital not to lose a critical perspective. This volume seeks to foster such a critical perspective, offering facts and references, reflections and questions, in the hope that the policies and practices of food charity will place at their core the needs and dignity of people who find themselves in situations of vulnerability or social exclusion. The quality of charity, suggested Robert D. Lupton in his

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enlightening essay, should be measured according to its ability to alleviate poverty and needs (Lupton, 2016): all strategies should be directed towards this essential end. The natural geographic distribution of resources and subsequent access to food “does play a part in food inequality” (D’Odorico et al., 2019), but very few countries in the world suffer from genuine food deficits. The determining factors in food security and access to food are fundamentally socio-economic factors, both collective (of specific populations or social groups) and of specific families and individuals (FSIN and GNAFC, 2020). It is within this context, both at a global and a local level, that behaviours and actions take place which can be grouped under the concept of charitable food – the focus of this book. We also look closely at contemporary charitable food assistance systems which have become more and more visible in recent years. In the chain of interrelated actions that make it possible for food to reach its recipients, old dilemmas have resurfaced while new dilemmas have arisen. The global economic crisis of 2008 generated significant pockets of food insecurity not only in countries with fragile economies, but also in more affluent areas of the so-called Global North. This led to an intensification of charitable food assistance programmes that have been established in the so-called affluent nations in order to distribute public and corporate food donations to those in need (Tarasuk & Eakin, 2003; Silvasti & Riches, 2014). Academic literature places the origins of these systems in the creation of the first food banks of our era (Escajedo San-Epifanio et al., 2017). Various sources (Poppendieck, 1999; Schneider, 2013, p. 756) locate the modern origin of food banks in Arizona in the late 1960s. John van Hengel, who was volunteering at a soup kitchen in Phoenix, began soliciting donations of surplus food products picked up from grocery stores in the area. Today, hundreds of thousands of food banks, in a multitude of formats, operate across the world. In 2019, before the Coronavirus pandemic, the food banks associated with the European Food Banks Federation (FEBA) alone distributed 768,000 tons of food products (slightly less than in 2018) to 9.5 million people (200,000 more people than in 2018). More than 45,000 charitable organisations in the EU collaborate in this distribution. The 2020 figures are unlikely to be more positive. The amount of food distributed will no doubt be well below other years due to the logistical difficulties created by the pandemic. The number of end beneficiaries, however, is likely to be significantly higher: there are more people in need but less food to redistribute. The pandemic and interim lockdown measures are affecting all countries. According to the ILO, the active population of the EU “will bear a heavy economic cost for years due to job loss, income reduction, underemployment, career uncertainty and insecure labor conditions” (ILO, 2020). In this scenario, it is foreseeable that unresolved issues around charitable food will reappear, prompting the re-emergence of dilemmas that were being debated in the period after the economic crisis of 2008. This book offers a space for reflection on these dilemmas and puts forward some proposals and policy recommendations in various areas.

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Critical Reflection on Food Charity and Food Systems

Critical reflection on charitable food assistance systems not only involves considering the decisions and attitudes that directly affect them but also requires, particularly in the case of how they function in affluent countries, careful consideration of the premises and key facts on which these systems are based. On the one hand, such systems target specific recipients, those who are experiencing food insecurity; on the other, they are linked to a second issue, namely the scandal that is food waste. It would be inappropriate to describe charitable food assistance systems as merely systems for the redistribution of surplus food, because as we shall see in detail, these systems go well beyond mere redistribution. We should also not ignore the fact that a significant proportion of food charity in the Global North is based on the distribution of surplus food, and of food donated by major business corporations. Food poverty and food waste appear, then, to go hand in hand in most contemporary food systems in the Global North, with some minor, but significant, variations, as we shall see. These are two sides of the same failure: we are still unable to feed all of our species despite landing on the Moon and preparing manned missions to Mars! This failure is no doubt due to the fact that we have shown little real effort in attempting to tackle either food poverty or food waste. Yet, at an international level we are increasingly emphatic in our rejection of the possibility that people should die of hunger; this has been a cliché uttered at every international summit since the late 1980s. But words without actions are just that: words. Expressed simply, the problem of hunger can be attributed to the complexity of the interests that we human beings have created with regard to water and food. Unlike other species, human beings assign to food certain functions that go well beyond merely obtaining nutrients that are essential for survival. We confer upon food functions that that have little or nothing to do with nutrition. Since time immemorial, and in very different ways, controlling food and its circulation has been used by human beings as an instrument of power over other human beings. As Article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UN, 1948) recognises, the right to food forms a part of the vital minimum that, along with housing, clothing and health care, people need in order to live with dignity. Significant challenges are faced by contemporary food systems in terms of food security, nutritional health, sustainability and protection of cultural heritage (Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2015). This might suggest that we have moved on from traditional human concerns, such as being able to access food on a daily basis. For thousands of years of human history, hunger has been a permanent threat, to which humans have responded by trying to create more or less complex reliable food systems. Currently, according to the FAO, we produce every day far more food than is needed to feed every human being on the planet. But the disappearance of hunger as a daily concern is only superficial, or, perhaps it is more accurate to say that hunger has disappeared for some human beings, but certainly not all. Since the 1990s, in particular, we can no longer explain hunger as the mere absence of food; hunger continues to kill over 25,000 people every day. There exists widely

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acknowledged structural injustice in relation to food, and we appear to be a long, long way from eliminating it (Sobhan, 2006). Food is produced in abundance, but millions of people cannot access adequate supplies of food. Processes such as sowing and harvesting, breeding livestock, processing and packaging food, commercialising and distributing it, acquiring and consuming it are significantly influenced by broader socio-political, economic and cultural factors which are not always directly connected with the satisfaction of our need for nutrients. The decisions we take individually and collectively, as well as the political and economic tensions between countries, contribute to food insecurity. The human right to food has to be a transversal priority (Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2015).

1.3

Charitable Food Policies and Practices: Proposals for Rational Ethical Analysis

Food sharing, as will be analysed in more detail in two of the chapters in this book, is regarded as a human altruistic behaviour par excellence (Rebato, 2015, 2018). Both from an anthropo-biological point of view (see the Chap. 4 by Rebato in this volume), and in diverse cultural and religious traditions (see the Chap. 6 by Anthony), sharing food and, in particular, offering it to those without food, is considered to be not only ethical conduct but, on many occasions, a moral obligation. Since the fourth century BC at least, when Emperor Constantine legalised the Christian Church, there has been evidence of institutions that attend to the poor, to the homeless and to orphans (Burckhardt, 1853, 1967). Alleviating the needs of others, especially by offering them specific material goods such as items of food, has been interpreted as an expression of piety in most cultures and situations. In Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, archive documents detail how churches and monasteries were a primary source of poverty relief until the gradual evolution of organised systems, partially or totally supported by state institutions. It is not easy -it may not even be possible- to identify precisely when the more or less religious provision (with the occasional support from the nobility) started to give way to other forms of provision. A key factor was clearly the major migrations from rural to urban areas. Partly in order to relieve poverty but also, most certainly, to reduce threats to the social order, public institutions – the embryonic form of our modern-day social welfare services – were set up to complement ecclesiastic systems and family support, particularly in the case of the urban poor. State welfare systems and different kinds of charitable organisations have co-existed, and continue to co-exist, in Western societies, and it would be difficult to describe the particular connections and relationships that have been interwoven between them in different historical and geographical contexts. Equally diverse have been the relationships between donors and recipients. At the end of the nineteenth century, particularly in England, some movements began to question the efficiency of systems that offered direct poor relief, but did nothing to break the cycle of

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chronic poverty. Reflection on the negative impact, in the medium term, of some measures of direct poor relief was to pave the way for models of social work that sought not only to provide immediate relief but, above all, to work towards the social inclusion of those excluded from society and its resources. Improving the social conditions of those in need thus became one of the most significant aims leading to the professionalisation of social work systems. Among the promoters of this new approach, the academic literature highlights Octavia Hill (1838–1912), who criticised some forms of aid for people in need as impersonal, excessively bureaucratised and indeed, “worse than useless” (Beresford, 2016). We do not yet appear to have resolved the excessive bureaucracy and impersonality in the provision of social aid that Hill identified. More than a century later, even those countries whose political constitutions boast a proud commitment to a ‘welfare state’ have yet to remedy the social exclusion of many vulnerable people. The debate over the most appropriate ways of assisting people in, or at risk of, social exclusion, taking into consideration their highly diverse profiles and individual problems, is far from over. Nevertheless, and particularly since the approval of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, there is a widespread belief that any measure aimed at relieving poverty should, in the medium term at least, seek the promotion of a person’s autonomy (Richards, 1981), understood as the capacity to decide for oneself and pursue a course of action. The modern understanding of human rights is heavily based on the notion of autonomy (Forst, 2005), but the degree to which some forms of poverty relief contribute to that autonomy continues to be, to this day, a key element in discussions. In the case of food, and particularly in the case of the donation in kind of surplus food, it seems that we are losing sight of the importance of promoting people’s autonomy and development. Several contributors to this volume -in particular, the Chap. 8 ‘Food itineraries in a context of increasing precarisation’ by Mabel Gracia Arnaiz and Chap. 7 ‘Criminalising poverty’ by Ainhoa Lasa López- seek to explain, from different perspectives, how some forms of distribution are not only ‘impersonal’ in ignoring an individual’s needs and preferences, but may also stigmatise people or, at the very least, generate an unwelcome dependence. And which new dilemmas have been added to the old ones? Firstly, there is the question of just how appropriate food redistribution is as a solution to simultaneously reducing food poverty and food waste. We produce enough food to feed the entire human population one-and-a-half times over, but actions devoted to sharing food are far from sufficient to prevent over 800 million starving people in the world (Caparros, 2020). What kind of solution is redistribution? Is it a provisional, emergency strategy, or should it be considered a possible permanent solution? And how should we treat donors? What rewards do they deserve? As will be seen through the different contributions to this book, the answers to these questions are neither unique to specific cases nor valid across the board; there are both common factors and specific features that need to be considered in every case. The question of reward is particularly problematic, since there is evidence that some food donors do not donate food with the recipients in mind, but rather are motivated by the rewards (normally economic benefits or, at least, tax breaks) they may receive in exchange

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for their actions. As we shall see, these questions connect with the debates over new kinds of philanthropy, concentrated among elites and handed down through increasingly control-oriented practices from donors to recipients (Edwards, 2015). Secondly, we highlight new dilemmas with regard to the question of what encourages food donation. What are the factors, the motives behind food donation, both in international development cooperation and in the domestic setting in relation to charitable food systems? Is ‘solidarity’ a clear, unambiguous concept or do we need kaleidoscopic glasses to perceive the interplay of lights, colours and reflections that criss-cross in food donation systems? The idea of solidarity has been described from very different perspectives and admits a variety of meanings and uses (Kolers, 2012), but as an object of research, the academic literature notes a striking absence of this concept, both in sociology (Alexander, 2014), in political sciences (Stjernø, 2005) and in political philosophy (Bayertz, 1998). Some authors, like Wilde, have gone so far as to say that this is because solidarity is seen, especially by politicians, as a concept “confined to the realm of rhetoric” and is not easily accommodated within methodical theoretical work (Wilde, 2007, p. 171). Meanwhile, Alexander (2014, p. 303) argues that solidarity “remains a central dimension of cultural, institutional and interactional life in contemporary societies”, despite the fact that postmodernity has typically been seen as a time of liquefying social ties and intensifying narcissistic individualism. Solidarity is not only important on account of its intrinsic value or its contribution to personal development, but it also has an important social function in that it motivates compliance with the demands of justice (Banting & Kymlicka, 2015). Interesting too is how we see the person in a situation of need. Are they ‘one of us’ or ‘one of them’? Are they to ‘blame’ for their situation? What type of support are we prepared to offer them? These are some of the questions examined in the Chap. 3 such as ‘Ethical debates on global hunger: moral obligations to the distant other’ by Karlos Pérez de Armiño, Chap. 5 ‘The right to food and the essential promotion of personal autonomy’ by Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio, ‘Criminalising poverty’ by Ainhoa Lasa López or ‘The clash between charitable food and the human right to food’ by Amaia Inza Bartolomé. No less importantly, other authors such as Igor Filibi (‘When wealth can no longer hide hunger’) and Graham Riches (‘The corporatisation of food charity’) describe the contrasting political narratives that in high-income countries seek to deny the existence per se of hungry people. As Jacob T. Levy (2015) has eloquently explained, the inhabitants of a political community do not cohabit as if they were an extended family, a band or a tribe. They are more like strangers who find themselves locked together in a very large room. They are united only by the shared circumstances of inhabiting a common state (or even the same planet) and there is practically no other relationship beyond these temporary circumstances. Living alongside each other thus means little more than sharing a physical space with lots of other people, most of them strangers. For this reason, establishing bonds between people that foster prosocial behaviour
that is, building and sustaining solidarity – has been, and still is, an enduring challenge in all liberaldemocratic societies (Banting & Kymlicka, 2015). In our current highly diverse societies, the challenge seems even greater.

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Alexis de Tocqueville (1835–40) said that individualism produces blind social structures, which can both promote and constrain personal freedom and well-being; that socio-economic structures can cause, or at least contribute to perpetuating, inequality. The world, says Peter Singer, is not made up of victims and their saviours, but of “the exploited and the exploiters” (Singer, 2016). It is not a question, then, of saving victims, but of destroying models of exploitation. Bearing in mind where those models of exploitation have led us two centuries after the Industrial Revolution, it is hard to believe that we have not yet got to work on adjusting them, if only out of pure self-interest. Martin Niemöller’s poem, entitled ‘First they came’, challenges us to reflect on our attitudes towards injustices that affect others (Niemöller, 1946). It is a poem about cowardice in the face of injustice and about how we look the other way when there are purges – Niemöller specifically had in mind the actions of the Nazis in Germany – that do not affect the entire population but purge chosen targets, group after group. “First they came for some, and I was not worried”, says the poem, “because I was not one of them. Then they came for others, and still I said nothing, because I. . . was not one of them”. If we do not act altruistically for ‘them’, the poem invites us to think, maybe pure self-interest will prompt us to act? Otherwise, when ‘they’ come for ‘us’, when we feel ourselves trapped in inequality, there may be no one left to speak for us.

References Alexander, J. (2014). Morality as a cultural system: On solidarity civil and uncivil. In V. Jeffries (Ed.), Palgrave handbook of altruism, morality and social solidarity (pp. 303–310). Palgrave. Banting, K. G., & Kymlicka, W. (2015). The political sources of solidarity in diverse societies. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. Research paper RSCAS 2915/75. https://papers. ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id¼2670696 Bayertz, K. (1998). Solidarity and the welfare state: Some introductory considerations. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 1, 293–296. Beresford, P. (2016). All our welfare: Towards participatory social policy. Policy Press. Burckhardt, J. (1853, 1967). The age of Constantine the Great. Random House. Caparros, M. (2020). Hunger: The oldest problem. Melville House. D’Odorico, P., Carr, J. A., Davis, K. F., Dell’Angelo, J., & Seekell, D. A. (2019). Food inequality, injustice, and rights. BioScience, 69(3), 180–190. Diwakar, V. (2020, March 10). From pandemics to poverty: The implications of coronavirus for the furthest behind. ODI. https://www.odi.org/blogs/16754-pandemics-poverty-implications-coro navirus-furthest-behind Edwards, M. (2015). From love to money: Can philanthropy ever foster social transformation? In B. Morvaridi (Ed.), New philanthropy and social justice: Debating the conceptual and policy discourse (pp. 33–46). Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447316978.003. 0002 Eisenberg, N., & Miller, P. A. (1987). The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors. Psychological Bulletin, 101(1), 91–119. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.101.1.91 Escajedo San-Epifanio, L. (2015). Challenging food governance models: Analyzing the food citizen and the emerging food constitutionalism from an EU perspective. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 28(3), 435–454.

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Escajedo San-Epifanio, L., Inza Bartolomé, A., & De Renobales Scheifler, M. (2017). Food banking. In Encyclopaedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. https://link.springer.com/ referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-6167-4_555-1 Feigin, S., Owens, G., & Goodyear-Smith, F. (2014). Theories of human altruism: A systematic review. Annals of Neuroscience and Psychology, 1(1), 1–9. Fletcher, J. (1976). Feeding the hungry: An ethical appraisal. Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 59(1), 52–69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41177982 Forst, R. (2005). Political liberty: Integrating five conceptions of autonomy. In J. Christman (Ed.), Autonomy and the challenges to liberalism (pp. 226–242). Cambridge University Press. FSIN and Global Network against Food Crises (GNFC). (2020). Global report on food crises 2020 September update. https://www.fsinplatform.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/ GRFC2020_September%20Update_0.pdf International Labour Organization (ILO). (2020, March 18). COVID-19 and the world of work: Impact and policy responses. ILO Monitor (1st ed.). https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/ public/%2D%2D-dgreports/%2D%2D-dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_738753.pdf Kolers, A. (2012). Dynamics of solidarity. Journal of Political Philosophy, 20(4), 365–383. Levy, J. T. (2015). Against fraternity: Democracy without solidarity. In W. Kimlicka & K. Banting (Eds.), Solidarity in diverse societies: Nationhood, immigration and the welfare state. Springer. Lupton, R. D. (2016). Charity detox: What charity would look like if we cared about results. Harper Collins. Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396. Niemöller, M. (1946). First they came for the Socialists. Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martinniemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists Poppendieck, J. (1999). Sweet charity: Emergency food and the end of entitlement. Penguin Books. Rebato, E. (2015). Food altruism in human beings: Facts and factors. In L. Escajedo & M. de Renobales (Eds.), Envisioning a future without food waste and food poverty: Societal challenges 2015 (pp. 225–231). Wageningen Academic Publishers. Rebato, E. (2018). Compartir el alimento: una visión bioantropológica. In L. Escajedo, E. Rebato, & A. López Basaguren (Eds.), Derecho a una alimentación adecuada y despilfarro alimentario. Monografías de alta calidad en investigación jurídica (pp. 285–297). Valencia. Richards, D. A. J. (1981). Rights and autonomy. Ethics Journal – Special Issue on Rights, 92(1), 3–20. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rincón, L. (1976). Cartas cruzadas entre Paul Eluard y Teofrasto Bombasto de Hohenheim llamado Paracelso. Los libros de la frontera. Schneider, F. (2013). The evolution of food donation with respect to waste prevention. Waste Management, 33(3), 755–763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2012.10.025 Silvasti, T., & Riches, G. (2014). Hunger and food charity in rich societies: What hope for the right to food? In G. Riches & T. Silvasti (Eds.), First world hunger revisited. Food charity or the right to food? (pp. 191–208). Palgrave Macmillan. Singer, P. (2016). Famine, affluence and morality. Oxford University Press. Sobhan, R. (2006). Poverty as injustice: Refocusing the policy agenda. In K. B. Griffin & J. K. Boyce (Eds.), Human development in an era of globalization (pp. 325–343). Edward Edgar Publishers. Stjernø, S. (2005). Solidarity in Europe: The history of an idea. Cambridge University Press. Tarasuk, V., & Eakin, J. M. (2003). Charitable food assistance as symbolic gesture: An ethnographic study of food banks in Ontario. Social Science & Medicine, 56(7), 1505–1515. Tocqueville, A. (1835–40). Democracy in America (H. Reeve, Trans.). Saunders and Otley. United Nations (UN). (1948). The universal declaration of human rights. Available at: https:// www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html Wilde, L. (2007). The concept of solidarity: Emerging from. The theoretical shadows. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 9, 171–181.

Chapter 2

When Wealth Can No Longer Hide Hunger: International Politics, Welfare Policies and the Need to Take Action Igor Filibi

2.1

Hunger, an Uncomfortable Truth: Introductory Remarks

Seen from a broad perspective, in the context of accelerating globalisation, hunger presents an increasingly complex geographical picture. The simple contrast between rich and poor countries – those with well-fed populations and those where people die of starvation – has given way to a much more varied picture where, in every continent and country, areas of wealth and extreme need exist side by side Graham Riches’ (1997) pioneering work, with its unambiguous title First World Hunger, has revealed a world divided in different ways, disrupting the easy opposition of ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ countries. The shortage of food in what used to be known as the Third World was a ‘fact’ that was simply assumed. But an uncomfortable truth has now emerged: hunger, the eradication of which was so often cited as an example of our collective success in the First World, has reappeared and challenges both our world view and our image of ourselves. Indeed, the re-emergence of hunger in wealthy countries calls into question the alleged success of the capitalist, liberal and democratic model. The lack, in rich countries, of something as basic as enough food to live healthily, casts serious doubt on the following: • The efficiency of the model in the allocation of resources. Liberalism, since Adam Smith (1759/2002) coined the metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’, has proclaimed itself the best instrument with which to allocate resources rationally and efficiently in order to address social needs. This has given rise to a profound ideological debate with strong arguments both for and

I. Filibi (*) Department of International Law and International Relations, Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain e-mail: igor.fi[email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_2

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against. However, the existence of hunger among the populations of immensely wealthy societies is something so stark and so shocking that it sets new parameters for the debate. Most would probably agree that a system of management and allocation of abundant resources that is incapable of guaranteeing the simple survival of part of its population cannot be described as ‘efficient’, even before entering into further questions of a moral or social nature. • The morality of a political system that abandons part of the population to its fate. At the centre of the debate would be the hard core of the values that supposedly inspire our democracies and social systems: equality, human dignity, the Greek concept of aspiring to a ‘life worth living’, etc. • The coherence of the concept of ‘nation’ as a political community. Our national democracies are founded on the notion of a political community referred to as a ‘nation’. But can society which defines itself in this way as nation, simply cease to care about some members of its national community, to the extent that they lack the necessary food to survive? • The role of the state If there is a central element that has contributed over time towards the consolidation of ‘states’, it has been a state’s ability to protect its population. This basic principle clearly applies in the event of external military threat, but does it become invalid and ineffective when part of the population of that state faces starvation? As can be seen from the above, the simple word ‘hunger’ or, more often, ‘malnutrition’, triggers a complex range of issues because what we are referring to is, quite simply, a matter of life and death. The goal of this short chapter, aimed at an audience from various disciplines, cannot be to treat this subject exhaustively; rather, we offer some ideas that should help frame and define the field of debate, bringing into play insights from various areas of knowledge. To this end, the chapter is structured around four key points. First, we establish the obvious, but no less necessary, fact that hunger exists in rich countries and in industrialised countries with welfare states. This leads us to a second point: governments and industrialised states find it difficult to acknowledge the existence of hunger or malnutrition within their populations, and to assume the moral and political responsibilities that follow from this. We explore the reasons behind this and offer some keys to understanding the behaviour of states and governments. Our third point is that hunger is directly related to specific policies, both international and domestic. This allows us to define the debate more clearly, focusing it on issues that can be modified by public actors. We finish with a moral question: is the existence of hunger and malnutrition acceptable in a democracy? This is a basic, but at the same time, central question, since the answer helps us address the role that should be played by private food banks, charity, etc., in our social and welfare states.

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The Existence of Hunger in Rich, Industrialised Countries with Welfare States

Media coverage of First World hunger grew after the 2008 economic crisis, which was seen as its primary cause. However, less well known is that between 2006 and 2008, as a prelude to the economic crash, there was a global crisis in food prices that caused considerable unrest around the world. The causes of this crisis were considered to be: “rising petroleum prices, adverse weather, burgeoning meat consumption, diversion of agricultural lands to biofuels production, and financial speculation in agricultural commodity markets” (González, 2011, p. 77). But even before that, hunger existed in industrialised countries, as well as in developing countries. In his pioneering book, First World Hunger, Riches (1997) observed that: “[d]uring the 1980s and 1990s hunger and absolute poverty have re-emerged as a significant social issue in many rich industrial countries”. His study analysed the situation in five countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USA. There is thus empirical evidence of hunger in wealthy societies since at least the 1980s. It is true that First World hunger is of a different magnitude to that typically experienced in developing countries, as Riches himself acknowledges. However, this should not invalidate the evidence that hunger exists in the First World, in industrialised countries that possess a significant part of the world’s wealth: Clearly one should distinguish first world hunger from the starvation and malnutrition brought about by famine and endemic undernourishment in developing countries . . . Yet hunger and undernutrition caused by lack of access to food is a growing phenomenon in affluent first world countries, certainly not on the scale that exists in developing countries, but as the data presented in this book suggest, its prevalence is a major public policy issue (Riches, 1997, p. 7).

This is not the first time that today’s rich countries have experienced poverty and hunger. The markets, guided by liberal principles, have clearly demonstrated that the ‘invisible hand’ cannot control huge inequalities and even hunger, as was the case in the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, until the end of the twentieth century, hunger was more typically caused by extreme meteorological phenomena, epidemics and wars. For example, the strategy of imposing blockades during the First World War, not only of weapons but also of food and fertilisers, represented the use of hunger as a weapon of war and was directly aimed at the civilian population. For this reason, the capacity of the Allies to organise international food markets became a decisive factor in the final victory (Vincent, 1985). As a result of the allied blockade, which continued for eight months after the signing of the armistice, large regions of Europe and the Ottoman Empire suffered from hunger, women and children in particular (Cox, 2019). During the Second World War, food rationing was again introduced, and there was massive state intervention in an attempt to ensure that armies and civilian populations were properly fed. Indeed, the Second World War could be seen as one gigantic battle to obtain food, during which millions

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of people died of hunger in Greece, Germany, Russia, China, India, etc. (Collingham, 2011). In the post-war period, thanks to economic development, the role of the state and its various social policies, hunger appeared to have been reduced to a very marginal problem in industrialised countries with welfare states. That was until the 1980s, when various reports began to warn of the re-emergence of hunger. At the time, many regarded this as nothing more than alarmism, but Riches (1997) confirmed that it existed then, and it continues to exist now (Riches & Silvasti, 2014). According to the most recent FAO figures (FAO, 2019, p. XIV, emphasis added): Over 2 billion people, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, do not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food. But irregular access is also a challenge for highincome countries, including 8 percent of the population in Northern America and Europe.

In the USA alone, 47 million people -equivalent to the entire population of Spainparticipate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP). This is just one of the 15 nutritional assistance and food programmes run by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), through which one in every four US citizens receives assistance. The USA differs from other OECD countries “in its heavy reliance on food assistance rather than income transfers to aid impoverished families” (Poppendieck, 2014, pp. 176–177). This gradual deterioration in living conditions, even in wealthy countries, had already occurred in the past. An illustrative case is that of Argentina, which, at the turn of the twentieth century was, according to every analysis, one of the nations destined to become a world power. Until the First World War, its per capita income was similar to that of the USA and until the 1930s, it continued to be one of the ten richest countries in the world, thanks to its size, its considerable natural resources, its huge agricultural production and the quality of its educational system. However, the dictatorships of the 1930s and the subsequent autarkic policies precipitated a process of decline throughout the twentieth century. During the governments of Carlos Menem (1989–1999) and Fernando de la Rúa (1999–2001), this country of enormous wealth proceeded to dismantle its social structures and policies in a set of savage structural adjustments. In the context of the resulting severe economic and social crisis, news emerged in 2002 of the death in Tucumán of four six-year-old children, each weighing under ten kilos. Argentine public opinion went into shock. The NGO Red Solidaria then published data which showed that over 260,000 children in Argentina were suffering from malnutrition. UNICEF added to this information, indicating that seven out of every 100 Argentine babies were born underweight, due, in most cases, to the fact that their mothers were also undernourished. A group of NGOs launched a petition requesting that Parliament guarantee an adequate food supply for almost two and a half million children and pregnant mothers living in conditions of extreme poverty, obtaining over a million signatures in just a few weeks. The government was forced to open an investigation and the Health Minister, González García, admitted that 11,000 died every year as a result of avoidable causes, though he blamed this situation on the neoliberal policies of previous governments. The Argentine people

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simply could not understand how it was possible for children to starve to death in their country, once considered to be ‘the world’s breadbasket’; in 2002, cereal and soya production reached an all-time high and Argentina was still one of the main meat-producing counties in the world, with a cattle population of over 44 million head (Santarcángelo & Fal, 2009). A year later, despite Operativo Rescate, the ambitious state programme to combat hunger, nothing had changed. During the presidential election campaign, the candidates repeated their promises to increase plans to supply food, but the issue was no longer at the top of the political agenda. During 2003, Argentina exceeded its all-time record with a harvest of 70 million tonnes of grain, representing an estimated export income of 10,000 million dollars. Yet between 80 and 100 children were dying from malnutrition every day in Argentina (Ares, 2003). This was stark evidence that being a rich country, even in food production, does not prevent the emergence of hunger. In January 2015, the death of Néstor Femenía, a seven-year-old from the Qom ethnic group in the Chaco region of Argentina, dealt another blow to public opinion. In this case, there was a further element that particularly outraged the Argentine population. Investigations by journalists uncovered attempts to silence the case. For example, the boy’s death certificate recorded the cause of death as ‘illness’, without mentioning the fact that he had suffered from malnutrition and tuberculosis. This proved to be common practice in the hospitals of the region, which regularly altered official statistics, making it impossible to keep an accurate record of the number of deaths due to malnutrition. Several newspapers reported that the then Argentine Health Minister, Juan Manzur, when he was Health Minister in the province of Tucumán, had sought to conceal such cases by modifying the method of measuring child nutrition; if in 2007 there were officially 20,000 undernourished children, that figure fell under the new system to below 4000 (González, 2015).

2.3

Government Reluctance to Acknowledge Hunger and Malnutrition

The Argentine case described above shows how political elites are reluctant to accept the existence of hunger and malnutrition as a structural reality in their country. The initial reaction is usually to deny the statistics. When the statistics make it impossible to look the other way, the typical response is to limit the importance of the phenomenon (it is ‘exceptional’, an ‘extreme case’); limit it in time (it is ‘temporary’); or propose measures that are superficial or simply amount to political public relations (an emergency plan with limited funds or duration, or financing the work of NGOs in the field through exceptional budgetary aid). What these typical responses have in common is that they deny the government’s responsibility and their obligation to take any effective measures of a structural nature.

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Given that governments will only feel obliged to react when the statistics are clear-cut and irrefutable, the question of the definition and measurement of hunger and of poverty becomes crucial. There are typically disputes involving data and definitions; a war of figures and an absence of figures. The methodologies of measurement distinguish between what is judged politically useful and what is not, what is relevant and what is not. This may explain the fact, noted by Pérez de Armiño in relation to Spain, that: [despite the] erosion of the livelihoods of the more vulnerable families, which reduces their capacity to access essential goods, not least of which is food . . . it is striking that neither the official statistics nor prestigious reports by different social organizations include hardly any specific data on the deterioration of the nutritional situation (Pérez de Armiño, 2014, p. 132).

The absence of data, especially official data, makes it easier to focus discussion on how to obtain the data rather than on the essential debate itself. This would explain why governments are reluctant to create reliable databases, or at least to make them public. Thus, only data provided by NGOs and prestigious social movements -that is, demonstrable cases of extreme malnutrition particularly affecting children (which potentially have huge media impact)- are capable of periodically bringing the issue to the public’s attention. It is not only governments that appear to be reluctant about accepting the existence of hunger in wealthy countries. An anecdote from Spain illustrates this point. When in 2015 the newly elected Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, summoned a group of entrepreneurs to show them the data on hunger and malnutrition in the city, their first reaction was simply to question it. They repeatedly claimed that the figures could not possibly be correct. The answer provided by Colau, who had just taken office, was categoric: “Do you really think I would be Mayor of Barcelona if this data were not true?” She was referring to the fact she had been elected following the wave of indignation against austerity policies that in 2011 produced the 15-M movement in Spain. Such incredulity when faced with the facts of First World hunger permeates all sectors of society. Focusing on the case of Australia, John Wilson highlighted the contrast between the image of what he calls the ‘Lucky Country’ – which is how many Australians like to see their country- and what he calls the ‘Hungry Silence’. Until the 1990s, the issue of hunger in Australia was subsumed within the wide parameters of health policy. Only in 1992 did the Federal Government announce the creation of the National Food and Nutrition Policy “with the equitable improvement of nutritional status as its goal” (Wilson, 1997, p. 24). However, 2 years later, an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report played down malnutrition in the following statement: Nutrition is an important contributor to health, and the evidence linking diet with the chronic, preventable, non-communicable diseases is sufficiently strong for public health initiatives to include improved nutrition as a major component. These diseases and their risk factors arise from overconsumption. Although there are less than optimum intakes of some nutrients in some groups, undernutrition is uncommon in Australia (cited in Wilson, 1997, p. 25).

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Wilson presents detailed data that debunk this official statement. At the start of his conclusions, he sums up the Australian situation in the 1990s with the following contrast: In the Lucky Country, where the existence of hunger is officially denied, this decade has already seen two nationwide food collection and emergency relief drives, initiated not by governments but by NGWOs in co-operation with the private sector and the media. The first, Food for All, was a community-inspired response to increasing poverty in the wake of the 1990–2 recession. The second, Farmhand, is a current response to the plight of Australia’s rural communities experiencing one of the worst droughts in the nation’s history (Wilson, 1997, p. 42).

In the case of North America, Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, tells how the first developed country that he visited on an official mission was Canada, in May 2012. The way he was received both by the media and by different political parties was symptomatic of the denial of First World hunger: they “questioned the very premise of the visit. What was a UN human rights expert doing examining food systems in the developed world while millions were starving in poor countries?” (De Schutter, 2014, p. ix). There appears thus to be a generalised resistance to accepting that hunger exists in wealthy nations. Among the main reasons for this, we identify the following: (a) the self-image of rich societies; (b) the coherence of their world view; (c) their external prestige, and (d) the internal legitimacy of their political power. (a) Self-image. Everyone knows that hunger exists, but most people who live in rich countries assume this only occurs in ‘poor countries’. Over time, the developed countries have created an elaborate conception of the world, marked by certain central divisions: rich vs. poor countries, civilised vs. barbarian, development vs. underdevelopment, etc. These visions of ‘others’ fulfil an important function in creating the image that we in the West want to have of ourselves, as evidenced by Said (1979) in his book Orientalism. For this reason, for example, the Spanish press has no problem publishing data and cases of hunger in Argentina (Ares, 2003), but it is very difficult to get access to data relating to Spain itself (Pérez de Armiño, 2014). (b) Coherence of world view. Hunger was seen by the Western colonial powers as something that existed in the colonies, but which was only residually present in the imperial homelands. Indeed, one of the symbols of the power and success of the British Empire was not just that it was able to feed its own population, but that it was able to do so through supplies of food from all over the world (Collingham, 2017). This may explain why the idea that hunger exists in European countries is so repellent. It is not merely a question of data or politics; it is something which calls into question the European world view. Dana Simmons has argued that: [T]he World Wars brought a properly colonial style of medicine into the metropole. Doctors in wartime Europe employed techniques of coercive selection and human experimentation in large-scale human experiments, following an established colonial model. Colonial methods entered Europe at precisely the moment when mass starvation and bare life –the limit between life and death– touched wide populations. In the process,

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This has resonance with the words of Aimé Césaire (1950/2000, p. 36). Césaire argues that colonisation brutalised the colonisers and de-civilised them, by vaccinating them against the pain and barbarism that they permitted in their colonies. The author then describes how, via a terrible boomerang effect, Europeans saw secret police (the Gestapo), prisons and torture suddenly appear in Europe. Césaire comments that the European citizen “cannot forgive Hitler for is not the crime in itself, the crime against Man”, but the fact that Hitler treated European citizens in ways European countries had so far only treated their colonial subjects. (c) External prestige. Regarding hunger as something that occurs in poor countries feeds the ego of those who believe that such a phenomenon does not exist in their country. The failure of ‘other’ countries to feed their population makes ‘our’ society look all the more successful, and this -almost inevitably – is then taken as proof of the superiority of capitalism, liberalism and democracy. Consequently, hunger is seen as being confined to certain regions, reinforcing the prestige of some ideologies and political systems to the detriment of others. (d) Internal legitimacy of political power. Feeding the population appears to be a fundamental mark of a state’s success and of the legitimacy of the political system as seen by the population. Among the primary functions that should be performed by any political power is that of sustaining its population. But in that case -reversing the argument- how can a political power claim to be legitimate if it is incapable of feeding its population? There are numerous examples of how, when the food supply begins to fail, particularly as a consequence of war, this leads to uprisings, attempted revolutions and the questioning of the political power itself. A clear example of this can be seen in the famine that devastated India in 1943. In the region of Bengal, over four million people died, largely owing to the reluctance of the authorities to admit that there was a crisis, which would draw attention to their political responsibilities. The end result was a colossal humanitarian catastrophe: “The pictures of starving and dying people in Calcutta –‘the empire’s second city’– contributed to the massive loss of legitimacy of British colonial rule in India” (Jachertz & Nützenadel, 2011, pp. 106–107).

2.4

Hunger and Its Links to Specific Policies

Faith in the market was a sacred axiom for governments and economic elites at the beginning of the twentieth century. Even during the First World War, the liberal economy remained untouchable, which caused considerable inefficiency in the allied war effort. France did not requisition the merchant fleet, and the British Empire only did so partially and well into the conflict. In November 1914, Jean Monnet – who years later would be one of the architects of European integration – was sent to

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London by the French government in order to strengthen cooperation between the two allies. Involved in the task of civilian provisioning, on his arrival he was soon aware of the disorganised state of the wartime economy, not only between the Allies but in each of the two countries. In his own words: This can only have been due to the blind confidence that both placed in the machinery of international trade, which was thought capable of meeting any situation that might arise. People were reluctant to interfere in free trade, for fear of disrupting a system that in any case would have to be resumed once the war was over. Even when it became obvious that the war was going to be a long one, no overt steps were taken to introduce rational planning. It was necessity which here and there led to intervention, control, or takeovers by the State (Monnet, 1978, p. 53).

In late 1914, there was only one International Supply Commission, in London, restricted to supplying the armies and which, even then, excluded wheat, flour, meat and sugar. It was thus pure necessity that led the British and French governments to stop competing against one another in international markets and to purchase goods together, charter reefer vessels under identical conditions, and ultimately, to jointly organise wheat purchases, though this was still only for military consumption. However, as the war continued, the pressure on the population increased: The ban on trade with the enemy had upset the old patterns of supply and made it necessary to seek new sources. Germany, herself blockaded, was trying to blockade Britain and, indirectly, France. Submarine warfare was a deadly threat to the whole Alliance, whose civil and strategic resources depended to a great extent on supplies brought in by the British fleet. The disruption of trade patterns and the fear of being torpedoed encouraged speculation and higher prices. Rationing by the purse would quickly have led to social unrest. So the authorities had to assume responsibility for buying essential commodities. . . . Overcoming their natural reluctance, the British led the way by setting up the ‘Royal Sugar Commission’, which brought up all available sugar from America, Cuba, and Java (Monnet, 1978, p. 56).

The Royal Sugar Commission was the first example of a government accepting responsibility for feeding its population. But bolder steps would soon have to be taken. On January 31, 1917, Germany declared ‘total’ submarine warfare and during that year alone sank over six million tonnes of shipping. In France, when production fell by 60%, it was assumed that North America, Argentina or Australia could send their surpluses, but there were no ships available. Under these circumstances, the French government rationed bread and requisitioned all cereals. The allied commissions that centralised operations and undertook joint purchasing programmes (wheat, oil, meat, etc.) began to play a decisive role in the war, especially the transport commission, which pooled the available ships and assigned them according to need. Monnet writes in his memoirs that, still during the war in October 1917, President Wilson remarked on how impressed he was by the Wheat Executive, identifying this formula for world control of a product as a useful tool with which to administer peace in the post-war era. Similarly, various individuals from the allied nations proposed an international conference on raw materials once the war had ended. The French government drafted its own document on this subject in April 1918. On December 31, 1918, the British government sent a note indicating that:

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These arguments appeared to be prevailing when on January 1, 1919 President Wilson subscribed to these points of view and named a representative. However, the pressure exerted by different North American export interests prompted the US government to undermine the value of the agreements via the introduction of endless lists of exceptions. Finally, on February 18, the US government withdrew from the negotiations, announcing that the system of allied commissions was “contrary to the views of [Wilson’s] Government, which intended that pre-war methods of trade should be restored as soon as possible” (Monnet, 1978, p. 74). The market had triumphed. The same thing happened after the Second World War (Monnet, 1978, pp. 226–9). As soon as the conflict ended, France returned to the market economy and the government’s immediate problem was “preventing the French having a worse winter in 1945 than under the Occupation, while at the same time, laying the foundations for longer-term recovery”. Those initial months were very much focussed on guaranteeing the necessary supplies and loans. Over a year after Liberation, “the French were still subsisting on fewer than 2,000 calories a day”, and “preparations were being made to reintroduce bread coupons and to ration meat, which made for a prosperous black market.” Given the situation sketched above, it comes as no surprise that “the construction of a post-war international order began with food” (Cullather, 2007, p. 362). The two world wars highlighted interdependence between countries at a global level in terms of food production, distribution and consumption. By the end of the First World War, access to food had already become a central geopolitical issue. From the mid-1920s onwards there was an intensification of market and trade regulation in most countries and, in particular, in Europe, with a view to guaranteeing long-term food supply. A further consequence of the 1914 war was the acknowledgement that hunger was not only a symptom of regional crises but the product of global imbalances that required some kind of international regulation (Jachertz & Nützenadel, 2011, pp. 101–2). Given that the lack of regulation of international trade was considered to be one of the factors that had led to the Second World War, 1947 saw the founding of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In Mark Ritchie’s words: The original goal of GATT was to establish rules for world trade in order to increase its volume, an objective which would tend to decrease local food self-reliance in favor of increased global interdependence. However, a number of the negotiators who wrote the original GATT agreement, especially representatives from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), argued forcefully that the food security needs of each nation made the goal of unlimited expansion in world food trade not necessarily appropriate for agriculture (Ritchie, 1988, p. 1).

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Despite the inclusion of certain safeguard clauses, such as Article XI of the GATT treaty,1 the GATT policies and practices, and those of other international multilateral actors such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, created highly monopolised international trade. In the case of agriculture, Ritchie (1988, p. 1) notes that at the end of the 1980s “a dozen grain corporations now control over 90 percent of world grain trade, dangerously compromising the food self-reliance of all nations, both rich and poor”. On the domestic front, while social conflict had increased throughout the nineteenth century, the beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the First World War (1914–1918), the Russian Revolution (1917) and the Great Depression (1929–1933). In response to these challenging social situations, “the role of state in managing the economy expanded dramatically” (Singh, 2017, p. 434), as Gamble notes for the British case: In quantitative terms the changes were dramatic. The UK for example had had very low levels of public spending and taxation in the nineteenth century, less than 10 per cent of national income before 1914. After the First World War and the granting of universal suffrage this rose to between 20–30 per cent between 1920 and 1940. After the Second World War the level rose again, to 38–45 per cent. 20–25 per cent of this represented social spending (Gamble, 2018, p. 5).

Public spending, and in particular social spending, reached even higher levels in the Nordic countries, Germany and France. There is no doubt that between the end of the Second World War and 1973, the success of the welfare state was extraordinary (Logue, 1979). While it is true that hunger and malnutrition did not disappear, in rich countries policies were implemented to relieve at least the most extreme forms of hardship and almost full employment made social advancement possible for broad sections of the population. By contrast, as we have seen, the more recent changes in policies, under the political and ideological hegemony of neoliberalism, have resulted in a major increase in poverty and social exclusion, and a context of increasing inequality. This section has sought to demonstrate – albeit briefly – the direct correlation between domestic and international policies and social consequences. Hunger was successfully combatted by expanding social policies and the state’s responsibility for its population with the creation of the welfare state. Hunger was again successfully addressed during both world wars by means of state intervention and strategic control of the means of production and transport. In addition, there was major international consensus among experts and governments at the end of both wars, that the highly globalised system of food supply could only function effectively via some kind of international organisation. However, after both wars, the export and trade interests of some powers, in particular the USA, prevented the introduction of regulations guaranteeing the right to food and, in contrast, constructed a global system focussed on the market and on ensuring profits for the handful of

1

This provision recognises the right of each country to limit the quantity of imports of agricultural products.

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corporations controlling food markets (Rubio, 2014). This was in spite of governments being fully aware that the absence of a worldwide regulatory mechanism had been a decisive factor in the outbreak of the wars. Following Galtung’s (1998, p. 2) assertion that “war is man-made disaster”, it could also be said that ‘hunger is a man-made disaster’.

2.5

Is the Existence of Hunger and Malnutrition Acceptable in a Democracy?

Marshall (1950) suggested that it is impossible to enjoy full civil and political citizenship in the absence of certain minimum material circumstances that make a decent life possible. For this reason, full citizenship should reflect three dimensions: civil, political and social. Marshall was well aware of the tension between social citizenship and the capitalist production model, but his model specifically sought, through the expansion of social rights and welfare state benefits, to strike a balance between those two potentially contradictory factors. Marshall’s model was challenged in the 1970s by the ‘New Right’, on the basis of the arguments from Hayek and Friedman who insisted on “abandoning, once and for all, the egalitarian utopia of social rights”. For them, the solution “involved unburdening the State of wrongly assumed obligations and restoring the classical liberal order”. According to this vision, “social rights, once abandoned, could be substituted when applicable by welfare policies oriented towards specific targets, because their constitutionalisation only served to threaten the necessary submission of citizens to the liberal order” (Freijeiro, 2008, pp. 165–6). The advent and hegemony of neoliberal ideology, accompanied by the policies of cutting social benefits and privatising numerous areas previously in the hands of the state, shattered the balance sought by Marshall’s model. The consequence of this has been -since the 1980s, but in particular, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis- a major increase in malnutrition and hunger in welfare states. Malnutrition is associated with numerous illnesses, poor physical and mental development, and the loss of hope and goals in life. Regardless of how one defines ‘public interest’, it seems obvious that if there are citizens who go hungry, this can only be as a result of a political act on the part of those who control the political agenda and the assignment of resources. More broadly, the existence of hunger in a society questions its truly human nature. Human beings are eminently social beings, defined by Aristotle as Zoon Politikon – a ‘social, political animal’. Relationships with others are a basic characteristic of any human being; human life is not viable without its social dimension. The very centrality of language evidences this: a baby that communicates with nobody cannot learn language, will be unable to socialise with other human beings, and ultimately, will die. Sociability is thus the expression of an evolutionary strategy based on cooperation. Therefore, abandoning part of the population to their fate, to death by starvation, should be seen as a new collective

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strategy, which breaks with the basic principle on which the evolutionary success of our species is founded. Hunger thus obliges us to rethink humanity. As Piotr Kropotkin declared in opposition to the arguments of the Social Darwinists,2 humanity is based on cooperation and not on simply on competition. The Russian author wrote his book Mutual Aid: A factor of evolution between 1890 and 1902 during his exile in England at the height of the British Empire, when the progress resulting from the Industrial Revolution appeared, on the surface, to be changing the world for the better. Yet, at the same time, millions of people were crammed into slum dwellings in the suburbs and around the factories. The boundless wealth of Empire did not reach everybody. It was no coincidence that Kropotkin should reflect upon the evolutionary strategy of the human species, faced with the enormous contradiction between unlimited potential and unlimited exploitation. In his introduction, he pointed out that in the course of his work, he had never encountered the fierce struggle within the species that Social Darwinism had made an article of faith. Nor was competition the most striking characteristic of animal behaviour in the wild, even in the most adverse circumstances. On the contrary, claims Kropotkin (1902/ 2009, pp. 6–7): Wherever I saw animal life in abundance . . . I saw Mutual Aid and Mutual Support carried on to an extent which made me suspect in it a feature of the greatest importance for the maintenance of life, the preservation of each species, and its further evolution.

It is true, he adds, that: When animals have to struggle against scarcity of food . . . the whole of that portion of the species which is affected by the calamity, comes out of the ordeal so much impoverished in vigour and health, that no progressive evolution of the species can be based upon such periods of keen competition. . . . On the contrary, . . . [following Prof. Kessler’s idea] besides the law of Mutual Struggle there is in Nature the law of Mutual Aid, which, for the success of the struggle for life, and especially for the progressive evolution of the species, is far more important than the law of mutual contest. This suggestion . . . was, in reality, nothing but a further development of the ideas expressed by Darwin himself in The Descent of Man . . .

Since the bloody trade wars – and not only trade wars – between the late nineteenth century ‘Robber Barons’ of the USA, those in power have known for a long time that unrestricted competition leaves no victors and that fierce competition is unsustainable in the long term. As a result, they pressured the state until they achieved a change in

2

As Kropotkin explained in Mutual Aid, the book was based on the articles he had written in response to an initial article by Henry Huxley entitled ‘The struggle for existence in human society’ (1888). However, it is interesting to recall that even Huxley, who is often associated with Social Darwinism, was an advocate of numerous state interventions – which would be inadmissible for many current supporters of neoliberalism. Moreover, Huxley argued that “a nation that pursued a ‘Social Darwinist’ position would soon self-destruct” and what was needed was state intervention to ensure “a population the labour of which is sufficiently remunerated” so it may be “physically and morally healthy and socially stable.” Within reason, of course, as “a moderate price of labour” was judged “essential to our success as competitors in the markets of the world.” (McKay, 2009, pp. 3–4)

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regulations that made possible the accumulation of capital without the risk of real competition. Another effective way of reducing the impact of competition has been the continual growth in the size of some companies which have become global corporations, while the total number of companies has fallen in all sectors (Galbraith, 1967). However, while business and corporate interests are well aware that fierce competition is unsustainable, fierce competition is what they preach to their workers, who are expected to respond to the pressures of the market and compete aggressively, pushing down salaries and working conditions in the process. It is likely that most would agree that competition requires some kind of restraint. Placing an upper limit on capital accumulation -for example, by capping salaries or establishing some kind of mechanism to regulate the difference between maximum and minimum salaries- is controversial and difficult to apply. But at the bottom end of the scale, the limit appears fairly obvious: it is reached when living conditions can no longer ensure something as basic as access to sufficient food in order to lead what Huxley termed a “physically and morally healthy and socially stable” life. Indeed, this lower limit should probably be set higher and include reasonable equality of opportunities and the real possibility of social advancement. However, it is surely morally indisputable that the very bare minimum should be to eliminate hunger from the world. The fact that this has not yet been achieved in societies that, in absolute global terms, are wealthy is all the more disgraceful. Kropotkin (1892/2015) in The Conquest of Bread, writes that: “We have the temerity to declare that all have a right to bread, that there is bread enough for all, and that with this watchword of ‘Bread for All’ the Revolution will triumph”. In his revolutionary crusade, he declared that: the question of bread must take precedence of all other questions. If it is settled in the interests of the people, the Revolution will be on the right road; for in solving the question of bread we must accept the principle of equality, which will force itself upon us to the exclusion of every other solution.

This binding mandate, ‘Bread for All’, also included the enemies of the Revolution. It does not require the revolutionary fervour of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for many to accept this basic premise. Thousands and thousands of people have reacted with determination in order to support those affected by the various famines that have occurred throughout history: we can point to solidarity between enemy countries during the First World War; to support from the West to Russia after the Soviet Revolution; to the impact still caused by the knowledge that four million people died of hunger in India in 1943; and to the wave of solidarity that has driven international humanitarian aid from the end of the First World War until today. All this shows that in order to avoid the existence of hunger, it is not necessary to be a democracy, or an industrialised nation, or even rich. One only needs to be human.

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References Ares, C. (2003, April 24). Cien niños mueren de hambre en Argentina cada día pese a las promesas del gobierno. El País. Césaire, A. (1950, 2000). Discourse on colonialism (J. Pinkham, Trans.). Monthly Review Press. Collingham, L. (2011). The taste of war: World War Two and the battle for food. Penguin Books. Collingham, L. (2017). The hungry empire: How Britain’s quest for food shaped the modern world. The Bodley Head. Cox, M. E. (2019). Hunger in war and peace. Women and children in Germany 1914–1924. Oxford University Press. Cullather, N. (2007). The foreign policy of the calorie. The American Historical Review, 112(2), 337–364. De Schutter, O. (2014). Foreword. In G. Riches & T. Silvasti (Eds.), First World hunger revisited. Food charity or the right for food? (pp. ix–xi). Palgrave Macmillan. FAO. (2019). The state of food security and nutrition in the world 2019 report. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Freijeiro, M. (2008). ¿Hacia dónde va la ciudadanía social? (De Marshall a Sen). Andamios, 5(9), 157–181. Galbraith, J. K. (1967). The new industrial state. Princeton University Press. Galtung, J. (1998). After violence 3R, reconstruction, reconciliation, resolution. Coping with visible and invisible effects of war and violence. https://www.academia.edu/3444096/AFTER_ VIOLENCE_3R_RECONSTRUCTION_RECONCILIATION_RESOLUTION_Coping_ With_Visible_and_Invisible_Effects_of_War_and_Violence Gamble, A. (2018). The welfare state and the politics of austerity. https://www.bbvaopenmind. com/en/articles/the-welfare-state-and-the-politics-of-austerity/ González, C. G. (2011). Introduction: The global politics of food. The University of Miami InterAmerican Law Review, 43(1), 77–87. González, J. M. (2015, January 8). Conmoción en Argentina por la muerte de un niño por desnutrición. Nueva Tribuna. Jachertz, R., & Nützenadel, A. (2011). Coping with hunger? Visions of a global food system, 1930-1960. Journal of Global History, 6, 99–119. Kropotkin, P. (1902, 2009). Mutual aid: A factor of evolution. Freedom Press. Kropotkin, P. (1892, 2015). The conquest of bread. Penguin. Logue, J. (1979). The welfare state: Victim of its success. Daedalus, 108(4), 69–87. Marshall, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and social class, and other essays. Cambridge University Press. McKay, I. (2009). Mutual aid: An introduction and evaluation. In P. Kropotkin (Ed.), Mutual aid: A factor of evolution. Freedom Press. Monnet, J. (1978). Memoirs (R. Mayne, Trans.). Doubleday & Co. Available at https://archive.org/ details/MonnetJeanMemoirs Pérez de Armiño, K. (2014). Erosion of rights, uncritical solidarity and food banks in Spain. In G. Riches & T. Silvasti (Eds.), First World hunger revisited. Food charity or the right for food? (pp. 131–145). Palgrave Macmillan. Poppendieck, J. (2014). Food assistance, hunger and the end of welfare in the USA. In G. Riches & T. Silvasti (Eds.), First World hunger revisited. Food charity or the right for food? (pp. 176–190). Palgrave Macmillan. Riches, G. (Ed.). (1997). First World hunger: Food security and welfare politics. Palgrave Macmillan. Riches, G., & Silvasti, T. (Eds.). (2014). First world hunger revisited. Food charity or the right to food? Palgrave Macmillan. Ritchie, M. (1988). Impact of GATT on world hunger. Speech to the International Symposium on Food Self-Sufficiency, Tokyo. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. https://www.iatp.org/ documents/impact-gatt-world-hunger

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Rubio, B. (2014). El dominio del hambre: Crisis de hegemonía y alimentos. Universidad Autónoma Chapingo. Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. Vintage Books. Santarcángelo, J. E., & Fal, J. (2009). Producción y rentabilidad en la ganadería argentina, 1980-2006. Mundo Agrario, 10(19) Available at http://www.memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/art_ revistas/pr.3887/pr.3887.pdf Simmons, D. (2008). Starvation science: From colonies to metropole. In A. Nützenadel & F. Trentmann (Eds.), Food and globalization: Consumption, markets and politics in the modern world (pp. 173–191). Berg. Singh, S. (2017). Globalization and the state: The economic face. In B. Thakur, H. S. Sharma, S. Misra, S. Chattopadhyay, & S. Singh (Eds.), Regional development: Theory and practice (Vol. 1, pp. 431–447). Concept Publishing Co. Smith, A. (1759, 2002). The theory of moral sentiments (K. Haakonssen, Ed.). Cambridge University Press. Vincent, C. P. (1985). The politics of hunger: The Allied blockade of Germany, 1915–1919. Ohio University Press. Wilson, J. (1997). Australia: Lucky country/hungry silence. In G. Riches (Ed.), First World hunger: Food security and welfare politics (pp. 14–45). Palgrave Macmillan.

Chapter 3

Ethical Debates on Global Hunger: Moral Obligations to the Distant Other and Global Justice Karlos Pérez de Armiño

3.1

Introduction

This chapter explores some of the debates in recent decades regarding the ethical obligation of citizens and governments of affluent countries to tackle the hunger suffered by people living in poverty in the countries of the Global South. The generic concept of hunger covers both famines (acute and sporadic food crises) and chronic hunger. Its persistence makes it one of humanity’s biggest problems, one that is closely linked to many other issues related to well-being, such as poverty, illness, poor education, low productivity and the loss of personal autonomy. Not only is alleviating hunger an important objective in its own right, it also contributes to other objectives of human development. This centrality of hunger, and of the need to confront it, takes on even more relevance in the current context of COVID-19. The measures against the pandemic (lockdowns, mobility restrictions, border closures) have altered the global food system, with a reduction in the export of certain agricultural products, along with a corresponding drop in prices. They have also brought about the contraction of labour markets, with a resulting increase in unemployment. Due to these and other factors, the pandemic has acted as an amplifier of existing socio-economic inequalities, damaging the livelihoods and household food security of a large percentage of the world’s population who already lived on the edge of subsistence. It has been estimated, for example, that the number of food insecure people in sub-Saharan Africa will have doubled over the course of 2020, reaching 265 million. On a global This chapter was produced as part of the work of the Research Group on Human Security, Local Human Development and International Cooperation (IT1037-16) of the Basque university system (2016–2021), of which the author is lead researcher. K. Pérez de Armiño (*) University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_3

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scale, more people could die from hunger linked to COVID-19 than from the disease itself (Oxfam, 2020). Since the 1970s, many philosophers from different backgrounds have studied the applied ethics of a range of different development problems, especially poverty and hunger. This applied ethics, whose rise was stimulated by John Rawls’ influential work A Theory of Justice (1971) is innovative insofar as it focuses not only on individuals and their private affairs but questions and guides the political action of states and institutions. The first studies in applied ethics to specifically focus on hunger appeared at the start of the 1970s. They were largely a product of the debate resulting from the controversial article by Peter Singer entitled ‘Famine, affluence and morality’ (Singer, 1972) on the obligation of the wealthy to do as much as they could to help people suffering from hunger, wherever they were in the world. Since then, debates have reflected on a number of issues, including whether the moral obligation toward people suffering from hunger also extends to citizens of other countries, not just our own; whether it is limited to a negative obligation not to cause them harm or is a positive obligation to address the problem; and whether such action need necessarily involve aid (food or economic) or instead, requires supporting the socio-economic development of countries and even the political commitment to transform global economic structures. These debates have evolved over time, becoming more sophisticated and incorporating new dimensions. They began by seeking to justify the ethical obligation to provide material aid to people suffering from hunger in far-off countries, challenging the traditional assumption that the bonds of solidarity and moral obligation only extend to members of one’s own community or country but not to those abroad. However, over time, the debates have grown to encompass a broader, more political perspective, focusing on the transformations of the international economic and political order required to eradicate poverty and hunger. While the initial debates largely focused on aid, over time they have come to defend the existence of a global community with shared values, which creates moral obligations that go beyond borders. This has translated into concepts such as global justice and redistributive justice. There are a number of reasons why these debates remain relevant and useful. Firstly, they are helpful to confront (traditionally dominant) theoretical and political discourses that deny any moral responsibility towards people in other countries. Simply put, in a world of states that must defend their interests and security, boundaries between states mark the limit of solidarity and human rights. This view has been widely refuted by the emergence of an increasingly complex and interdependent international society, which has allowed the construction of a new vision of humanity, with new standards of what is acceptable in the world (Finnemore, 2008). The expansion and universalisation of the moral horizons of international society was given fresh impetus after the Cold War, reflected in the rise of human rights and international agreements to tackle global problems such as hunger and poverty. This perspective, which advocates the existence of a humanity with shared problems and strong moral ties, persists at both the discursive and political levels, as exemplified by the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet it has also suffered

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setbacks from certain trends in recent years, such as the re-emergence of security as the dominant concern on the international agenda and the rise of ultra-nationalism and xenophobia in the political sphere. In the context of a neoliberal economic order that dilutes public policy in favour of markets, these factors undermine the idea of a global community with a shared identity and strong moral ties founded on human rights. In this context, ethical arguments for universal responsibilities and global justice become even more important. Secondly, ethical debates on hunger are useful insofar as they can reinforce the justification and importance of the human right to food and help encourage its further legal development and practical application. The right of all people to adequate food is enshrined in various instruments of international law. Moreover, it is the only right recognised as fundamental in the two international covenants on human rights of 1966. This imposes obligations on governments and the international community to adopt policies that guarantee food security, such that the fight against hunger is not a matter of voluntary charity but of justice and rights that can be demanded from states and the international community. However, despite some progress in the international recognition of this right, it suffers from the same problems as other economic and social rights. In contrast to civil and political rights, the dominant perspective regards these rights as aspirational, not as genuine and legally binding. As such, their legal and institutional development has been much poorer and there is no international machinery to oversee their effective compliance. In short, leaving aside strictly legal arguments, it is important to analyse the ethical foundations of this right in order to defend its importance and the obligations it generates, and make progress in its legal development and political application. Thirdly, exploring ethical debates on hunger can provide useful arguments to guide mobilisation and pressure exerted by civil society and action by governments and international institutions to implement effective measures and policies for tackling hunger based on the ideas of rights and justice instead of voluntary charity. The many studies on food security since the 1980s (for example, Drèze & Sen, 1989) have shown that hunger is the result of human causes, especially poverty, linked to political and socio-economic structures. This implies it is a problem that can be avoided. However, most governments do not seem sufficiently motivated or interested to adopt the structural and political transformations required for its eradication (Pérez de Armiño, 2010). In this context, ethical debates on hunger can provide stimulus and the basis for social pressure to demand solutions. They can also help define the type of measures required, which must prioritise human development structures and processes that guarantee the rights and well-being of everyone, instead of ad hoc and palliative aid based on voluntary charity (still occasionally required as a last resort). In this respect, it is insightful to recall the well-known contributions of the anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1925). Mauss showed that the exchange of goods and gifts between individuals and groups implies not just a material transaction but also a moral one, since it creates a situation of obligation and inferiority for the recipient until the gift is reciprocated. The exchange thus defines relations of status and power between the donor and the recipient. When applied to the analysis of

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international humanitarian aid, these ideas show that it masks power relations, is seldom disinterested and is frequently used to impose specific conditions on both those who need aid and the recipient governments (Harrell-Bond et al., 1992). One of the fundamental issues underlying ethical reflections on hunger and the moral duty to address it is the dilemma between charity, which is voluntary, and rights, which are obligatory and demandable. This has significant consequences of various orders: the respect for the dignity of people suffering from hunger and their rights to demand aid or other measures (or merely beg them from a position of moral inferiority); the resulting moral and legal obligations, largely for governments and international institutions, but also for businesses and even individuals; the power relations established between donors and the countries or people who receive aid; and the criteria for adopting aid or other actions (either prioritising the needs or rights of those affected or the interests of the donor). All these aspects suggest that the best strategy is not ad hoc aid but transformation of the socio-economic and political structures required to guarantee human development and well-being for all. This chapter is structured as follows. It begins by exploring some of the main theoretical perspectives that deny the existence of any ethical obligation to help alleviate hunger, especially in other countries. Secondly, it explains the main approaches since the 1970s that have argued for the ethical responsibilities of affluent countries and their citizens to reduce hunger beyond their own borders. Thirdly, it reflects on the evolution of these debates, which have progressed from their initial formulations focused on material aid to prioritise a cosmopolitan perspective of global justice centred on structural transformations and the creation of global institutions to guarantee food security and human development. The chapter ends with some conclusions on the scope of the debate and its practical implications.

3.2

Theoretical Perspectives Opposing the Ethical Responsibility to Address Hunger

There are different of schools of thought and theoretical approaches that deny the existence of any ethical duty to tackle global hunger through aid or other measures. Despite wide-ranging philosophical foundations, they agree that moral responsibilities are confined to a private sphere, or one’s own community or country at the very most (not all approaches agree on this point). In doing so, they reject the ethical basis of the idea of justice and the existence of socio-economic rights, especially universal ones: the only rights that exist are civic and political ones that guarantee the state does not interfere in the life of its citizens. This implies there is no obligation to respond to poverty and hunger in one’s own country, much less elsewhere, only admitting the possibility of voluntary charity. These ideas, which are deeply ingrained in Western political thought, have been challenged by an increasingly interdependent world. Nonetheless, they persist and have even seen a certain resurgence in recent years in the discourse of some political sectors. This section summarises the main perspectives.

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Neo-Malthusian Perspectives

Some of these perspectives are inspired by the arguments made by Robert Malthus at the end of the eighteenth century. For Malthus, overpopulation was the main cause of poverty and hunger, since populations grow faster than food production. This means that helping people living in poverty will cause their numbers to increase, further exacerbating the problem. Since the 1960s, a number of neo-Malthusian authors have produced arguments, which, despite being fiercely refuted, persist to this day. Their ideas have created an imaginary that attributes the causes of hunger to those suffering from hunger and has diluted the political will to tackle it. One such argument is that the high demographic growth rates of countries and families living in poverty prevent their economic development: a high percentage of children in the population implies high spending and low per-capita income. These arguments have been refuted by more sophisticated studies that have shown an inverse causal relationship. It is in fact poverty that causes high birth rates, meaning development helps reduce them. History also refutes the idea that the population tends to grow faster than the production of food. The arguments of the neo-Malthusians are founded on a misunderstanding of famines, which they interpret as a natural and unavoidable phenomenon caused by insufficient food supplies derived from population growth. This has a number of consequences: measures to alleviate hunger are ineffective; there is no point in seeking to determine the factors responsible (which, moreover, would be the victims themselves); the only ethical response is laissez-faire; and the issue is beyond the scope of ethical debate. However, a vast body of literature since the 1980s has shown that hunger and famines are not caused by a lack of food supplies due to natural or demographic factors but rather the lack of access by families living in poverty is derived from certain socio-economic structures and policies. Food insecurity is the result of human causes and for this very reason can be alleviated and eradicated by human action. Some neo-Malthusian approaches recall the Darwinist theory of natural selection. They argue that there is a need to maintain the link between the human species and the natural world and thus to allow famines to achieve their ‘function’ of demographic control by eliminating excess population. This vision gave rise to two wellknown formulations with political applications: ‘triage’1 and ‘lifeboat ethics’.2 Both ‘Triage’ is a medical technique used in war that consists of assigning scarce health resources to the wounded with a chance of survival. Paddock and Paddock (1967) proposed its application to North American food aid. Under the approach, aid would only be sent to countries with potential for improvement but not to countries without a future, whose population would need to be sacrificed for the well-being of humanity. 2 ‘Lifeboat ethics’ was formulated by Garret Hardin (1977). Assuming that famine in the so-called Third World was inevitable, Hardin used this well-known metaphor to argue against aid: there are two lifeboats, one that is full of privileged, well-fed people and another full of hungry people, some of whom try to swim over to the first. If we try to save them, our boat will be overloaded and we will all drown, and thus it is best to leave them to their fate. The analogous political argument is that it is 1

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have been fiercely criticised as selfish, immoral and simplistic. In particular, the lifeboat metaphor is wholly inadequate for a complex world in which all countries are closely interconnected and the wealth of the North is the fruit of trading relationships between all countries (Dower, 1998). Nonetheless, both ideas have been used by conservative sectors to argue against the moral obligation of international aid and for its reduction or use in the service of the interests of donor states. Another argument that leads to similar conclusions is the ‘subculture of poverty’, a concept formulated by Oscar Lewis (1959) and which has been adopted by various authors since the 1960s. Lewis argues that poverty is the fruit of different attitudes and values ingrained among poor people (lack of organisation and social participation, individualism and selfishness, apathy, resignation, promiscuity, criminality, etc.), which are transmitted from parents to their children and prevent them taking advantage of the opportunities society offers to develop and prosper. It is those living in poverty themselves who are responsible, not political or economic structures. As such, it is pointless to spend money on social policies to address poverty. This argument has been employed to justify the reduction of these policies in numerous countries. Similarly, various interpretations of the causes of environmental degradation, which in turn contributes to poverty and food insecurity, have emphasised the so-called irrational practices of farmers or shepherds living in poverty (for example, deforestation to create arable land and overexploitation). However, this has been refuted by numerous studies emphasising the value of their knowledge and practices for preserving the environment.

3.2.2

Proximity and Affinity as Limits to Moral Ties

In the history of moral thought, going back to the authors of antiquity, the idea that feelings of obligation toward others and the search for justice should be limited to our surrounding environment, should not be universal and should be based on others’ affinity to us, has been a constant feature. A first argument is that moral obligations only exist within a given social group, which people join to seek protection and mutual support under a social contract. From this point of view, nothing is owed to those outside the group. However, this idea appears to be contradicted by the reality of a world characterised by a strong interdependence between all countries (Belsey, 1992). There has been a growing awareness of the existence of multiple global problems that transcend borders and of the inevitable impact of the problems of the Global South on affluent countries (for example, the ecological crisis, migration, security).

best to eliminate aid for overpopulated countries until their population falls and becomes sustainable with respect to their resources. Otherwise, food aid will contribute to demographic growth in these countries and thus to the exhaustion of natural resources, endangering humanity as a whole.

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A second argument is that as human beings we have special and particular obligations to those who are geographically, emotionally and genetically closest to us. The more intimate our relationship with others, the more it determines our identity, generating feelings of loyalty and strong obligations, which we would not feel toward outsiders and people in remote lands. However, this idea has been criticised for concealing a rationalisation of selfishness.3 Various classical authors reflected on the important role distance plays in moral analysis, be it geographic, social or cultural. Aristotle understood that a key factor in determining compassion was proximity, whether in terms of geography, age, character, habits or family. Diderot speculated that spatial or temporal distance weakened feelings of a guilty conscience. Balzac also used the analogy of a blind man being unable to see to argue that distance entails a lack of feeling of humanity toward the misfortune of others (Kennedy, 2009). These ideas have recently been analysed in the literature on humanitarian action, maintaining that people tend to feel less charity and solidarity toward victims who are far away. People place a limit on action, such that in practice they are more likely to help their neighbour’s child than the ‘distant stranger’ (Kennedy, 2009). It is easier to ignore suffering and hunger of people who are far away than those who are nearby. This is not just because of the distance (humanitarian crises often occur far away from the West) but also because they are abstract people without names and personal characteristics (Lichtenberg, 2011). Similarly, donor governments tend to provide aid based not only on the number of victims but also on their distance, insofar as both factors determine media coverage and the resulting public pressure to act (Benthall, 1993). According to Kennedy (2009), all this explains why humanitarian non-governmental organisations try to use new communications technology and image-based campaigns to overcome this distance and help us bear witness to far-off suffering. However, he also notes that this poses the problem of often being given partial representations of the victims as mere anonymous bodies with a ‘minimum humanity’; passive, lacking agency, saved by a heroic West that is the source of civilisation. Finally, it should be noted that the distance that separates societies is largely a product of culturally constructed discourses and imaginaries. Postcolonial studies have shown how over centuries the West has developed certain prejudices toward societies in the rest of the world, seeing them as inferior, backward and aggressive. These have helped create a contrasting vision of the West itself based on an imaginary of ‘the civilised self and the barbaric other’ (Mgbeoji, 2006), which has served to justify colonialism based on the ‘civilising’ mission of Europe. These imaginaries are still relevant to this day, a good example being representations of the 3 The reference for this argument is Williams (1981) and the following example: if two people are in danger, your wife and a stranger, and you can only save one, which would you save? Clearly you would choose to save your wife because she is your wife and because you have a special reciprocal obligation toward her. However, you do not save her for her own good but for yours, since her loss would destroy your life and identity. This idea is ironically summed up by Belsey (1992): “if you save the stranger, who is going to wash your socks?”

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Global South as a chaotic source of insecurity and threats for the North. In practical terms, these discourses contribute to Western attitudes toward the Global South being characterised by a lack of interest and trust, aspirations of hegemonic control and, at best, by a paternalistic attitude, in contrast to relationships of equality based on shared values.

3.2.3

Realism and Foreign Policy Without Moral Obligations

Denying moral obligations on a global scale is also a feature of realism, the most traditional and powerful school of thought in international relations. For realism, the international system is the sum of states, whose relations, in the absence of a world government, are defined by rivalry and the permanent risk of war. This implies that the overriding objective of each State is to preserve its national security and interests, which means increasing its military power. Its foreign policy should be geared toward these objectives, such that moral obligations, ethical criteria and human rights do not apply to relations between states and are confined to the internal sphere of national societies (Dunne & Schmidt, 2011). In other words, under its state-centric perspective, based on national communities, realism denies the existence of a universal community that transcends boundaries and ethical obligations to support global justice. Measures to defend the human rights of people in other countries are often couched in terms of the defence of a country’s own interests. This realist vision has exercised a decisive influence on the conception of the international system, especially during the Cold War. However, over time, and above all since the end of the Cold War, an international society has emerged that does not fit this realist outlook; rather, it is a more complex one characterised by the interdependence of states and many other actors, and with a dense structure of organisations, laws and international agreements to foster cooperation on shared global problems. This evolution has been accompanied by a growing consciousness of a shared global identity and the universality of human rights. Nonetheless, realism remains a highly influential world view, both intellectually and politically. Since September 11, its innate concern for security has seen a resurgence and reinsertion in the international agenda at the cost of tackling social problems such as poverty and hunger.

3.2.4

Ultraliberal Approaches

In recent decades, some of the most politically influential ideas that have led challenges to the existence of social rights have been specific variants of liberal thought, referred to by different names, such as ultraliberalism, conservative liberalism, libertarian liberalism and libertarianism. Grounded in a radical defence of individualism and private property, they argue that moral obligations only exist at

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the private level, not in the public, economic or political spheres. As such, they reject the validity of socio-economic rights and in doing so question whether solidarity, either in terms of the welfare state, with its redistributive policies, or international cooperation, can be regarded as a right, leaving only space for individual and voluntary charity. Part of its argument is based on denying the existence of objective human needs, which are merely regarded as subjective preferences and specific interests associated with people’s happiness. Only individuals can determine their own needs and how much to spend on them. The state has no right to paternalistically define the requirements to guarantee citizens a minimum standard of living, since this would constitute a threat to personal autonomy and a risk of authoritarianism. These arguments have profound consequences. Firstly, if needs are variable (depending on fashions, context, etc.) and uncertain (what is a fair wage?), they cannot form the basis of genuine legal rights that generate clear duties. As such, socio-economic rights constitute a lower category than civil and political ones. Secondly, if needs are relative, it is not possible to formulate objective criteria to create a hierarchy based on their urgency (placing greater value on the needs of people living in poverty than of wealthy people) and thus define policies for the redistribution of wealth. Thirdly, if there are only desires and individual tastes, and the market is better at capturing these than the state, resources should be allocated to the former, liberalising it and reducing public social services. In short, these ideas render any welfare policy based on redistributive solidarity and fulfilment of socioeconomic rights impossible (Contreras, 1994; Doyal & Gough, 1991). One of the most prominent and politically influential figures in this line of thought is Robert Nozick (1974), a libertarian liberal. The central tenet of his approach is the freedom of the individual, whom he regards as an isolated agent without moral links to others. Since individuals have an absolute right to their private property (provided it has been acquired legitimately by them or their ancestors), he regards it as illegitimate and a violation of their rights for the state to tax them to meet the basic needs of others, either at home or elsewhere. For Nozick, the state lacks objective criteria to decide these needs and convert them into social rights, as well as the legitimacy to impose progressive taxation to finance redistributive policies that transfer resources to poorer members of society. Taxes for such a purpose are an attack on private property and the rights of the individual, such that Nozick advocates a minimum state, limited to the functions of security and justice. The only obligations for individuals are not to cause harm and not to deprive people of their life or liberty. However, individuals are under no general obligation to help people in need (except their family members and other specific cases), meaning it is unjust for the state to impose this through taxation. However, says Nozick, if individuals wish to do so, they can provide help to people in need, but always as an act of voluntary altruism (Contreras, 1994). This stance implies that the value of life and freedom lack legal force because this overlooks the value of the effective exercising of freedom or the effective enjoyment of a life, as Dower (2003) notes. Nozick’s ideas are also ahistorical, insofar as the ownership of many assets and their unequal distribution is the result of historic acts of plunder, such as colonisation. Moreover, the idea of private property as an

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absolute principle is questionable, since any productive process involves supplies (for example, training and techniques) that belong not to individuals but to society, which is why the latter has a claim to part of the rights over what is produced (Contreras, 1994). Other authors with less radical positions have also emphasised the limits of the obligation for aid by invoking individual freedom. Fishkin (1986) argues that it is morally impossible to require a certain level of sacrifice from people, particularly for them to have to abandon the lifestyle to which they are accustomed and regard as appropriate, renouncing their aspirations in doing so. Belsey (1992) refutes this argument: a way of life is not morally valid on account of its mere existence, more so when the affluence of the North is based on a disproportionate appropriation of global resources made possible by the exploitation of the South. Similarly, John Arthur argues that there is no moral obligation to help others when this violates the right to property and people’s right to live their life prioritising their own objectives and interests. In short, individuals are not obliged to forego anything that would affect their standard of living and make their life less happy in the long run. However, given that happiness is determined by the psychology of the individual, the obligation to help rests on the conscience of each person (Arthur, 1997). However, as Singer (1997) notes, the idea that we are morally authorised to prioritise our own interests and purposes simply because they are ours appears to challenge the well-established ethical criterion that moral judgements must contain a certain degree of impartiality or universality. As we have seen in the review above, there is a wide range of perspectives that question the idea of a moral responsibility to tackle poverty and hunger, deploying a range of arguments: hunger is inevitable and thus beyond the scope of ethical reflection; there are no moral responsibilities toward other people, especially when they are not part of our national community and much less so when this involves questioning our own right to property or way of life; and basic needs are relative and non-specific, and as such do not generate socio-economic rights or the obligation to guarantee them, either at the national level through welfare policies or at the international level through cooperation or structural transformations.

3.3

Ethical Perspectives Applied to Tackling Hunger

Since the 1970s, various authors have argued against the approaches outlined in the previous section, affirming the existence of ethical obligations to tackle poverty and hunger for both individuals and governments. These proposals are based on various foundations and basic objectives, such as maximising general happiness, socioeconomic human rights, basic needs, human capabilities and human agency. Their formulation has also evolved over time, adopting cosmopolitan ideas in defence of global justice. Many of these approaches take the ideas of John Rawls and his influential A Theory of Justice (1971) and subsequent The Law of Peoples (1999) as a point of

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departure, questioning them and expanding them. Rawls’ theories are based on the obligations of justice in national societies, with close links between citizens and shared institutions. In the national sphere, a fair society requires a social contract that guarantees political equality and ensures economic and social policies that favour the least advantaged and reduce inequalities. However, when it comes to international justice, Rawls’ approach is different and much more limited. For him, the causes of poverty are not to be found in the asymmetric power relations between countries created by global economic and political structures. These are simply products of historical factors, alongside other internal factors in poorer countries, such as cultural features, defective economies and corruption (Rawls, 1999). As such he does not advocate the need to transform these structures (Cortés, 2010). Nor does he believe in the existence of a ‘global demos’, but instead in a collection of national societies. A just international society would simply consist of a political equality of sovereign states under the empire of international law. It would not imply a principle of distributive justice or the international redistribution of wealth. As such, he adopts a minimalist interpretation of the international obligations of states, which should be limited to providing assistance to societies without sufficient political or social development (but not from a cosmopolitan principle of redistributive justice), respecting human rights and preventing their mass violation (Cortés, 2010; Brown, 2017). While Rawls’ reflection on a fair society is focused on national societies and seldom strays beyond State borders, it has nonetheless contributed to stimulating the debate on moral obligations to reduce poverty and hunger in other countries, arguing the arbitrary nature of borders when it comes to justice with the implication that they are not morally relevant.

3.3.1

Singer and the Utilitarian Approach

The main advocate of these perspectives on the moral obligation to fight hunger abroad has been Peter Singer, in his famous article ‘Famine, affluence and morality’ (1972). Singer adheres to consequentialism and utilitarianism, whereby the correctness of an action is judged solely according to whether its results are good (especially if they minimise suffering and promote happiness). Singer bases his argument on his famous principle that we are morally obliged to avoid something bad when we can do so “without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance”. Inaction (letting someone die) is just as reprehensible as the harmful action itself (causing someone to die), as in the case, for example, of an expert swimmer who fails to rescue a drowning child crying for help.4 The only limitation is that this requirement

He explains his argument as follows: “If I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing” (Singer, 1997).

4

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competes with another morally good requirement. If we accept that preserving the affluent lifestyle of citizens in affluent countries does not have the same moral importance as avoiding a famine, there is a “moral obligation to help” people living in poverty and suffering from hunger, no matter where they live. Aid is not an act of charity but something everyone must do “as much as they can”, provided this does not mean sacrificing something of comparable moral significance (Singer, 1997). Singer’s work contains three innovations that have challenged conventional notions of morality. Firstly, he introduces the criterion of negative responsibility, according to which there is no ethical difference between actively causing harm and not acting to prevent harm occurring when aware of this and being in a position to prevent it. Secondly, despite talking not of global justice (like other subsequent authors) but of giving aid (private or public financial contributions to tackle famine5), he concludes that this is not voluntary charity but a duty. Thirdly, distance is irrelevant. The physical proximity of the person may make it easier to help but this does not imply that we ought to help this person rather than someone who is far away. If we accept principles such as impartiality, universalisability and equality, we cannot discriminate against someone simply because of how far away they are (Singer, 1997, 2004). While Singer should be acknowledged for having stimulated debate on the issue, his principles have been criticised by authors from various schools of thought as too demanding and hard to apply. The main criticism is that his idea of the obligatory nature to help ‘as much as you can’ is excessively demanding for usual moral standards. In fact, an individual’s decision of how much help to provide and how to do so is determined by a number of factors, including circumstances, knowledge, reciprocity and its consistency with their own well-being. We all face many obligations and, as such, the duty of benevolence should be as consistent as possible with other duties (Dower, 2003). A second criticism questions the obligatory nature of an action that is not a one-off but perdures as long as the problem persists, which complicates its implementation. Authors such as Arthur (1997) have responded by arguing that people have the right to pursue their own life and projects. Thirdly, the idea that we owe the same consideration to all human beings, regardless of how far away they are, and that, as such, they have the same moral status, has been challenged. In reality, most ethical codes see the prioritisation of family members, friends or members of a community -even when others who are further away may be in greater need- as justified (Dower, 2003). Some authors have followed a similar argument to Singer, developing and elaborating on it. Aiken (1977) has written of the moral right to be saved from starvation. Anyone who suffers from extreme poverty that can lead to their death has a moral right to the necessary goods and services to prevent it, which can be demanded from all those who are in a position to provide them. However, this right is limited by other rights and obligations, which can be demanded from

5

In a postscript to the re-publication of his article in 1997, Singer adds that aid should be any type that is most effective, that is to say not just famine relief but also development assistance.

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everyone who meets three minimum conditions: (a) awareness of the extreme need of the victim; (b) having the means and capability to provide the necessary services; (c) being in a condition to help without falling into a similar or worse situation. We are also excused from providing help if this entails an unreasonable cost, risk or sacrifice (such that the obligation is inversely proportional to the cost6) or if we do not have effective methods to deliver it. Recognising the existence of a moral right to be saved from hunger, and that this right must be weighed up against other rights with which it enters into conflict, implies an essential change from the usual approach based on voluntary charity. Help is no longer something people suffering from hunger must beg for but a right that can be demanded from those who are in a position to help them. The inaction of the latter can be morally condemned unless they show other obligations or moral rights that exonerate them. Furthermore, this acknowledgement challenges the tendency to view the right to property as sacred, since this can clash with, and be limited or overridden by, the right of others to satisfy their needs (Aiken, 1977).7

3.3.2

The Human Rights Approach

Various authors have made the case for the obligatory nature of aid and action against hunger based on human rights, specifically, the human right to food. The force of this argument lies in the existence of international legislation recognising and protecting these rights, which it also considers universal and interdependent. In other words, this is a positive right, not just a moral one. Moreover, the right to food is the only one recognised as fundamental in the two covenants on human rights of 1966, given it is a basic necessity for life. Notwithstanding, the economic, social and cultural rights, which include the right to food, are viewed by many sectors more as aspirations than genuine legally binding rights and are less developed and have weaker institutional mechanisms for international oversight. Faced with these reservations, various authors and social and institutional initiatives have defended the legal implementation and binding nature of the right to food. Its application invokes the obligation of states and the international community to ensure all citizens can feed themselves with dignity. This obligation entails duties to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food (Ziegler et al., 2011). The key point here is that tackling hunger is not a matter of charity, a notion which is not based on the idea of rights and, as such, does not imply obligation (Kortetmäki & Silvasti, 2018).

6

The obligation to save a person who is drowning is greater if I only need to stretch out my hand than if I had to swim and do not know how. Once the rescuer finds his or herself in the situation of the person they’re are trying to save, the obligation disappears. 7 Aiken (1977) poses the question: does my right to have a bathroom decorated in gold override another’s right to sufficient food to survive?

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Rather, it is a matter of justice from which states cannot be excused and which can be demanded by those who suffer it. One of the most important arguments in this respect was made by Henri Shue (1980, 1996). In Shue’s opinion, there is a series of basic rights (basic in the sense that they are a prerequisite to the exercise of other more complex ones): namely, the rights to subsistence, security and liberty. Food is one of these basic rights, since it is vital for life. He also argues that these basic rights entail three types of obligations: to prevent privation, to protect against threats of privation and to help people who are deprived. As such, the right to food is not only a negative right (that a person should not be deprived of food) but also a positive one (they should have access to food). Moreover, since human rights are universal, there is a general obligation to promote and protect the basic rights for humanity as a whole. This means there is an obligation to help tackle poverty, both for individuals and governments, through well-being programmes. In the words of Shue: “socially basic rights are the minimum demand of all humanity on all humanity” (Shue, 1980, p. 19). In subsequent work, the author has strengthened his arguments, invoking our ethical responsibility for the socio-economic rights of other human beings, derived, above all, from the fact that we all live interconnected in the same globalised international economic system, which generates wealth for some and hunger for others. Insofar as we are aware of this and insofar as it is possible to construct other, less unequal models, we are morally responsible for supporting and not opposing the current system (Shue, 2003).

3.3.3

The Kantian-Inspired Theory of Obligations

Onora O’Neill (1986, 1994) provides one of the most robust arguments for a universal ethical discourse applied to hunger and poverty. Given that many rights cannot be exercised due to the difficulties inherent in specifying the obligations they entail, O’Neill’s approach is not based on developing a theory of rights but on directly setting out a theory of universal obligations that transcend ethical, geographic, cultural and ideological boundaries. This theory must be able to provide universal guidelines, accessible to individuals and institutions, for tackling poverty and hunger. As such, it must necessarily be critical of the established ethical perspectives. O’Neill’s theory is based on the ethical theory of Kant and his Categorical Imperative, a general principle that requires individuals and institutions to act only in accordance with norms that can also be adopted by others (universalisable). This means they must conform to two principles: not to coerce and not to deceive. This entails a moral obligation to respect the agency of others, in other words, their capacity to act rationally and autonomously. However, coercion and deceit are inherent features of the current international political and economic order, in which the North (wealthy, powerful and informed) is able to impose its political and economic conditions on the South (poor, powerless

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and uninformed). The coercion and deception of the poor are the main causes of extreme poverty and hunger, which result in a disempowerment or loss of agency for people living in poverty. To respect the rational agency of all people, all actors (individuals, governments, companies, etc.) have a series of moral obligations: not to coerce or deceive; to act to prevent coercion or deception by others through their policies or practices; and to eliminate the factors that make people overwhelmingly vulnerable to coercion and deception. In short, there is a moral obligation to promote a fairer global order that guarantees people living in poverty minimal levels of material justice and the development of their autonomy (O’Neill, 1986). It should be noted that this theory has certain differences with respect to other ethical approaches to hunger. Firstly, it stresses that the main damage caused by poverty, which creates a moral obligation for us to prevent it, is that it disempowers people by eroding their agency or rational autonomy. As a frequently ignored factor, this is a suggestive idea, although it could be argued that it means leaving other important dimensions of the problem to one side (for example, illness and physical incapacity). Secondly, in this sense, it encourages us to think of a specific kind of aid, one that treats people living in poverty as active agents who deal with their problems, instead of merely as passive recipients of relief from suffering. Thirdly, while rightsbased discourses are focused on people living in poverty and suffering from hunger, this theory, due to its focus on obligations, emphasises the other actors that impact on their situation: we are all obliged to be proactive to improve the conditions of people living in poverty, even if this obligation is not clearly defined (Dower, 1996).

3.3.4

The Basic Needs Approach

One of the most robust arguments for the existence of universal ethical duties is based on emphasising the existence of basic needs, or minimum material levels. If these go unsatisfied, people are deprived of their dignity, freedom or agency, that is to say the capacity of the subject to act rationally and freely. It then follows that all human beings have the moral right to the satisfaction of their basic needs. Various authors have argued that the incarnation of these moral rights in positive demandable rights and policies to ensure well-being require specific criteria for defining the basic, objective and universal needs that transcend personal preferences and cultural and ideological perceptions. Yet such an enterprise goes against the tendency of modern thought (both on the right and left) to argue that human needs are not objective but merely subjective and variable.8 8

Modern liberal thought prioritises happiness and in doing so has blurred the traditional notion of what is good and necessary for human beings, marginalising the idea of needs. The goal of utilitarianism is happiness, which is a subjective experience that may or may not coincide with the satisfaction of needs and may even harm them, such as the decision to smoke at the cost of preserving one’s health (O’Neill, 1994). Authors of the New Right, such as Nozick, argue that there are no objective and universal basic needs, merely subjective desires, such that when the State

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In this sense, Raymon Plant argues that objective and ideologically neutral basic needs are those whose satisfaction is a prerequisite for agency, given that this is the common goal pursued by all people and moral approaches. These are the needs that, if not satisfied, significantly impair the freedom and capacity of individuals to govern their lives and participate in society (Plant, 1984). Similarly, Doyal and Gough (1991) argue that the basic and common human needs, which everyone has a right to be satisfied, are physical survival and personal agency or autonomy, since this is central to all moral codes and the idea of human rights. Human agency is inconceivable in a context of misery or oppression. Contreras (1994) adds that needs include certain minimum material means for survival (for example, food and health) but also others related to well-being and dignity, in order to guarantee a minimum standard of living (for example, work, rest and certain cultural and moral aspects). As such, there are different basic needs that can be objectively determined. Yet this will not provide a definitive list: social changes can bring about the appearance of new needs or redefine existing ones, while expectations of their reasonable fulfilment can vary between societies, depending on standards of living (Contreras, 1994). These basic needs constitute at least moral rights, which, to be enforceable, must be converted into positive rights through recognition and protection in legislation. They are fundamentally socio-economic rights, equally important as civil and political ones, since if freedom of action is valuable, so too must be guaranteeing the capability and resources needed to put it into practice (Contreras, 1994).

3.3.5

The Capability Approach

The capability approach also addresses ethical issues raised by hunger, not from the point of view of the potential obligations of individuals but this time with a broader scope: human well-being in the context of the problems of development and the formulation of suitable policies to promote it. This approach is developed in the work of philosophers such as Amartya Sen (1999) and Martha Nussbaum (2000). It is based on the idea that human beings have a wide range of ‘capabilities’ and that to live well, these must be developed and exercised in ‘functionings’. The capabilities of an individual depend on their personal characteristics and comprise the set of economic and social opportunities they have available for meaningful functionings. The term ‘capabilities’ covers many dimensions of life, including sufficient nutrition, the functioning of the body, creativity and community participation. The functionings of a person include physical and mental states, such as

defines them, it is violating individual and market freedoms. For its part, Marxism has tended to regard human needs as relative, since, individual societies generate an awareness of needs and rights among their citizens depending on their economic base, which acts as a stimulus for social change (Doyal & Gough, 1991).

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being adequately nourished, being healthy, having adequate housing, practical skills, and activities, such as participating in society and exercising rationality (Crocker, 1997). This approach is based on an Aristotelian view of the political and social order. It assumes a duty to guarantee the well-being of others, insofar as they belong to the same society or political community as we do. This translates into a commitment to ensuring all members can exercise their capabilities and access the means to do so. Here, the elimination of hunger is a prerequisite to guaranteeing the well-being of other people: first, because having enough food is important in its own right to ensure a properly functioning body; second, because hunger undermines the functionings or ability to properly exercise the majority of all the other human capabilities (Dower, 1996). For these authors, human capabilities are the central moral category for wellbeing, over and above other concepts emphasised by other approaches (for example, material resources, needs and rights), which may seem important but are, in a certain sense, secondary to capabilities. Food (a resource) is simply a means to be well fed and adequately exercise capabilities, which can have varying impacts on different people or even on the same person at different points in time (for example age, health and pregnancy). Similarly, rights cannot be conceived autonomously but must be considered based on their relationship to human capabilities and functionings (Crocker, 1997). This approach makes a number of significant contributions with respect to others. Firstly, it goes beyond the quantitative dimension (for example, level of income, volume of food consumed) characteristic of many economic perspectives, to emphasise the qualitative aspects of capabilities. Secondly, in contrast to the abstract characterisation of the human being of other ethical approaches, it considers the different impact of a given diet on health, activity, the adequate use of capabilities and the well-being of different people (Dower, 2003). Thirdly, it is broad in both its analysis of the causes of hunger and the policies proposed to address it. Its objective is not merely the satisfaction of nutritional needs but nutritional well-being as a component and means for human well-being and personal development. This nutritional well-being depends on exercising different capabilities (physical condition, productive capability, nutritional education, etc.). Instead of tackling hunger by handing out food, there are other measures in different areas that are more suitable and effective (health, water, education, sanitation and employment). Long-term policies to promote human development are even more important. This means a process to protect, recover, strengthen and expand important capabilities, including the capability of being well fed (Crocker, 1997). The capability-based approach is almost certainly the approach that makes the greatest effort to formulate strategic and political guidelines to tackle hunger. However, it also has certain limits. Firstly, it does not specify the nature and scope of our duty to facilitate the well-being and development of others. Similarly, nor does it address the extent to which well-being requires a fairer distribution of resources, both at the national and global levels. Finally, the approach advocates guaranteeing the well-being of those who belong to the same society or political

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community, raising the question of whether there is a duty toward others beyond these confines. Here, the challenge is to articulate a cosmopolitan discourse that emphasises that all human beings inhabit the same global community (Dower, 1996).

3.4

Cosmopolitan Approaches: Toward a Global Justice Perspective

In traditional political thought, including classical works such as Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia, justice, ethical principles and obligations of moral reciprocity are limited to members of one’s community, country or faith but not to those beyond. In fact, relations outside them can be cruel and amoral. The denial of the existence of a global moral community persists to this day, with three particularly relevant examples. The first is the realist vision of international relations, which holds that the foreign policy of states should be limited to their interests and security, ignoring moral considerations. The second is communitarianism, which affirms the existence of a world of many communities characterised by their own identities, values and strong internal relations, such that mutual obligations only exist with other members of the community. And third is relativism, which is associated with postmodernism and denies the existence of universal values, arguing that each culture has its own (Dower, 2003). Various proponents of the cosmopolitan approach, largely with Kantian roots, have responded to these perspectives by developing arguments that defend global justice (some already suggested by the approaches we have seen). The perspective of global justice rests on two fundamental ideas: the existence or progressive formation of a global community or common humanity; and the need for a universal ethics, with global obligations and rights. The point of departure for cosmopolitanism is its affirmation of a common humanity, a global moral community, whose existence is evidenced by certain shared universal values (for example, a core conception of human nature) and the moral equality of all human beings, since we all have similar basic needs (Belsey, 1992). Another explanation, more empirical than philosophical, argues that growing global interdependence at all levels and the challenge of numerous global problems are transforming relations, interests and identities, leading to awareness of a new shared humanity, with moral co-responsibility among different societies (Finnemore, 2008). The idea of humanity as a community has led these authors to postulate a universal ethics, based on minimum objective moral principles that can be assumed by any ideology or culture. This universal ethics must be based on a Kantian moral reciprocity, such that we are all treated equally, treating all others as we would like to be treated ourselves (Nielsen, 1992). This universal ethics implies recognising that, regardless of location, everyone has certain socio-economic moral rights that impose a moral obligation to satisfy their basic needs.

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As such, the cosmopolitan approach proposes expanding the concept of justice, moving beyond the state-centric approach of the theory of justice advocated by Rawls and others to one that covers all human beings. They propose a ‘world justice constituency’ as a framework in which valuations of what is just or unjust can be made at the global level. This has underpinned the formulation of a theory of global justice, which argues that everyone in the world is subject to equal moral concern and must be guaranteed a just life. In advocating this approach, the various authors emphasise a number of different aspects, including human rights, human capabilities, just social processes and the importance of justice in the operation of institutions (Dietzel, 2017). The cosmopolitan theory of global justice, which has gained standing thanks to the contributions of various authors, provides a tool for the critical analysis of different global problems such as hunger and poverty, which they attribute to exploitative North–South relations, demonstrating that people are not treated as moral equals. Yet this theory also has a significant normative and transformational dimension. It argues that a discussion of the obligation to guarantee the basic needs of everyone, both at the national and international levels, through a more equitable redistribution of global resources means acknowledging the existence of universal socio-economic moral rights. This implies a moral obligation to create and fund international institutions that not only reduce poverty and hunger but promote the development of poor countries (Doyal & Gough, 1991). In this sense, authors such as David Held (2003), have argued the need to make progress toward a global citizenship, which would entail the universalisation of human rights and other norms to provide the basis for a ‘cosmopolitan democracy’. Others have focused on reflecting on the development of institutions for global governance to facilitate the functioning of the global community. To develop the idea of global justice and its implications for the redistribution of resources, authors such as Thomas Pogge (1989, 2002), have applied Rawls’ theory of justice, which was formulated for national societies, to the international context. Pogge argues that the citizens and governments of affluent countries are harming the global poor by imposing an unjust institutional order on them, which violates human rights. As such, affluent societies have the duty to help poorer ones due to reasons of justice, as a compensation for damages caused. To achieve this, he proposes a series of redistributive mechanisms, such as a new tax called the Global Resources Dividend, which would allow the reduction of much of the world’s poverty without the need for radical changes to the international system (Pogge, 2006). The idea has been criticised as insufficient by authors like Cortés (2010) for focusing only on the distribution of resources but not advocating the transformation of the origin of the problem, namely the structures of the current capitalist order, which are characterised by the inequality of power relations between the North and the South. These ideas on global ethics and justice have gradually found a place in political thought and public opinion. Their defence of socio-economic rights on a global scale provides an intellectual and political impetus to promote and guide the policies and transformations needed to end hunger and poverty. However, they have also been the focus of various criticisms that need to be addressed. For example, postcolonial

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and poststructuralist perspectives have criticised cosmopolitanism as Westerncentric, challenging its self-avowed universal vocation and claiming that it is based on an abstract vision of humanity (that of liberalism), which ignores specific identities and contexts. Other authors argue that it has not been sufficiently critical of the asymmetric structures of the capitalist order as the deep cause of social inequalities, and that its proposals, focused on the redistribution of goods or basic human needs, are insufficient (Cortés, 2010). Finally, authors such as Brown (2017) argue that moral cosmopolitanism does not provide the basis for a system of global justice, since this would be impossible without a global government that has power over individuals and states, something that clearly does not exist.

3.5

Conclusions

Since the 1970s, there have been various approaches to applied ethics that argue there are moral obligations for citizens and governments in affluent countries to address hunger, not just at the national level but also at the global level. These formulations remain relevant, given the clear lack of political willpower and momentum on the international agenda to decisively tackle a problem that continues to persist to shocking extents. These approaches to the moral duty to tackle hunger have deployed a wide range of arguments over the years. Among the main theories, the utilitarians believe that reducing hunger contributes to their goal of promoting goodness and happiness. Kantians, on the other hand, advocate a perspective based on human rights, starting from the specific obligation towards people suffering from hunger. For capability theory, nutritional well-being is a prerequisite for capabilities and human development. Finally, cosmopolitanism is based on a moral duty to promote global justice, either because we all form part of the same humanity or moral community, which generates shared obligations, or because we benefit from an economic system that generates North–South inequalities and, as such, must compensate for the damage caused to people living in poverty and suffering from hunger. These arguments for a cosmopolitan global justice are based on the idea of universal rights and are often translated into proposals for the global distribution of wealth and the transformation of global economic structures. The debates stimulated by all these ethical approaches share a number of common features. One of the fundamental issues is whether moral obligations are confined to people in our family, community or country, as has traditionally been assumed, or whether we also have obligations to distant people and citizens of other states, an argument more recent approaches have sought to advance. Another central aspect is whether we only have a negative moral duty of omission or whether we also have a positive duty to act. Some authors believe we are under obligation only to act in such a way that we do not profit from anything that causes hunger in another country, but we are not obliged to share our wealth in order to prevent hunger there. However, most authors allude to both types of duties, which raises another unresolved

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question, that of the magnitude or scope of our contribution: whether it consists of doing “as much as one can” (per Singer) or whether there is a limit, or whether it is a matter solely for the individual conscience. Despite the lack of concrete progress, the majority of authors talk of an obligation that is not merely subjective but meaningful and global in scope (Dower, 2003). Another key aspect of the debate is the matter of the type of contribution deriving from our obligations. Here, ethical approaches have undergone a significant evolution. The first formulations to appear in the 1970s focused on justifying the obligation of affluent countries to provide material aid (essentially food aid) to alleviate hunger in poor countries. Over time, however, the debates and proposals have evolved, thanks to the vast body of literature on food security. First, this literature has facilitated a more sophisticated understanding of the causes of chronic hunger and famine, understood not as the result of a shortage of food but as a lack of entitlements or access to food caused by poverty and other structural factors, which sometimes include armed conflicts. Secondly, it has been shown that hunger is not an isolated problem but has a complex and close relationship with other issues, such as poverty, morbidity and health, environmental degradation and gender inequality. Thirdly, the traditional approach based on simplistic concepts of rich and poor countries, inhabited by rich and poor people, respectively, has been refuted by evidence of food insecurity in all countries. This more thorough understanding of the phenomenon has stimulated the evolution of the measures and policies proposed in ethical debates. While early debates sought to justify the obligation for food or material aid for poor countries, over time this became viewed as merely palliative and insufficient (albeit necessary in emergencies). Ethical debates have grown to focus on the need to promote global justice, a just international order that guarantees at least basic material needs and a dignified life for all. This requires political and economic structural transformations at the national and international levels to ensure the global redistribution of resources, as well as long-term human development and capacity-building processes. Ethical and political debates on hunger cannot take place in isolation. Reducing hunger means acting not only on food but also in many other areas, from international trade through to education, including public health and peace-building. Policies in the many areas of development need complementarity and coherence, as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals. In short, there has been a realisation that material aid based on individual and voluntary charity does not constitute an adequate response to deeply-rooted structural problems, even though under certain circumstances it may be useful. Moreover, it is sometimes based on paternalistic attitudes and underpins unequal power relations that fail to respect the dignity of people in need, or build their agency and empowerment. The search for justice requires political action to transform structures, institutions and politics. However, it would be mistaken to believe that the responsibility for these ambitious and complex measures only falls to governments and institutions. As individuals, we all have moral and political responsibilities, which can be exercised through a commitment to solidarity, political action or responsible consumption.

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A key argument that underpins the fight against hunger for all, including those beyond our community or country, rests on the legal instruments that recognise the human right to food. This can provide a legal foundation for a ‘global social contract’, setting out global responsibilities for states and the international community. This makes progress in its legal development and in establishing mechanisms for monitoring and sanctioning violations of strategic importance. However, the fight against hunger is not just legal and political. It also involves ideas and values, as the ethical approaches discussed above have shown. Constructing institutions, legal frameworks and policies based on the existence of moral obligations to guarantee the well-being and dignity of everyone, regardless of whether they live in our country, requires progress to be made with a new imaginary, a new mental construction of the world that affirms global citizenship while respecting differences. It is necessary to reassess our threshold of what is morally acceptable in the world, such that hunger and other ills we may regard as unacceptable in our country are not tolerated if suffered by others elsewhere. Our capacity to empathise with humanity as a whole perhaps requires us to reimagine the world as a single country: Earthland, as it has been called by Raskin (2016) and others.

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Chapter 4

Food Sharing and Altruism: Reconstructing Behavioural Evolution Esther M. Rebato Ochoa

4.1

Food Sharing as a Representative Example of Altruism

It is difficult to write about human behaviour, especially when researchers from different scientific fields deal with this complex issue. Among the whole spectrum of human actions, altruism, defined as “conduct that benefits others, even at the expense of self-interest, which is voluntary and whose author does not anticipate external benefits”, is possibly one of the most representative examples of human behaviour. Altruism has been observed in other living beings that show complex behaviours and social structures (eusocial insects, crows, bats, etc.), sometimes similar to those of humans as in the case of some primates (Wolovich et al., 2006; de Waal, 2015). For this reason, altruism has been widely analysed in aspects ranging from its biological and genetic origins to its ecological and socio-cultural bases. Scholars have also looked at the underlying motivations and evolutionary mechanisms involved, even if altruistic conduct may a priori seem a paradox, in evolutionary terms, of Darwinian natural selection. This essay looks at altruism from an anthropological perspective and discusses some controversial aspects of a representative example of it: food donation.

4.2

Motivations Underlying Human Altruistic Behaviour

Since the introduction of the term ‘altruism’ by Auguste Compte (1798–1857), the French philosopher considered to be the founder of positivism and sociology (see Dixon, 2012), the altruistic and cooperative behaviours of our species have been the E. M. Rebato Ochoa (*) Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_4

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object of study by disciplines such as anthropology, economics, philosophy, psychology and sociobiology, among others. Anthropology and evolutionary biology have sought to shed light on the roots of altruism (its evolutionary antecedents) through the observation of behaviours in diverse primate species, the great apes in particular (e.g. Yamamoto & Tanaka, 2009), and through ethnographic studies of current hunter-gatherer and forager-horticulturalist societies (Gurven et al., 2000; Gurven, 2004; Jaeggi & Gurven, 2013a). From a phylogenetic viewpoint, there is evidence that human altruistic behaviours may have developed in parallel with the development of the cognitive and social brain (Kaplan et al., 2012); there are indeed specific neurobiological mechanisms that, together with cultural ones, support our social behaviours (see Sussman & Cloninger, 2011). At the ontogenetic level, several authors have pointed out the existence of altruistic tendencies from early childhood; that is, a natural and spontaneous predisposition to help and cooperate, which is then cultivated, becoming more selective as children grow up (Warneken & Tomasello, 2009; Warneken, 2013; Liebal et al., 2014). Empathy and sympathy are emotions that promote or facilitate altruistic behaviours at an early age (Alley, 2014). Avinun et al. (2011) have studied the genetic propensity toward prosocial behaviours (of which altruism is a subgroup) and have linked several variants of the AVPR1A gene to altruism, in both children and adults. As the authors indicate, a study of pre-school children has led to the discovery of a genetic effect on early altruistic behaviour which does not depend on reciprocity. Undoubtedly, the motivations underlying human altruistic behaviours are quite different from those of other primates, even those species that are most closely related genetically to us (e.g. chimpanzees). Thus, altruism can be considered to be based in a particularly human psychology (Boyd & Richardson, 2006). As Okasha (2013) has pointed out, the concept of biological altruism (i.e., as an evolutionary trait and therefore subject to natural selection mechanisms) differs from the everyday concept. Biological altruism implies a potential reduction in offspring for the individual performing the altruistic act, and a potential increase in the reproductive potential of the recipient. The everyday concept simply refers to an action where there is a conscious intention to help another. In his doctoral thesis, Aldama Pinedo (2013) analyses both altruism and selfishness as a struggle between group selection and individual selection, indicating that altruism is a valuable trait for the group but detrimental to the individual. He refers to Hamilton (1964) who questioned the likelihood of altruism evolving by group selection, due to its slowness with respect to individual selection, and proposed that altruism was present in the individual to favour the transmission of genes they shared with their relatives (‘inclusive aptitude’ or ‘Kin selection’). This kind of altruism does not require complex cognitive skills and is frequently observed in the animal world, especially among mothers and their offspring. But there are also apparently altruistic behaviours among unrelated individuals. Trivers (1971) explains these using the concept of ‘reciprocity’ (‘reciprocal altruism’); in other words, an individual behaves altruistically expecting a benefit from the recipient, even if this is not immediately forthcoming. Expecting a return, however, deviates

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from the concept of altruism in the strictest sense. Although reciprocity does not seem very common in animals, it has been observed in some primates (Jaeggi & Gurven, 2013b). In human beings, reciprocal behaviours are more spontaneous and show more complex patterns. From an evolutionary perspective, while biological altruism may be disadvantageous to the individual, it may be an advantage at the group level. As Okasha (2013) explains: [A] process of selection among groups can allow altruistic behaviour to evolve. Within each group, altruists will be at a selective disadvantage relative to their selfish fellows, but the aptitude of the group as a whole will improve with the presence of the altruists. Thus, groups formed by many selfish individuals become extinct, leaving behind groups containing altruists.

Some authors have provocatively questioned the existence of altruism altogether (see Sloan Wilson, 2015). It is likely that those who deny the existence of altruism do so because they ‘mistrust’ the arguments that lead individuals to behave altruistically, i.e. disinterestedly. They do not deny that there are ‘apparently altruistic’ acts but wonder whether they are in fact based on altruistic intentions (Sloan Wilson, 2015). Thus, discussion has focused not so much on what humans do when they behave altruistically, but on why they do, i.e., on their motivations. The debate on altruism among biologists mainly focuses on altruistic activity and evolutionary explanations, while philosophers are more concerned with the nature of altruistic thoughts and feelings. Some of the extensive debates on the concept of altruism and its motivations may be due, at least in part, to the complexity of this behaviour and to the fact that different disciplines analyse it using different concepts and different methodologies. The work of Clavien and Chapusat (2013) is a useful attempt at a ‘taxonomy’ of altruism, aiming to clarify terminological confusions. Clavien and Chapusat group the various conceptions of altruism under four headings: reproductive or biological altruism, psychological altruism, behavioural altruism and preference altruism. Doubts have been raised in particular about the reality of a ‘pure altruism’ (see Lichtenberg, 2017). The possible ‘toxicity’ of some altruistic behaviours has been noted, and the term ‘pathological altruism’ has been coined for these (Oakley et al., 2012). Oakley and colleagues point out that in many cases, altruistic actions can generate negative consequences, either for the recipient or for the actor. They define pathological altruism as “an action whose motivations (subjective, explicit or implicit) are to try to do good but which generates negative consequences either in the actor or in the receiver”; the expression ‘pathological’ is not used in any clinical sense. It is of interest to explore the issues associated with pathological altruism because this challenges the simplistic opposition of ‘good’ (altruism) and ‘bad’ (egoism). Oakley et al. (2012) focus on analysing the problems that altruism can engender not just at an individual level but particularly at a collective one, as, for example, in the case of the many public policies where emotional responses (for example, paternalistic attitudes, indignation) have given rise to harmful behaviours. Extreme and misdirected behaviours can be toxic or pathological to both the actor and the recipient, and altruism is no exception to this. In the next section dedicated to

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food donation, we explore this issue further, within the framework of so-called ‘toxic charity’ (Lupton, 2011). Intentions are not always the sole and sufficient criterion for determining the morality of a conduct. Intentions are one thing but outcomes are another. For this reason, it is argued that not every altruistic action is morally justified (see Oakley et al., 2012). Indeed, it is quite possible that selfish motivations may benefit others (and vice versa), while altruistic individuals may be selfishly motivated by a desire for recognition, for enhancement of reputation, or a sense of well-being. This is a very human characteristic, and therefore quite reasonable. Some individuals are more altruistic than others, and their motives may cover a wider spectrum; there are also selfish people with diverse motivations who take pleasure in what they do. And of course, there are individuals who suffer, and cause suffering, through their behaviours, even if they are well-intentioned and not at all selfish. A mature altruism should respect the desires of others and should reflect pleasure in contributing to their well-being, without generating anxiety or any kind of psychological discomfort either in the actor or in the recipient (Seeling & Rosof, 2001).

4.3

Sharing Food -One of the Most Studied Cooperative Behaviours

Notwithstanding current debates regarding altruistic behaviour, our species has always been considered an extremely cooperative (and altruistic) primate, showing a great diversity of behaviours in this respect: helping, sharing, comforting, etc. (Silk & House, 2011). Due to the diverse underlying motivations, the heterogeneous forms of expression and the set of biological and social processes involved in altruism, some authors have suggested that these behaviours are ‘exclusive’ to humans (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003). In particular, the sharing of food, not only between parents and their offspring but also with unrelated individuals, is one of the most studied cooperative behaviours in past and present human societies (Gurven, 2004; Kaplan & Gurven, 2005; Jaeggi & Gurven, 2013a; Alley, 2014). An environment as unpredictable as that of our ancestors may have led to the emergence of a ‘cooperative psychology’ (Wang & Dvorak, 2010) in order to respond to periods of famine and scarcity through prosocial behaviours such as the donation and exchange of food. Such behaviours, which also include so-called ‘tolerated theft’ (BlurtonJones, 1987; Gurven et al., 2000) – i.e. ‘passive’ transfers where others are allowed to appropriate surplus food, thus avoiding conflict and aggression (Kaplan et al., 2012) – may have been favoured by an increasingly complex brain and material culture. Food distribution would have had considerable adaptive value in our evolutionary history, and anthropological evidence suggests that such practices date back at least 1.8 million years to when the genus Homo had already emerged (Hublin, 2009). In such a context, these behaviours may be considered more as a survival strategy than as purely ‘altruistic’ acts but, as noted above, altruism can take

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many different forms, and although its underlying motivations remain controversial, the benefits to other individuals or groups are more than evident. In the whole spectrum of human actions, it is difficult to find anything more essential and ‘basic’ than food. Food conditions physical well-being, health and quality of life, and has a significant impact on reproduction, growth and development, morbidity and mortality, the physical and intellectual performance of individuals, and on the progress of human societies. As already noted, our ancestors were not guaranteed food, which they obtained through the scavenging, hunting and gathering until the emergence of agriculture in the Neolithic period when food could be stored. To ensure their survival as resources became scarce, people had to share food within the group and exchange food for other goods and services, as observed in some other primates (e.g. chimpanzees exchange food for grooming, for sex or to calm aggression) (Eppley et al., 2013). In this way, food also became a bargaining chip, a function that persists today. Anthropological studies carried out in current traditional societies (hunters – gatherers – horticulturists) show that human societies create cooperative structures around food, and while there may be a human genetic predisposition to act altruistically, the role of socialisation in the practice of food exchange and donation is also important (Rebato, 2015, 2018). As De Sütterlin (2019, p. 197) has indicated: [R]eciprocal solidarity between members of different groups based on exchange networks that function as social security systems exists in these societies. In case of difficulty, individuals may receive food or the right to hunt from members of other groups.

In short, the ability to form alliances that go beyond the family and group level is a well-established characteristic of human beings (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 2004). Although food is closely linked to nutrition, i.e. the biological process of assimilating food for use by the body, eating food is not purely a physiological act. What we eat depends on individual factors (sex, age, etc.) and, above all, on cultural, social, religious, economic and political influences, and, in many societies, even on the physical environment, geography and climate. It is precisely in the societies most closely linked to their ecosystem (usually rural areas in poor or developing countries) that famines still occur (greater effect of climate change, food shortages, poor water quality, etc.), driven by political, financial and market decisions, affecting infrastructure and food security. Hunger, which leads to disease, unhappiness, loneliness and poverty, as well as ignorance and exploitation, is still present in the twenty-first century despite the constant initiatives of worldwide humanitarian organisations and health agencies (Rebato, 2019). Our environment and lifestyle have modified our altruistic behaviours, which are now less dyadic (except at the family level) than those of our ancestors. Our current technologies allow us to carry out altruistic acts (donating money, for example) from our homes simply by sending a message via a mobile phone. As an empathic and altruistic species, we humans continue to donate and share food with those who need it, both individually and as part of religious, social or political groups. Because government budgets sometimes fall short or are directed to other issues, many individuals respond to food emergencies with altruistic acts (spending time,

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money and effort) thus making up for the lack of equity in state action. Some food crises are limited to a particular moment in time, others are cyclical or recurrent, but many of them have come to stay. Nowadays, there are more than 36 countries affected by food emergencies mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, 2018). Many of these crises are due not only to external factors (e.g. natural disasters) but also to human activity (wars, deforestation, financial and economic crises, etc.). They trigger a range of altruistic behaviours (humanitarian aid channelled through national governments, NGOs and charitable organisations). The acronym NGO has now become synonymous with ‘solidarity’ and these organisations are frequently idealised as committed to ‘doing good’, beyond profit or politics. However, although it is true that the majority of NGOs play a fundamental role in the fight against world poverty and malnutrition, they harness the altruistic (and sometimes non-altruistic) energies of many individuals (Werke & Ahmed, 2008) creating a whole clientele and business of enormous proportions around them. This activity departs from any real concept of altruism, and exploits the goodwill of donors, whose motivations are typically ‘purely’ altruistic in seeking the benefit of others without receiving anything in return (except perhaps some personal satisfaction). The outcome of their generosity, however, is not always as they might have expected. There also exist in the so-called ‘affluent societies’, sections of the population who suffer from food shortages and malnutrition both by default and by excess, which inevitably leads to disease and the risk of social exclusion. The food banks established in many countries, which altruistically distribute basic foodstuffs to the needy, are a useful tool to ensure that the immediate food needs of disadvantaged groups can be met, but they cannot be the solution to food insecurity. Food donations may be sufficient to alleviate temporary difficulties but cannot solve more structurally based problems. Obviously, it would be preferable for all members of a society to have access to decent employment and sufficient income to ensure that they can meet their nutritional needs. Lupton (2011, p. 1) makes the point that charity is often ‘toxic’: “while we are very generous with charitable donations to alleviate hunger, much of that money is wasted or causes harm to those targeted”. For Lupton, free distribution of food in fact degrades the dignity of those who do not have sufficient resources, and increases their dependence; in this way, most charities end up being ineffective or, worse still, harming the very people they are trying to help. He therefore argues that we should ‘detoxify ourselves’ from certain types of charity; we should not accept charity when we could have justice (Lupton, 2015). Lupton proposes changes to the organisation of charities (leveraging business experience to make donations more effective) and their workforce (e.g. living where they work, focusing on creating healthy neighbourhoods). In addition, people receiving aid should be included in the planning and implementation of it so that they become ‘beneficiaries’ rather than just ‘victims’ (Lupton, 2015). Relevant to this discussion is the interesting work of Sert et al. (2018) on corporate food donations. Their research suggests that the motives behind corporate food donations are based on a combination of strategic, moral and operational efficiency reasons. They identify at least two motivations: (a) strategic motives, to

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respond to external pressures imposed by government and civil society, and (b) altruistic motives, as a reaction to the needs of recipients of charitable aid. Companies that make more philanthropic contributions tend to benefit from a better reputation, and thus charitable contributions may be used as a tool of legitimisation (Chen et al., 2008, cited by Sert et al., 2018). Sometimes food donations to NGOs and other non-profit organisations are clearly altruistic behaviours, but they may also be a means of managing food surpluses.

4.4

Last Word: Attitudes Emerging Around Contemporary Food Donation

In short, we are a complex and multifaceted species, with flexible behaviours that have allowed us to adapt to the world around us. The nature-nurture dichotomy so intrinsic to mankind is a continuum that depends on many factors (intrinsic and extrinsic) and although there are extraordinarily generous and self-sacrificing behaviours, there are also mean-spirited and ruthless ones. Most human behaviour falls somewhere between these two poles except when conditions become particularly extreme. In various parts of the world, racist and xenophobic attitudes are emerging in relation to the donation of food: extreme right-wing activists have begun distributing food to people in need, but only to those from their own nation and not, for example, to migrants. The attitudes behind such acts are not at all altruistic and reflect a social pathology that, lamentably, affects many people. It would be better to apply the medical maxim Primum non nocere (‘Above all, do no harm’) to many of our straightforward actions, and the world would be a better place. Acknowledgements The author is Co-Principal Investigator of the multidisciplinary group URBAN ELIKA – Studies on Food and Society (Universidad del País Vasco/EHU) and a member of the Basque University System Research Group on Multilevel Governance (Principal Investigator, Alberto López Basaguren).

References Aldama Pinedo, J. U. (2013). Sobre el egoísmo y el altruismo: la pugna entre la selección individual y la selección de grupo. Doctoral thesis, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru. Available at https://cybertesis.unmsm.edu.pe/handle/20.500.12672/4773 Alley, T. R. (2014). Food sharing and empathic emotion regulation: An evolutionary perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1–2. Avinun, R., Israel, S., Shalev, I., Gritsenko, I., Bornstein, G., Ebstein, R. P., & Knafo, A. (2011). AVPR1A variant associated with preschoolers’ lower altruistic behavior. PLoS One, 6(9), e25274. Blurton-Jones, N. G. (1987). Tolerated theft, suggestions about the ecology and evolution of sharing, hoarding and scrounging. Social Science Information, 26, 31–54.

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Boyd, R., & Richardson, P. (2006). Culture and the evolution of the human social instincts. In N. J. Enfield & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 453–477). Berg. Chen, J. C., Patten, D. M., & Roberts, R. W. (2008). Corporate charitable contributions: A corporate social performance or legitimacy strategy? Journal of Business Ethics, 82(1), 131–144. Clavien, C., & Chapuisat, M. (2013). Altruism across disciplines: One word, multiple meanings. Biology and Philosophy, 28, 125–140. de Sütterlin, C. (2019). Culture by nature. Familial roots of ambivalent human social behavior and its cultural extensions in large-scale societies. A contribution of human and cultural cthology. Anthropologischer Anzeiger. PrePub-Article. https://doi.org/10.1127/anthranz/2019/0883 de Waal, F. (2015). Prosocial primates. In D. A. Schroeder & W. G. Graziano (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of prosocial behaviour. Oxford University Press. Dixon, T. (2012). La science du cerveau et la religion de l’humanité: Auguste Comte et l’altruisme dans l’Angleterre victorienne. Revue d’Histoire des Sciences, 65(2), 287–316. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (2004). Die Biologie des menschlichen Verhaltens. Grundriss der Humanethologie. Piper. Eppley, T. M., Suchak, M., Crick, J., & de Waal, F. (2013). Perseverance and food sharing among closely affiliated female chimpanzees. Primates, 54, 319–324. FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO. (2018). The state of food security and nutrition in the world 2018. Building climate resilience for food security and nutrition. FAO. Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2003). The nature of human altruism. Nature, 425, 785–791. Gurven, M. (2004). To give and to give not: The behavioral ecology of human food transfers. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 543–583. Gurven, M., Hill, K., Kaplan, H., Hurtado, A., & Lyles, R. (2000). Food transfers among Hiwi foragers of Venezuela: Tests of reciprocity. Human Ecology, 28, 171–218. Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour I, II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–52. Hublin, J. J. (2009). The prehistory of compassion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 106, 6429–6430. Jaeggi, A. V., & Gurven, M. (2013a). Natural cooperators: Food sharing in humans and other primates. Evolutionary Anthropology, 22, 186–195. Jaeggi, A. V., & Gurven, M. (2013b). Reciprocity explains food sharing in humans and other primates independent of kin selection and tolerated scrounging: A phylogenetic meta-analysis. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1765), 20131615. Kaplan, H., & Gurven, M. (2005). The natural history of human food sharing and cooperation: A review and a new multi-individual approach to the negotiation of norms. In H. Gintis, S. Bowles, R. Boyd, & E. Fehr (Eds.), Moral sentiments and material interests: On the foundations of cooperation in economic life (pp. 75–113). MIT Press. Kaplan, H. S., Schniter, E., Smith, V. L., & Wilson, B. J. (2012). Risk and the evolution of human exchange. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 279(1740), 2930–2935. Lichtenberg, J. (2017). Is pure altruism possible? https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/1 9/is-pure-altruism-possible/ Liebal, K., Vaish, A., Haun, D., & Tomasello, M. (2014). Does sympathy motivate prosocial behaviour in great apes? PLoS One, 9, e84299. Lupton, R. D. (2011). Toxic charity. How churches and charities hurt those they help. HarperOne. Lupton, R. D. (2015). Charity detox. What charity would look like if we cared about results. HarperOne. Oakley, B., Knafo, A., Madhavan, G., & Sloan Wilson, D. (Eds.). (2012). Pathological altruism. Oxford University Press. Okasha, S. (2013). Biological altruism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/altruism-biological/

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Rebato, E. (2015). Food altruism in human beings: Facts and factors. In L. Escajedo & M. de Renobales (Eds.), Envisioning a future without food waste and food poverty: Societal challenges (pp. 225–231). Wageningen Academic Publishers. Rebato, E. (2018). Compartir el alimento: una visión bioantropológica. In L. Escajedo, E. Rebato, & A. López Basaguren (Eds.), Derecho a una alimentación adecuada y despilfarro alimentario. Monografías de alta calidad en investigación jurídica (pp. 285–297). Editorial Tirant Lo Blanch. Rebato, E. (2019). La dimensión sociocultural de los alimentos. https://www.jakiunde.eus/blog Seeling, B. J., & Rosof, L. S. (2001). Normal and pathological altruism. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 49(3), 933–959. Sert, S., Garrone, P., Melacini, M., & Perego, A. (2018). Corporate food donations: Altruism, strategy or cost saving? British Food Journal, 20(7), 1628–1642. Silk, J. B., & House, B. R. (2011). Evolutionary foundations of human prosocial sentiments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 108, 10910–10917. Sloan Wilson, D. (2015). Does altruism exist? Yale University Press. Sussman, R. W., & Cloninger, C. R. (Eds.). (2011). Origins of altruism and cooperation. Springer. Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–57. Wang, X. T., & Dvorak, R. D. (2010). Sweet future: Fluctuating blood glucose levels affect future discounting. Psychological Science, 21, 183–188. Warneken, F. (2013). The development of altruistic behavior: Helping in children and chimpanzees. Social Research, 80, 431–442. Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2009). The roots of human altruism. British Journal of Psychology, 100, 444–471. Werke, E., & Ahmed, F. Z. (2008). What do nongovernmental organizations do? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(2), 73–92. Wolovich, C. K., Feged, A., Evans, S., & Green, S. M. (2006). Social patterns of food sharing in monogamous Owl Monkeys. American Journal of Primatology, 68, 663–674. Yamamoto, S., & Tanaka, M. (2009). How did altruism and reciprocity evolve in humans? Interaction Studies, 10, 150–182.

Chapter 5

The Right to Food and the Essential Promotion of Personal Autonomy: The ‘How’ Matters Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio

5.1

Food Waste and Food Donation: A Question of Common Sense?

Sometimes defined as ‘sound practical judgment’, the concept of common sense has various meanings as Maroney (2009) has noted. It may refer to a faculty that people possess or not, but also to a kind of ‘folk wisdom’, i.e. a form of knowledge that does not derive from specialised training or deliberative thought, and that is perceived by the holder as ‘the simple truth’, or an “underlying and unconscious framework” guiding good decision-taking (Thompson, 1995). In these terms, the strategy of redistributing surplus food that is perfectly edible appears to be ‘common sense’. If it is not possible to increase the efficiency of the supply chain and avoid surplus food altogether, then why not redistribute it or donate it to people who need food (UNEP, 2014)? Sometimes, however, what we call common sense, even when used with the best of intentions, leads us into the trap of oversimplification. On the one hand, there is surplus food (around 180 kg per person per year in the EU); on the other, there are people who need that food. The common sense solution seems obvious: make it possible for surplus food to reach those who need it before it perishes. Existing models have been developed and extended (food banks, for example) and new strategies have emerged, such as the so-called ‘food bridges’, to redistribute edible but unsaleable food (Arroyo Aparicio & Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2015) through various food charities. Most obviously, these ‘bridges’ and ‘banks’ imply a logistical challenge in terms of transport and distribution. In addition, in most EU member states, there are legal and operational barriers to be overcome in order to enable food

L. E. San-Epifanio (*) Constitutional Law, and Law and Ethics in the Biosciences, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_5

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donation to take place. Generally, these barriers have been put in place in order to prevent products that, for whatever reason, have become unsaleable from being fraudulently distributed to consumers. At the same time, the European Parliament (2012) has declared that throwing away food that is perfectly fit for consumption is unacceptable from an economic, environmental and ethical point of view; member states, and the European Union as a whole, have an obligation to respond to the scandal of food waste. The key documents presenting the political measures and directives implemented by the EU in this respect are the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe (European Commission, 2011), in which food waste is considered alongside other forms of waste requiring reduction, and more specifically, the Strategies for a More Efficient Food Chain in the EU (European Parliament, 2012). In this second document, the European Parliament presents data capturing the reality of food waste in the EU, and deplores the fact that a significant quantity of “food that is safe and perfectly fit for human consumption” is wasted. In 2011, the figure quoted was 90 million tonnes (179 kg per person) while data published in 2016 indicate 88 million tonnes (European Commission, 2016), not including unharvested agricultural products or fish catches that are returned to the sea (Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2016). Against this background, this chapter analyses the way in which the political measures employed in the fight against food waste aim to redirect surplus food towards people who are experiencing, or are at risk of, social exclusion. We have a deeply engrained tendency to consider hunger as a problem affecting non-EU countries, yet the European Parliament acknowledged in 2010 that 79 million people in the EU were living under the minimum income threshold. Since then, the situation has only got worse. The working document outlining EU directives to facilitate food donation (European Commission, 2016) indicates that a quarter of the EU population (122 million people) were “at risk of social exclusion”. Of those, 55 million could not afford a decent meal every other day (Eurostat, 2015), because they “lack [ed] sufficient purchasing power” (Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2016, p. 367). Given this state of affairs, facilitating food donation can be seen as an expression of solidarity towards those citizens in need. Other authors in this volume analyse in detail the idea of ‘feeding the hungry’ and what underlies this notion from anthropo-biological, religious or socio-political perspectives, in contexts ranging from the local to the international, and from different historical viewpoints. This chapter, as its title suggests, considers the right to food as a fundamental human right from the perspective of constitutional law. The right to food protects the right of people to feed themselves in dignity, or as defined by the UN Special Rapporteur: the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear (Ziegler, 2003, p. 16).

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It is not just a right to be fed; it is about being guaranteed the right to feed oneself. This implies that as part of their obligations to protect people’s resource base for food, states should take appropriate steps to ensure the right to food is respected both by private business and public sectors. Within this context, we ask the question: is the right to food respected in the act of donating surplus food to people in, or at risk of, social exclusion? The answer is ‘it depends’; what matters is the how.

5.2

Food Poverty and Food Waste: Simplicity and Complexity

One of the definitions of the word ‘simplicity’ is ‘the quality or condition of being easy to understand’. Given the significance of food for human survival, any human being with a minimum of maturity and reason should be able to understand what food poverty and food waste mean, and why they are undesirable (or even condemnable). Everybody, every day, needs food; however, there are people in the world who do not have food and, though fewer in number, there are also people who have too much, sometimes to an extreme degree. So far, the matter is simple. In the context of the EU’s fight against food waste, food waste and food poverty are seen simply as the consequence of the mismanagement of food resources. However, the situation is inevitably more complex. Food waste has a number of different causes and occurs at various stages during the long process from production and distribution to final consumption. This means that in order to identify and tackle waste, all players in the food production and distribution chain need to be involved. Further complexity arises from the fact that there is no single agreed definition of food waste at an international level (Gjerris & Gaiani, 2015). The EU institutions opted in 2012 for a narrow concept that covers all food in the commercial chain which, for economic or aesthetic reasons, or owing to the proximity of its sell-by date, is thrown away when it “it is still perfectly apt and suitable for human consumption” (EU Parliament, 2012). This criterion of suitability for consumption focuses waste reduction strategies on the time period during which ‘food’, in the strict sense of the word, deteriorates to become ‘waste’. However, determining just how much waste is avoidable – just when does food become waste and exactly how can this be avoided? – is one of the major challenges facing food waste reduction strategies today (UNEP, 2014). On the basis of the principle in environmental law of ‘prevention at source’, food waste reduction policies focus largely on identifying the factors that generate food waste, and on developing warning systems aimed at identifying and mitigating unexpected events affecting transport or distribution (such as vehicle breakdowns or cancellation of orders in transit). Yet most of the initiatives actually implemented thus far by EU member states have been directed towards improving food labelling, in the belief that it is retailers and consumers who are responsible for most avoidable food waste. The primary function of food labelling is to provide consumers with

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information concerning the characteristics and safe use of products; however, labelling can work against responsible use of food (Lissel, 2015). ‘Best-before’ dates, for example, are often wrongly interpreted as ‘use by’ dates
a term that would imply that consumption is unsafe
leading to the disposal of food which is perfectly fit for consumption. Studies are now underway to examine the potential advantages and costs of introducing dual labelling, without compromising hygiene, food safety or consumer rights (European Commission, 2015). A second set of initiatives focuses on finding valid ‘alternative uses’ for food that has been excluded from the commercial circuit. This basically includes two main approaches: firstly, donation of food to organisations such as food banks or charities (a practice we refer to as ‘redistribution’ and which we examine in greater detail below); and secondly, the use of surplus food as raw material in the manufacture of other foodstuffs that will subsequently be commercialised. This covers, for example, the case of jams, juices or vegetable broths made with so-called ‘ugly fruit’, or the use of food waste in the production of animal feed. The EU is very strict when it comes to accepting these alternative destinations for products originally created for commercial food retailing. They are normally only allowed when there is no impact on either the quality or the safety of the final products (González Vaqué, 2018). In the case of ‘unavoidable waste’, European policy objectives require environmentally ‘friendly’ treatment of this residue. The Commission communication, Closing the Loop (European Commission, 2015), describes food waste as one of the priority areas of the so-called circular economy. Unavoidable food waste should be seen as organic waste, which, given advances in research and development in this field, has potential value as biomaterial.

5.3

Legal Measures to Allow Food Redistribution

As detailed above, policies targeting food waste are currently framed under EU environmental legislation. However, the redistribution of surplus food goes well beyond this framework and should be seen as part of social policy. In this sense, the redistribution of food surplus appears to be a political strategy that simultaneously seeks to address two very different social problems: food waste, which represents a significant economic and environmental cost, and the fight against poverty (European Commission, 2016). In the context of the EU’s Circular Economy Strategy (European Commission, 2015), directives are being drafted to facilitate the donation of unsaleable food while guaranteeing product quality and safety requirements. Among the most significant ‘grey’ areas to be addressed here, is the question of the civil responsibility and the diligence required of charitable distribution agencies, as opposed to commercial producers and distributors whose responsibilities are defined by current legislation. Both in academic legal circles and in some national and international institutions, work is now underway exploring how legal requirements can be made more flexible for charities while not detracting from ensuring the quality or safety of food.

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Thus, Italy has modified its legislation specifically in order for charities receiving donated food to be considered the ‘end consumer’ (see Arroyo Aparicio & Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2015). In Spain, a specific commission regarding this question was set up in the Senate (Spanish Senate, 2018). In the case of France, the focus of attention has remained in the area of environmental legislation. Since February 2016, supermarkets of over 400 square metres are required to choose between, on the one hand, the sustainable but economically costly treatment of surplus food or, on the other, the alternative of donating food surpluses but following strict requirements both in terms of food quality and, perhaps more significantly, respecting the dignity afforded to recipients. It is not clear how other EU countries will respond. For the moment the document guiding the European Commission (2016) seeks to “facilitate” donations but does not specify how. The document header includes a disclaimer indicating that it is a preliminary document, drafted for technical discussion only and should not be regarded as a reflection of the Commission’s definitive position. The bulk of the measures focus on the responsibilities of food banks and distribution agencies vis-à-vis the food they receive and subsequently distribute, including traceability, quality, hygiene and information given to consumers (or, to be more precise, ‘end receivers’). A final section, however, addresses the controversial issue of fiscal measures. It has yet to be confirmed how VAT legislation will be applied to donations destined for food redistribution but under discussion is the possibility of creating specific new fiscal incentives applicable to food donations. Along with the transfer of civil responsibility, such incentives have become one of the key aspects of the so-called ‘Good Samaritan laws’ that have been implemented in countries such as the USA or Mexico with the aim of encouraging donations of surplus food to people experiencing, or at risk of, social exclusion. However, fiscal benefits are seen in the academic literature as a double-edged sword. They may incentivise donations, but with potential negative consequences. Along the lines of the ‘polluter pays’ principle, increasing the efficiency of food distribution chains typically involves investment with no direct return. Free redistribution, in contrast, offers a way of avoiding both such investment costs and the cost of disposing of food (waste charges). In addition, redistribution may offer non-monetary advantages for companies, for instance in fulfilling their corporate social responsibility obligations or enhancing their public reputation. This may lead some companies, calculator in hand, to consider redistribution as economically preferable to investing in improving the efficiency of their production and distribution chains. It should therefore be stated clearly: if we are to respect the principles of both environmental law and respect for human dignity, then the misfortune of those in need of charitable food aid should not be used by companies as an excuse to avoid environmental responsibilities. Food waste and food poverty are problems caused by a range of factors and require a range of solutions. Under a social and democratic state of law, with constitutional commitment to human rights, the short-term management of surpluses based on redistribution should only be accepted on a temporary basis. In the medium and long term, there should be no food surpluses, and alternative strategies need to be put in place to support those currently identified as potential recipients of surplus food. Thus, any proposals based on using the existence of food poverty as an incentive to redistributing food waste need to be carefully examined.

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5.4

Food Donation and Human Rights: The Importance of Personal Autonomy

Human rights, explains Bruce Ackerman (1981), do not grow on trees. This does not mean, however, that once recognised, these rights become immutable. Beyond the historical contexts in which they arose, human rights are something living, as Rene Cassin noted in his 1968 Nobel lecture, and can be expanded and transformed. Beyond generic descriptions, however, when addressing the interpretation and efficacy of a specific right -in this case, the human right to food- it is important to analyse the process that led to its recognition, the factors that have since influenced its development and, where appropriate, the transformations it has undergone during this time. The academic literature clearly identifies the starting point of the notion of the human right to food in the passing mention contained in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (henceforth UDHR, 1948): “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services”. Subsequently, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN-OHCHR, 1966) reaffirmed the right to an adequate standard of living comprising the components already mentioned in the UDHR, and further acknowledges, in Article 11, section 2, the fundamental right of every person “to be protected against hunger” (UN-OHCHR, 1999, p. 2). Following the World Food Summit of 1996, the UN’s current recognition of the right to adequate food transcends protection against hunger, as noted earlier. It is understood as: the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear (UN Rome Declaration, 1996).

Ever since its original expression, however, the human right to food has come with two significant weaknesses. Firstly, food is something so obviously fundamental to our survival that it seems merely rhetorical to establish it as an autonomous right, distinct from the right to a ‘vital minimum’ (Christensen, 1978). Secondly, it is not clear that the right of access to adequate food could ever be defined sufficiently robustly as to be considered a justiciable right (Spitz, 1985, 2006; Courtis, 2007). Nevertheless, these two weaknesses have not prevented the increased recognition – at least in formal terms – in recent decades of the human right to food both in constitutional texts and in international documents (Arroyo Aparicio & Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2015). In practical terms, however, this growing recognition has not resulted in major changes. While nobody questions the right to food itself, there continues to be a lack of consensus with regard to determining, on the one hand, the legal status of possible holders of this right, and, on the other, those who should hold responsibility for guaranteeing this status, and how this responsibility should be implemented.

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In the 1980s, Alston stated: [I]t is paradoxical, but hardly surprising, that the right to food has been endorsed more often and with greater unanimity and urgency than most other human rights, while at the same time being violated more comprehensively and systematically than probably any other right (Alston and Tomasevski, 1984).

It seems even more paradoxical that this systematic violation should occur in social environments such as the EU where tonnes of food are wasted every day. How then should we characterise lack of access to food in the richest areas of the planet? Should we refer to the ‘violation of the right to adequate food’ and demand that states redress this violation, or is it simply a fallacy, as some leaders and politicians have claimed, to talk about ‘hunger’ in prosperous countries? It is of course true that, based on FAO figures, 98% of severe hunger in the world is concentrated in the so-called Global South (Wolvers et al., 2015). However, it is also true that 2% of people suffering severe hunger, and an even higher percentage of people struggling to survive under the minimum income threshold, live in rich countries and are excluded from general welfare provision. The structural roots of hunger are so deep that their eradication requires radical changes at national and international level. De Schutter and Cordes (2011) emphasise that, counter to many people’s assumptions, hunger is not primarily the consequence of natural disasters in developing countries; just looking back over recent history, it is not hard to see how famine is often the collateral – or in some cases, inevitable – consequence of human decision-making. In developed countries, moreover, there is clear evidence that simply producing more food and making it available in the marketplace does not guarantee access to food; economic access to food requires people “to have the resources” to acquire it (De Schutter & Cordes, 2011). The tonnes of wasted food are a sad testament to this. Even if the human right to food is recognised, this does not imply that public or private practices clearly limiting adequate access to food -such as unjustified price rises or drastic changes in agricultural production models- will be challenged (Gibbon, 2005; Vorley, 2003). Nor does there seem to be much questioning of what is known as ‘the transfer paradox’, that is, the fact that international food aid donors typically seek to benefit from food aid as much as, or sometimes more than, those who receive it (Lahiri & Raimmondos-Moller, 1999). This has led to the belief that the recognition of the human right to food is unlikely to be enforced in international law; rather, voluntary guidelines or codes of conduct will be developed that have a similar status to the Millennium Development Goals or the UN Sustainable Development Objectives; i.e. the status of reference for international policies and agreements. As the erstwhile UN Rapporteur on the right to food has warned, without an authority to enforce human rights, they -and the promise they embody of a world that is “totally different, caring, freed of contempt”- are simply reduced to “a ghostly existence” (Ziegler, 2003). This is the ‘paradox of possession’: at the same time, one possesses but does not possess these rights (Donnelly, 2013). It is true that every movement towards recognising human rights has historically generated

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contradictions in the specification of their exact content and who should promote them and how. The greatest difficulty has been experienced in getting social rights recognised within national borders (O’Connel, 2012). Some have claimed that although social rights may express desirable objectives, they are not really rights (Beetham, 1995). Others have argued that, despite referring to key components of the social state (such as health, education or social services and the protection of the most vulnerable), they are nevertheless ‘weak’ rights, and difficult to conceptualise as justiciable rights (Courtis, 2007). Within this framework, the human right to adequate food is particularly notable for its conceptual fragility. It has a very specific weakness in that it is hard to define as distinct from other rights. For example, in the European Social Charter, it is understood as being implicitly included in the guarantee of other rights, such as the right of workers to fair remuneration, sufficient for a decent standard of living for themselves and their families (art. 4); the right to social security (art. 12); or the right to social and medical assistance (arts. 13, 17 and 19). In the same vein, even before the Swiss Constitution incorporated a catalogue of human rights, the Swiss Federal Court recognised the justiciability of a right described as Garantie der Existenzsicherung – or ‘the guarantee of a livelihood’ – as a key factor in ensuring human dignity (Kaufmann, 2007; Gysing, 1999). Within such a legal framework, there is little need to recognise specific rights for each of the key elements of human survival (food, housing, clothing, medical care). Meanwhile, in relation to implementation, rich countries have been reluctant to specify in detail the responsibilities associated with the human right to adequate food in case this implies the need for a substantial increase in food aid to other countries or, at the very least, changes in aid supply patterns (Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2012). Thus, implementing the human right to food in practice requires the establishment of an ad hoc legal framework – be it in the form of constitutions, framework laws or sectorial laws – in order to ensure enforceability. However, regulations thus far created have had little impact on state behaviour. Despite their adherence to legal texts such as the Rome Declaration on World Food Security, 1996, countries such as Canada, the USA or the EU member states have not considered it necessary to specifically incorporate the human right to food into their corpus iuris, in contrast to some countries in Africa and South America (Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2012). Nevertheless, the current drive to recognise and clarify this right represents modest but encouraging progress. A theoretical framework is being developed that can serve as a reference for the analysis of weaknesses in food systems. As noted earlier, recognition of the human right to adequate food transcends simply feeding the hungry: it requires analysis of who suffers due to weaknesses in food systems (hunger, malnutrition, inadequate diets) along with analysis of the systemic reasons for this, and of the actions that impact on access to adequate food. Given the evidence from Caritas Europa (2015) that 25% of European citizens live below the minimum income threshold and are unable to cater for their basic needs, including food, this framework of analysis should gradually become established as an important tool in the fight to recognise, and implement effectively, the right to adequate food.

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Critical Analysis of Surplus Food Redistribution Models

If we were to imagine all EU citizens as forming a ‘survival unit’, where resources were shared and challenging circumstances were experienced as collective concerns, there is little doubt that wasting food while some go hungry would be considered, at the very least, gross mismanagement of collective resources. Yet, while as citizens of the EU we may feel we ‘coexist’, we do not consider ourselves to be part of a survival unit. In our societies, both food and other essential resources (such as housing, clothing or medical care) are typically seen as consumer goods or commodities; in developed countries, having or not having access to food depends on having or not having purchasing power. This factor explains the paradox of hungry people in lands of plenty (Poppendieck, 1998; Rocha, 2007). The relevance of food for survival is what leads diverse players, some in very powerful positions, to participate and compete in a complex commercial network involving the cultivation, processing and transformation, transport and distribution of the food that is placed on the market (Lang & Heasman, 2015). Although the price of most food is typically lower than that of many other commodities (such as precious metals or diamonds), its sales volumes make it a strategic component of economic power: hence it is subject to fierce competition. Understanding how food has become subject to the competitive market is key to understanding why some European citizens “do not have sufficient purchasing power” to afford adequate food every other day (European Commission, 2016). For the moment, however, EU governments appear to be preoccupied with other issues, ignoring the commitment to redistributing wealth that is considered to be an integral part of our European constitutional models. Traditionally, and even in today’s market economies, decent employment, complemented by systems of insurance and social assistance, is assumed to guarantee access to resources that will ensure an individual can meet their basic needs. The post-war era (since 1945) has seen the introduction in Europe of systems that have sought to overcome what Bismarck described as “an individualistic and anachronic vison of the liberal state”, providing it with a “social character” (García Cotarelo, 1988). Among their constitutional objectives, these post-war state models typically enshrine the guarantee of a decent standard of living for all citizens (see Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2016 for further detail) and project a commitment to action in this direction that extends to the economy, work, the family and culture. At some point, however, we seem to have lost sight of this guarantee. Recent measures, such as fiscal austerity and public spending cuts, or the flexibilisation of the labour market, have all increased inequality, yet they have been justified in terms of stability and good governance (Clauwaert & Shöman, 2013; Esteve, 2013). Current levels of employment and social assistance no longer guarantee access to a decent standard of living in the EU (Caritas Europa, 2014) and political-legal systems appear incapable of responding effectively. In the absence of political solutions, the number of food banks and food aid distribution agencies has increased dramatically: 5.7 million

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Europeans now use the services provided by the European Food Banks Federation (FEBA). Meanwhile, EU institutions are working to encourage food donation as a solution to the prevention of food waste. It is time, in my view, to reassess the increasing role being played by charity in social-democratic states. In the short term and in emergency contexts, food charity has historically had a role to play and indeed, still plays an important role today. In the medium and long term, however, at both international and national levels, there are significant problems implicit in the functioning of charity and philanthropy that require careful attention. And it is not just in Europe that bringing about a fairer distribution of wealth (Dworkin, 2006) and recognising a person’s right to sufficient income so as to meet basic needs is recognised as a key responsibility of democratic states. Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights also reflected the overriding need for wealth redistribution in the United States (Sunstein, 2004). But what, realistically, are the prospects for the future when, given austerity policies, there is insufficient public support for decent employment and social assistance? Democratic states are neglecting one of their essential responsibilities and, for the time being, nothing suggests that there will be any radical change in this attitude. Pinning one’s hopes on charity as a solution to social problems has far more disadvantages than might appear at first sight. As we know, charity depends on private initiatives and, therefore, relies on the way that private players choose to define their donations within their policy of social responsibility as a whole. Beyond certain minimum requirements constitutionally expected of all organisations in society (fundamentally, compliance with the essential values of that society), private players enjoy a considerable degree of freedom in this respect. Unlike the case of a government’s national budget, the policies of donor companies or private citizens (often anonymous donors) are rarely debated in any public forum where there is democratic representation, and thus donors and philanthropists are not democratically held to account for their actions. Nor do they face the challenge of guaranteeing the on-going provision of a service while a social need persists. It should, then, be of concern that democratic governments are tending to pass on their responsibilities vis-à-vis poverty to charity organisations. In the EU, the role of charity -or ‘solidarity’ as many European institutions prefer to refer to it- is highly ambiguous. It is repeatedly referred to (European Commission, 2014) as both an “objective in itself”, and a “criterion of interpretation” or “means”, “process” and even an “instrument” in the sphere of the social agenda (Barnard, 2010). But perhaps what is most striking about this discourse on solidarity are the omissions and absences. There is, for example, no reference to the individual or collective rights of people affected by social exclusion, and no reflection on whether ‘solidarity’, beyond the sporadic offering of material goods, is or is not an adequate means of combatting poverty in terms of social justice. There appears to be no evidence that redistributing surplus food in any way redresses injustice; at most, what it does is temporarily disguise its consequences. While recognising the urgent need currently to employ any means possible to alleviate the situation of material deprivation in which so many people struggle to survive, in the medium and long term a critical reappraisal is required of the transfer

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of state responsibilities to food charities. There needs to be further work on creating models of access to food that are dignified and committed to people rather than profit. In other countries, as explained in this volume by Graham Riches and by Ainhoa Inza Bartolomé, and noted by the authors of First World Hunger Revisited, the growth in the number of charitable organisations is shifting the political debate on tackling poverty to the extent that hunger is being institutionalised as a question of charity (Riches & Silvasti, 2014; Vlaholias et al., 2015). Food banks were created as a temporary solution designed to re-channel surpluses towards those most in need until their situation improved. Since the recession of 2008–2009, however, in both North America and Europe, the task faced by these organisations has become significantly more daunting. Millions of households rely on food aid that is still conspicuously presented as ‘emergency’ aid despite becoming increasingly institutionalised (Elmes et al., 2016). Hence the need for increased reflection on the role of food banks, their functioning and their potential in tackling the causes of hunger, poverty or homelessness, and on how their scope for action can be extended. Rights-based approaches are based on the empowerment of people and on social participation, and have the advantage not only of implying political accountability but also of opening up avenues of justiciability. This cannot be assumed of charitybased models. Sporadically offering material resources to satisfy basic needs does not contribute to capacity building, or the “the enhancement of freedoms that allow people to lead lives that they have reason to live” (Sen, 2001). It should be possible to establish a set of indicators for assessing different levels of food insecurity ranging from extreme hunger to adequate access to food. The parallel with the right to housing is informative here. The fact that some people are homeless should not prevent us from recognising that those living in substandard housing or in hostels are also being denied the right to decent housing. It is not a case of all or nothing, but rather, the right to decent housing can be respected to differing degrees, as represented in the European Typology on Homelessness (ETHOS) (FEANTSA n.d.). In other words, it is possible to evaluate the severity of non-fulfilment of the right to decent housing for each person affected (BuschGeertsema, 2010; Busch-Geertsema et al., 2016). Thus, sleeping rough on the streets or in a night shelter are classified on the ETHOS scale as extreme housing exclusion, but other forms of homelessness (stays in homeless hostels, temporary or transitional supported accommodation), insecure accommodation (without legal tenancy, with eviction orders or under threat of violence) and inadequate housing (temporary structures, dwellings unfit for habitation or overcrowded dwellings) are also recognised as states of housing exclusion. It should be possible to replicate the ETHOS scale in relation to the human right to food. Malnutrition, in its various forms, is symptomatic of a state of poverty that goes well beyond the mere lack of food and requires sustainable solutions that are compatible with people’s rights and dignity. Addressing increasingly severe food ‘emergencies’ at present involves resorting to charity but this state of affairs should not obscure the need in the medium and long term to bring about a redistribution of welfare and wealth that is decent and respectful of people’s rights and freedoms.

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Acknowledgements This research was developed as part of the multidisciplinary group URBAN ELIKA – Studies on Food and Society (Universidad del País Vasco/EHU) and the Basque University System Research Group on Multilevel Governance (Principal Investigator: Alberto López Basaguren).

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Spitz, P. (2006). Justiciability of the right to food: Interdisciplinary, transversal character and conflicts. In M. Borghi & P. Postiglione Blommenstein (Eds.), The right to adequate food and access to justice. Bruyland. Sunstein, R. C. (2004). The second Bill of Rights: FDR’s unfinished revolution and why we need it more than ever. Basic Books. Thompson, R. H. (1995). Common sense and fact-finding: Cultural reason in judicial decisions. Legal Studies, 19, 119–134. UDHR (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA Res 217A (III), UN GAOR, UN Doc A/810 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (2014). Prevention and reduction of food and drink waste in businesses and households. Guidance for governments, local authorities, businesses and other organisations, Version 1.0. https://wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Prevention%20 and%20reduction%20of%20food%20and%20drink%20waste%20in%20business%20and%20 households.pdf United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-OHCHR). (1966). International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (ICESCR). Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly Resolution 2200A (XXI) of December 1966, entry into force 3 January 1976, in accordance with article 27. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-OHCHR). (1999). CESCR General Comment No. 12: The right to adequate food (art. 11). E/C.12/1999/5. https://www.refworld.org/docid/4538838c11.html Vlaholias, E. G., Thompson, K., Every, D., & Dawson, D. (2015). Reducing food waste through charity: Exploring the giving and receiving of redistributed food. In L. Escajedo San-Epifanio & M. de Renobales (Eds.), Envisioning a future without food waste and food poverty. Societal challenges (pp. 271–278). Wageningen. Vorley, W. (2003). Food Inc: Corporate concentration from farm to consumer. UK Food Group. Wolvers, A., Tappe, O., Salverda, T., & Schwarz, T. (2015). Introduction. In T. Salverda, O. Tappe, & A. Hollington (Eds.), Concepts of the Global South. Voices from around the world. Global South Studies Center, University of Köln. https://www.academia.edu/26813836/Concepts_of_ the_Global_South_Voices_from_Around_the_World_ Ziegler, J. (2003). Le droit à l’alimentation. Fayard.

Chapter 6

Food Sharing in Religious and Indigenous Traditions*: Drawing Inspirations for Contemporary Food cum Climate Politics and Ethics Raymond Anthony

6.1

Discovering a Deeper Sense of Food Sharing in a Time of Climate Crisis

The world must be a place for sharing. This sentiment is emphasized in I geographer Henry Buller’s commentary, ‘Palatable Ethics’ (2010): we should pay more attention to how we eat instead of what we eat (p. 1877). Like other food philosophers (e.g. Thompson, 2010; Korthals, 2012), Buller is worried about the opaqueness (and the range of anonymous actors and unspecified processes) and alienating aspects of the global food system and industrial agriculture. In particular, Buller is concerned about the ethical impulse underpinning efforts to mitigate its commodifying tendencies, which is currently organized around ‘notions of consumption’. While it may be a natural form of food ethics discourse in developing economies to address ethical farm-to-fork1 concerns by appealing to the power of socially motivated *The descriptions discussed in this chapter are not meant to be universal or monolithic claims about all of the world’s religion and Indigenous traditions nor applicable to all religions and Indigenous traditions. Rather, these broad strokes are illustrative of some significant and general threads from which deeper conversations may be struck. 1

This refers to a form of ethical awakening regarding perceived inequities involving our food system, whereby a desire for more transparency, accountability and trust has led to more scrutiny of how well various food environments from food production, processing, distribution, marketing, and consumption are integrated to promote particular social and values-based ends, such as food security and the nutritional health of a particular place and its people, animal welfare, environmental, economic, social sustainability and the fair distribution of burdens and benefits among citizens (see Thompson, 2015).

R. Anthony (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_6

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consumerism (now also emulated across the globe), in doing so, policy makers and scholars alike continue to perpetuate a narrative of concealment that veils the agency and perspectives of the absent or invisible2 who may not be able to participate directly in the food system as conventional food consumers (Korthals, 2012). Buller (2010) strongly encourages a turn towards new ethical priorities that unseats “affluent consumption styles, identity politics and corporate food interests. . . To] really eat ethically, we should consume less and share more” (p. 1879). Accordingly, this chapter discusses how the major religious traditions, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as several Indigenous subsistence cultures, such as the Iñupiat and Yup’ik of Alaska, can offer actionguiding insights on how to internalize and practice more sharing.3 These voices and perspectives can inspire us to reconsider what we owe others, morally speaking, in conjunction with what has been concealed by the dominant food paradigm. The dominant developed world concern for ‘eating well’ is still very much tied to defining individuals and culture by what is consumed. It leaves out over 750 million people who endure chronic caloric and nutritional hunger, many of whom live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. (Increasingly, city dwellers are facing food and nutritional insecurity due to the effects of climate change (IPCC, 2022). Those who lie outside the ‘rhythms and circuits of the global agri-food system,’ are deprived of the opportunity to both benefit from ethical acts and act ethically (Buller, 2010; European Commission, 2010; Pinstrup-Andersen and Watson II, 2011; Alexandratos & Bruisma, 2013). Being in dialogue with these traditions may motivate a rediscovery of our moral center and marshal collective energy towards a food ethics that works for all, especially those who are less well off. The religious traditions and subsistence cultures highlighted in this chapter underscore an aspirational ethic that highlights an important non-consumptive framing that can serve to broaden our food ethics: we live in community with others and our existential condition is punctuated by uncertainty and shared vulnerability. Those of us who are better off are obliged to assist our fellow human beings who are less well-off, i.e., experiencing poverty, starvation, undernourishment, conflict or economic and physical displacement. Through the prism of these traditions, food ethics – the social phenomenon regarding human conduct around activities of distribution, preparation, consumption and repurposing of food – need not simply be a matter of ‘consumer power’ (Buller, 2010, p. 1878), whereby what is tracked are the conscientious decisions or preferences made by consumers to leverage producers, retailers and businesses to enact better standards for animal welfare, labor rights, fair trade and sustainability (Anthony, 2017). Food ethics through the prism 2 The following recent news stories help to underscore the point: https://www.npr.org/sections/ thesalt/2019/07/01/736721302/fair-trade-helps-farmers-but-not-their-hired-workers; https://www. npr.org/2016/08/11/488428558/in-south-texas-fair-wages-elude-farmworkers-50-years-after-his toric-strike; https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/27/552636014/theyre-scared-immigra tion-fears-exacerbate-migrant-farmworker-shortage 3 For a specific account of charity in the Abrahamic traditions, see Lieberman and Rozbicki (Eds.) (2017).

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discussed below is a matter of recognizing who is often left out of or alienated by current and dominant food policy framings, discussions of aid and how. The conventions for understanding and assessing food ethics with the backdrop of climate change and the challenges it poses for the vulnerable should be about overcoming invisibility and extending inclusivity, belonging, justice and equity to our fellow human beings who may “lie outside [or are not typically included in] the networks and chains of farm-to-fork ethical emballage” (Buller, 2010, p. 1875). Furthermore, in some political discourses, the dominant policy framings tend to oversimplify the idea of food sharing (Escajedo San-Epifanio, 2016). There is a temptation to commodify our ethical obligations towards others. Being a good neighbor goes beyond the typical patterns of producing, purchasing, consuming and selling food; it involves also knowing why one should go about doing so. A deeper sense of an ethic based on sharing envisions sharing as prior to, and not grounded in, individual consumption assessments and deliberations (i.e., echoing the mindset of the calculative shopper). For example, offering surplus food to those in hunger (while important and necessary in some cases) may miss the significance of community and the idea of shared vulnerability or solidarity or the state’s responsibility to its citizens (Inza-Bartolomé, 2021; Poppendieck, 1999). The climate crisis has exposed a world in the midst of an identity crisis with deep moral – if not spiritual – divisions. We face a herculean collective action problem that disproportionately affects the poor, and which also threatens our institutions of governance and human rights (A/HRC/41/39 2019; IDMC & NRC, 2015). According to Phillip Alston (2019), UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights: Even if current targets are met, tens of millions will be impoverished, leading to widespread displacement and hunger. . . Perversely, while people in poverty are responsible for just a fraction of global emissions, they will bear the brunt of climate change, and have the least capacity to protect themselves. . . We risk a ‘climate apartheid’ scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.

Alston further adds: A robust social safety net will be the best response to the unavoidable harms that climate change will bring. . . This crisis should be a catalyst for states to fulfil long ignored and overlooked economic and social rights, including to social security and access to food, healthcare, shelter, and decent work.

Addressing this collective action problem requires humanity to work together. However, first we must overcome the intolerance in the world. In addressing this issue of intolerance, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama recently lamented that: “We forget the oneness of humanity,” adding that many of the world’s problems are anthropogenic, stemming from the emphasis of ‘me’ or ‘my’ (https://www.bbc.co. uk/programmes/w3csz536). Remembering and reigniting the moral significance of the oneness of humanity can catalyze a sense of solidarity and caring for others through equal vulnerability. This sense of interconnectedness is reflected by the perspectives discussed in this chapter and essential for building ethical partnerships to identify and meet our shared

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interests in responding equitably and effectively to the humanitarian crises from the impacts of climate change. Across the globe, people are experiencing significant effects of climate change. More extreme weather events, rising sea levels, pronounced temperature spikes and more frequent and intense threats from droughts, wildfires, hurricanes are examples of shifting weather patterns that have touched every country across the world. Climate change threatens food security, forces people to migrate, separates families and intensifies psychological, social and economic anguish. As a consequence, citizens of our planet are at increased risk of hunger, poverty and conflict (IDMC & NRC, 2015; FAO, 2017). In Alaska, where I live, for example, climate change is having an increasing and significant impact on hunting and poses a grave hardship for rural coastal villages. Weather extremes, rising sea levels, thinning, breaking and shifting sea ice, erosion of shorelines, and thawing permafrost influence changes in hunting routes, wildlife habitat and migratory patterns. These events have resulted in the disappearance of certain staple species like seal, walrus, beluga whale, polar bears, and salmon (Wohlforth, 2004; Medearis, 2019). Socially, climate change has indirectly undermined the valuation of traditional knowledge, the status of elders and their wisdom regarding time honored skills for hunting sea mammals (Anthony, 2011). Further, climate change is expected to jeopardize livelihoods and security and exacerbate forced migration and the growing refugee crisis due to lack of access to food and agricultural lands. A recent FAO report (2017) highlights increases in rural poverty and food insecurity due to drastic and sudden decline in agricultural productivity, resulting in diminished rural livelihoods and consequently, migration flows as a rising trend. In developing economies, the total damage and losses from climate-related disasters to the agriculture sectors (crops and livestock, fisheries and aquaculture and forestry) is approximately 26% (FAO, 2017). These impacts exacerbate food insecurity and intensify migration. According to IDMC & NRC (2015), an average of 26.4 million people were displaced annually between 2008 and 2015 due to natural-hazard-induced and climate-related disasters. Today, the total number of international migrants, including those displaced by climate-related natural disasters, is 40% higher than in 2000, forecasted to exceed 400 million by 2050 (FAO, 2016). A case in point: much of what is driving the current migrant caravan from south and central America to North America, has a lot of its roots in climate change and the movement of people away from agrarian lands that aren’t producing well anymore.4 The following excerpt (Brown, 2008) highlights the important challenges that lie before us: In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration—with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption. Since then various analysts have tried to put numbers on future flows of climate migrants (sometimes

4

See for example, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/01/guatemala-storms-droughtclimatemigrants.

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called ‘climate refugees’) – the most widely repeated prediction being 200 million by 2050. . . Forced migration hinders development in at least four ways; by increasing pressure on urban infrastructure and services, by undermining economic growth, by increasing the risk of conflict and by leading to worse health, educational and social indicators among migrants themselves (Brown, 2008, pp. 9–10).

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2015) emphasizes the need for international cooperation to enable safe, orderly and regular migration and to ensure the positive contribution of migrants for inclusive growth and sustainable development, including climate risk reduction, resilience building, food security, poverty reduction and economic growth. The implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies involves full respect for the dignity of persons and fundamental human rights and responsible mobility of people and stewardship of natural resources. While understanding the deep and complex connections between climate change, agriculture, rural development and migration are central to this global agenda, addressing the radical ‘socio-ecological crisis’ before us requires reflection and examination of fundamental categories of being and value. Philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s (1992) addse: The crisis is radical not only because of its effective danger, i.e., it is not just that what is at stake is the very survival of humankind. What is at stake is our most unquestionable presuppositions, the very horizon of our meaning, our everyday understanding of ‘nature’ as a regular, rhythmic process . . . the ecological crisis bites into ‘objective certainty’ – into the domain of self-evident certitudes about which, within our established ‘form of life’, it is simply meaningless to have doubts (Žižek, 1992, pp. 34–5).

The collective wisdom of religious and indigenous traditions can benefit food ethics for that matter against the backdrop of climate change by enabling interested stakeholders to envision “a set of economic, political, cultural, and social structures that support equal relations between people” (Schirch, 2005, p. 37). Being in dialogue with these traditions amidst ecological and humanitarian challenges can open avenues for peacebuilding,5 essential for relationality, connectivity and inclusion and discovering opportunities to shift our individual and collective moral consciousness towards forging an other-regarding ethic of sharing (see also Eaton, 2013).

6.2

The Ethical and Social Dimensions of Religious Traditions: Moral Significance of Othering, Rituals and Our Shared and Inherent Vulnerability – Comparative Views

Each religious tradition comprises a number of dimensions. The ethical dimension, for example, teases out how adherents ought to live and outlines what is considered good and bad conduct. The social dimension portrays how members should interact 5

I am grateful to Stephanie Westlund for sharing this insight.

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with other adherents and out-group communities, and describes typical ways in which the religious adherents are organized institutionally as well as how they interact with each other through these social institutions (Smart, 1989). Central rituals, doctrines, narratives and myths serve as bases for how divine revelation informs the ethical and social aspects of the lived experiences of religious adherents (Ludwig, 2006). Beliefs, rituals and articles of faith about what ‘binds back’ (Hoyt, 1912) human beings to the sacred are linked to practices and institutions that shape how humans ought to live and promote greater overall social cohesion with both in-group members and out-group communities. Ethically and socially, faith-based pathways recognize the inherent vulnerability or frailty of human beings and their existential condition. Obedience to the divine or being a good person promotes compassion, caring and respect for others as dispositions that are not contingent on the capacity of the other to reciprocate. In Hinduism, each person has a dharma (religious duty) towards family, society, the world and all living things. Sharing motivated by selfishness loses its spiritual value. The Bhagavad Gita (17:20–2) speaks of various forms of giving: • A gift that is given that does not come with any expectation of reward or appreciation is advantageous to benefactor and beneficiary alike; • A gift that is given with reluctance and includes an expectation of benefit is deleterious to benefactor and beneficiary alike; and • A gift that is offered without mindfulness of manner, time and place (i.e., of how it may be received by the beneficiary, and which may result in embarrassment to the benefactor) is also deleterious to the benefactor and beneficiary. Also, the Qur’an (4:36) calls Muslims to: Serve Allah and associate none with Him. Show kindness to parents, relatives, orphans, the needy, the neighboring kinsman and the neighbors who are not of your kind, the companion, the traveler in need, and to the slaves you own. . .

Further, in Christianity, Jesus is the savior of the marginalized (Luke 4:14–30) and pastoral caregiving is intimately connected to sharing (e.g. Luke 4:18–19, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Romans 12:13, Proverbs 22:22–23, Deuteronomy 15:7–8, Jeremiah 22:3, 1 John 3:17, James 2:15–16) (see also Wolterstorff, 2017).6 Also, behaving ethically is not premised on receiving reward but done for its own sake: But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. (Matthew 6:3–4, NRSV).7 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 5: 9, NRSV).

Ethically and socially, religious teachings include exhortations to promote peace, respect, and understanding. For example, Christians are called to be Christ-like: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world

6 7

I am grateful to Kristin Helweg Hanson for noting this emphasis and the example. Much thanks to Leire Escajedo for pointing out this passage to me.

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gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27, NRSV). Muslims following the wisdom of the Prophet Muhammad are called to “Give each other gifts and you will love each other” (quoted from Daily Hadith Online). In Christianity, respect for our fellow human beings is founded on the inherent dignity of persons, because everyone is infused with sparks of the divine (or created in the image of God): “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12, NRSV). In Islam, an encompassing and nurturing nature of co-regency is stressed. As part of their ethics (akhlaq), Muslims are invited to ponder not on “What is the good and how should I realize it?” but that “God is the source of all value and God commands me to live the good life by obeying God’s commandments” (cited in Corrigan et al., 1998, p. 323). Within Hindu philosophical texts such as the Isa Upanishad, Hindus are encouraged to reconsider and renounce their sense of material possession as a way to attain spiritual peace and joy (Bajaj & Srinivas, 1996). Inspired by the tenets of the respective faiths or central figures in the sacred narratives (e.g. Buddha, Parvati, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad), there are within each belief system, enough similar values that would allow an ethic based on sharing. Despite divergent understandings of what is human how humans should act toward another recognized human is pretty constant throughout systems, varying in style and degree. Religious leaders and adherents assist others and thereby express their key values. Through compassion and care, adherents attempt to demonstrate what it means to be moral and spiritual, as well as what they believe about relationships with human and non-human neighbors (prescriptions to share with non-human beings is less clear cut in monotheism, however).8 Similar emphasis on social cohesion based on mutual caring is expressed through the oral traditions of subsistence cultures in Alaska such as the Iñupiat and Yup’ik (Kawagley, 1995; Nee-Benham & Cooper, 2000). The ‘embodied truth’ of indigenous Alaskans (Kawagley, 1995; Anthony, 2013) stresses the greater good of oneness. Important ingredients include community, balance, and gratitude cooperation and sharing, self-reliance and the integration of practical knowledge into a holistic and internally coherent cosmology (Scollon & Scollon, 1981). Narratives retold by elders as moral and spiritual exemplars, underscore the importance of inculcating an ethic of care for place and fellow dwellers. In sum, religious teachings and traditional oral narrative offer a salubrious vision of the world adherents want to live in. For most of human history, sharing has been fundamental to our survival as a species and a corner stone of how we want to live. Sacred texts and philosophies, as well as Indigenous oral traditions (Kassam, 2009) all highlight this important aspect of what it means to be a human being.

8

Again, I’m indebted to Kristin Helweg Hanson for her insight here.

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6.2.1

Oneness and Peace – The Impulse to Overcome ‘Othering’

For many adherents of a faith, religion serves as their overarching source of morality. However, both historically and today, religion can serve as the basis of division and derision, especially when it is perverted for political purposes. When this happens, dehumanization, exclusion and demonization of the ‘other’ is often the result. Jewish religious cum philosophical traditions have a rich history of discussing the moral significance of objectification, alienation and othering (Levinas, 1991, 1995; Derrida, 1992). They identify what is owed to ‘the other’ in our ethics (that is not a function of utility, for example). In The Gift of Death (1992), for example, Derrida takes on the paradox of responsibility – responsibility to a singular other such as God or a family member, and our general responsibility to others. His discussion is motivated by Abraham’s sacrifice of his only son Isaac before God: “Abraham is at the same time, the most moral and the most immoral, the most responsible and the most irresponsible” (Derrida, 1992, p. 72). Derrida calls into question the inevitability of ignoring the “other others” (p. 69): “I cannot respond to the call, the request, the obligation, or even the love of another, without sacrificing the other other, the other others” (p. 68). We are plagued by an irreconcilable conflict of duties. Responsibility to a particular person is possible just in case we renege on our responsibility to the “other others”: I am responsible to anyone (that is to say, to any other) only by failing in my responsibility to all the others, to the ethical or political generality. And I can never justify this sacrifice; I must always hold my peace about it... What binds me to this one or that one, remains finally unjustifiable (Derrida, 1992, p. 70).

Levinas (1995) argues for a radical asymmetry between the self and the other (see also Diedrich et al., 2006). The self is necessarily bound towards the other and surrenders itself to the other without requiring reciprocity. This is possible since benevolence is the foundation of ethics and human relationship. There is an ethical call to surrender to the other, and to suffer from his or her suffering, an imperative that precedes all other consideration. One does not invite it or rationally accept it or find it justified or understand it: it just happens to one (Nooteboom, 2012).

The orientation toward the other applies even when one is thwarted or persecuted by the other (Levinas, 1991). Other thinkers looking at the New Testament have also taken up ‘the other’ as it applies to the human condition. Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Deleuze and Carroll consider ‘the other’ in light of ‘the temporality of the kingdom’, and living like Christ (see Caputo, 1999, pp. 91–3). Caputo goes on to argue for the importance of forgiveness in overcoming our existential anxiety and keeping new pathways open for respecting and being with the other (pp. 96–7).9 9

See also Arendt, H. (1958) The human conditions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 238–240.

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The thinkers above, some of whom are motivated by faith, invite us to wrestle with our view of the other and our obligations towards him/her. Religious views of the other can be used to inform who has standing and who does not. When oppressive or objectifying forms of othering occurs, members of out-groups are often treated as inferior or used as scapegoats. Religious intolerance can lead to prejudice, curtailment of freedoms, violence and persecution (Sisk, 2011). According to the 2018 Pew Research Center’s ninth annual study of global restrictions on religion: Restrictions on religion around the world continued to climb in 2016. . . This marks the second year in a row of increases in the overall level of restrictions imposed either by governments or by private actors (groups and individuals) in the 198 countries examined.

People and institutions of faith have work to do (together) to root out religious intolerance, persecution. Furthermore, addressing forcefully the demonization of religious minorities, bigotry, hypocrisy, polarization, human rights violations and unjustified killings are also pressing moral and social issues. Religions have been traditional moral compasses. Increasingly, religions’ role in being widespread moral compasses is being scrutinized if not outright rejected. What should serve as moral compasses today in a global world where many non-aligned (non-religious) are not significantly obligated to or engaged with a compelling community that has the authority and influence to hold that person to a shared standard?10 If religions are to continue to serve as our moral compasses (as has been the case traditionally), then religious leaders and conscientious adherents must serve as models to overcome the forces that seek to ‘otherize’ out-group communities. Instead, they must focus on educating against corrupting forces that encourage oppression and emphasize instead the healing of divisions. Fortunately, there are many instances of faithbased communities and religious leaders committed to the ideas of the oneness of humanity and peace. These ideas are expressed, for example, through The Old Testament (Isaiah 2:4, NRSV): He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

And in The Lord’s Prayer in Christianity: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:9–13, NRSV). The ideas of oneness and peace motivate justice and forgiveness and are reflected through interfaith efforts to mediate peace agreements and promote reconciliation and non-violence, and the efforts of religious leaders to mobilize their congregation through their places of worship and community-engagement activities involving humanitarian agencies and missions both locally and abroad. Preaching slogans like ‘Love knows no borders’, faith-based communities promote universal human rights, peace-making, solidarity, redemption and provide resources to help with healing at the conclusion of conflict. These communities emphasize central principles and

10

I am grateful to Kristin Helweg Hanson for raising this poignant question.

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aspects of our common humanity, such as universal justice, the ideas of respect for human dignity, understanding, tolerance, patience, compassion, altruism, sacrifice and forgiveness. Faith-based activities also offer something that is important for lifting the interests of the needy or persecuted – hope and love (World Economic Forum, 2013). Forces focused on interfaith action, ecumenicalism and unity are helping to empower and aid the poor and marginalized, such as the migrant crisis in Europe (Lyck-Bowen & Owen, 2019; see also Europe Union, 2019) and the US-Mexican border (Abramsky, 2018; see also, for example, work being done by groups like Interfaith-RISE). The faith-based notions of one humanity and peace have inspired and galvanized social movements and legal action regarding reconciliation (e.g. Rwanda and South Africa) and protests to stop environmental injustice (e.g. Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota), on preventing war and opposing injustices such as the use of torture (e.g. Myanmar) or weapons of mass destruction (e.g. Syria), and genocide (e.g. Bosnia) or segregation (e.g. Darfur). Leadership by faith-based groups, especially in the absence of political will or clear legislative protections, can help to represent unifying values to stabilize civil society and inculcate trust in social institutions so that education, (mental) healthcare and food security can be delivered to vulnerable populations.

6.2.2

Ethics as Informed by Ritual, Worship and Self-Reflection

In her work on peacebuilding, Lisa Schirich (2005) quotes from Driver’s (1991) The Magic of Ritual to highlight the significance of ritual in “solving complex, deeprooted conflicts” (p. 1). According to Driver, “. . .to study humanity is to study ritual. . . to ponder the future of humanity is to consider the future of ritual” (p. 1). In peacebuilding: ritual occurs in a unique social space, set aside from normal life. . . communicates through symbols, senses, and heightened emotions rather than relying heavily on the use of words. In ritual humans learn by doing. . . ritual both marks and assists in the process of change. It confirms and transforms people’s worldviews, identities, and relationships with others (Schirich, 2005, p. 2).

Elsewhere: In ritual the impossible and unlikely can come true as people create a unique context where, if only temporarily, symbols, sensory cues, and the expression of emotion communicate what words alone cannot (Schirich, 2005, p. 86).

This sense of ritual is important for imagining, framing and actualizing more inclusive forms of sharing. This notion of ritual is of course inspired by ritual in the religious or spiritual context. Here, ritual is a special “category of emplacement” (Smith, 1987, p. 104). It identifies something as sacred and highlights relationships

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of difference. For example, bread and wine are profane (i.e., material), but marked as sacred ‘body and blood’ in the Eucharist through transubstantiation. Ritual is performed by adherents as a part of their emotional devotion to the divine. In Islam, additional giving is encouraged during Ramadan, and the Great Feast at the end of hajj, culminates with sharing food with the poor. Both Ramadan and going on the hajj are two Pillars in Islam. These examples of central rituals facilitate sacrality among adherents; that is, the performance differentiates and marks a substance or action as sacred. Ritualization appreciates how sacred and profane activities are differentiated in the performing of them, and thus how ritualization gives rise to (or creates) the sacred by virtue of its sheer differentiation from the profane (Bell, 1992, p. 91).

The transformation of food from profane to sacred is also an important form of emplacement in many religious traditions. When Christians, for example, say ‘grace’ before eating food, qua food has not changed, only their marking from profane to sacred. Saying ‘grace’ before meals is a ritual, the performance of which facilitates the transformation of food into something invested with devotional emotion, i.e., blessed by God’s grace. In this sense, the blessed food becomes ingested grace and indirect spiritual power, a sacred materiality. Also, the celebration of the Shabbat in Judaism marks a day of the week as sacred, with specific prayers and kosher activities and thanks for ritually significant foods (e.g. wheat and grapes). Passover, another significant Jewish holiday, commemorates the Hebrews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt. During Passover, leavened bread is prohibited (i.e., wheat, spelt, oats, barley, and rye). Catholics abstain from warm-blooded flesh meat on Friday penance to commemorate the day of the Crucifixion of Christ (widely promoted after Vatican II). Making profane foods sacred is also observed in other traditions. In Hinduism, rituals that occur around main festivals like Diwali or Thaipusam are not considered complete without dāna – giving to or aiding someone in distress or in need as an act of virtue. Also, during the Hindu festival of Thaipusam Kavadi-bearers consume certain types of vegetarian foods known as satvik foods, once daily, while continuously thinking of God and praying for goodness serenity, peace and virtue. Similarly, the performance of acts of charity as a form of ritual devotion determines them as sacred. In Hinduism, for example, the Bhagavad Gita encourages adherents to act selflessly for the welfare of others: “Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world; by devotion to selfless work one attains to the supreme goal in life. Do your work with the welfare of others in mind” (3:19–26). Adherents are able to apprehend and feel the sacred within the profane through their giving or sharing. Being charitable, that is, marking a gift or the activity of sharing with ‘emplacement’, invests it with a sacred reverence. For some adherents, going on missions and devoting their time and talent to ‘good works’ become an embodied experience that renders the profane world sacred. Pilgrimages (e.g. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist) and indigenous walkabout and Sun Dance (ancient and still occurring) are also significant embodied experiences. In Hinduism, the Upanishads encourage the following three qualities to be a good person: damah (self-restraint), daya (compassion or love towards all life) and dāna (charity). Thinking about charity as a form of

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devotion can offer new perspectives on the meaning of sharing with others, especially sharing with those who are less well off or those who cannot reciprocate. Since much of human existence deals with the unpleasant, fearsome, awe-inspiring and transcendent, and is ensconced by the uncertainties and vulnerabilities (Orsi, 2005, p. 187), devotional sharing, when viewed as ritual (embodied practices), invites new ways to think about advocacy and the impact of one’s actions on the beneficiaries of one’s generosity. As a form of emplacement, devotional sharing challenges adherents to ask how their time and charitable activities impact their world both morally and spiritually. Devotional charity can also motivate action for the sake of others and without considering self-benefit, since the experience of sacrality will inform or reinforce feelings and thoughts about our conduct. In this way, sharing as ritual inculcates embodied practices among adherents that can be internalized and transform a profane activity into a sacred one. Worship activities for the world’s major religions have undergone transformation from classical versions to more contemporary ones, having had to take up religious pluralism and challenges from the secular world in the process (Smart, 1989). For example, the Abrahamic religions have adopted the idea of a universal God who unites humankind through ethical laws that apply to all. The experiences of Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout the centuries have also led to general agreement about the basis of ethical monotheism, a historical evolution emerging out of coexisting alongside each other as well as with other dominant political-secular groups. Ethical monotheism has enabled interfaith activities that focus on being good and doing good. The various Abrahamic religious have worship activities regarding obligations to others. For example, in Judaism, which imagines justice in terms of social equilibrium (mishpat or tzedek); instead a person’s relationship with God (i.e., mitzvoth bain adam l’makom) is interwoven with her relation to others (mitzvoth bain adam l’khavero) (Corrigan et al., 1998). Transgressions against the latter must be atoned for as part and parcel of being bound back to God (Mishnah Yoma, 8:9). Here, justice is a three-part relationship that involves a person’s relationship with God vis-à-vis others. Together with ritual, worship activities offer ways for adherents to experience the divine as more immanent from day-to-day (Klassen, 2001). The Rig Veda, oldest among the four sacred vedas in Hinduism, discusses the dāna as follows: spiritual truth (satya) cannot be obtained if the adherent feels guilty about not assisting someone in need. Giving away part of one’s income or donating to temples, which serve as charitable institutions to feed or shelter the poor and those in distress or to fund social projects, is an expression of Hindu charity and a quality of a good devotee (Krishnaswamy, 2014). Self-reflection is a ritualistic practice that is performed by an individual religious adherent. It is a subjective aspect of his/her ‘lived’ religion (Orsi, 1997) that opens up the opportunity for her/him to more immanently experience the divine. In Classical Judaism, self-reflection is cultivated by contemplating the moral struggle of Jews throughout history, which is linked to a deep concern for the moral condition of society as a whole. By studying the Torah, prophetic writings in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic teachings, adherents of the Jewish faith are invited to reflect on the

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conditions of social justice, routinely portrayed as a situation in which the powerful in society are obliged to protect or assist the weak and vulnerable. The civil laws expressed through the Mishnah and the Talmud outline how justice should be fulfilled between privileged groups and the less empowered. The Halakhic tradition also delineates the rights and responsibilities associated with the institution of tzedakah or charity, a community-wide obligation to provide for the less well off. Tzedakah is not merely a ‘gift’ to the needy (Corrigan et al., 1998). Rather, it is an essential form of justice that seeks to bring focus to the adherent’s responsibility to mitigate, for example, wealth inequality and adjacent social disparities, for the glory of God. Acknowledging this form of justice binds the needy to those with privilege as part of a single community. Failure to provide for the poor is an affront to piety as it disrupts the social order, resulting in grave implications (Yoreh De’ah 247:1 in Freeman & Abrams, 1999). Synagogues have tzedekah boxes, the proceeds of which do not go to individuals only, but also to promote institutions such as hospitals, schools, and public eateries that serve the poor, thus enabling the entire community to flourish (Corrigan et al., 1998). Today, Halakhic conceptions of justice extend beyond the Jewish community à la Reform Judaism, where we find a fundamental conviction for a just society for all humanity, a form of universal human solidarity to establish an inclusive and equitable society so that all God’s creation can flourish (Ludwig, 2006). These egalitarian values are a result of exposure to other religions and the exigencies of the secular world, which through the centuries, have encouraged outward inter-communal standards of tzedekah, e.g. philanthropic activities that benefit society at large such as hospitals, universities and social institutions like civil rights groups, as a form of universal expression of the Torah (Corrigan et al., 1998). In Christianity, Jesus Christ – the ethical standard bearer – models actions and behaviors for adherents. God is experienced as immanent through the incarnation of Christ, who serves as the blueprint for how Christians should live. For Christians, the basis of obedience to God is grounded in love: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (Matthew 19:16–21, NRSV; Mark 10:16–21, NRSV; Luke 18:18–23, NRSV). For Christians, God’s Ten Commandments revealed to Moses include an additional commandment that transcends obedience to the law and is revealed through the life of Jesus. To be perfectly obedient, Christians must insist on self-negation for the sake of God and neighbor (Matthew 16:24–26, NRSV; John 12:25, NRSV), as Jesus did. The greatest commandment for Christians is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And a second commandment is similar: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:36–40, NRSV). Love, the fundamental ground for the ethos of Christianity, is highlighted in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25–39, NRSV) and in the Gospel of Matthew (25:40, NRSV): “And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me”. Christians are called to be Christ-like, which means feeding and clothing the poor and naked, welcoming strangers and

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visiting the infirm and incarcerated (James, 1:27, 2:17, NRSV). Faith, hope and love are theological virtues that represent God’s Christians are taught to internalize and practice these virtues in conjunction with Aristotle’s four cardinal moral virtues – prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, grace (Corrigan et al., 1998; Ludwig, 2006). Today, Christian virtues can be seen expressed through some variants of Liberation Theology (which has its roots in Latin America). Liberation Theology focuses on bringing justice to the poor and oppressed by addressing the corrupting elements of capitalism on social, ethical and economic structures. Such virtues also motivate Roman Catholic feminism and the Social Gospel movement, which have been instrumental in stressing an ecological ethic of care and the interconnectedness of all life (Corrigan et al., 1998). Non-dualistic forms of ecological ethics emphasize the oneness of creation, thus extinguishing the ego’s self-love and recasting it in terms of duty to others, including caring for all nature. Pope Francis’s (2019) declaration that climate change is an existential threat to our species and others is both a statement of awareness of Christians’ immanent cosmic interconnection to the divine and with all of creation and a call to act with urgency to shield the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized (Harvey & Ambrose, 2019).

6.3

Envisioning the Relationship Between Donor and Recipient: Compassion, Gratitude and Humility

Compassion is a moral sentiment that goes beyond relating to the plight of others (i.e. sympathy) or the capacity to feel what others are enduring (i.e. empathy). That is, compassion is not mere cognitive attunement to how our fellow human beings might be doing or an identification with the suffering of others. Rather, compassion occasions performance – it connects acknowledgement of the suffering of others with the sincere intention or desire to alleviate it through right action. According to Singer and Klimecki: Empathy makes it possible to resonate with others’ positive and negative feelings alike—we can thus feel happy when we vicariously share the joy of others and we can share the experience of suffering when we empathize with someone in pain. Importantly, in empathy one feels with someone, but one does not confuse oneself with the other; that is, one still knows that the emotion one resonates with is the emotion of another. . . In contrast to empathy, compassion does not mean sharing the suffering of the other: rather, it is characterized by feelings of warmth, concern and care for the other, as well as a strong motivation to improve the other’s well-being. Compassion is feeling for and not feeling with the other (Singer and Klimecki, 2014, p. 875).

This combination of solidarity and the genuine moral motivation to relieve distress is one of the main pillars in Islam: Zakat or almsgiving (Corrigan et al., 1998; Ludwig, 2006). Zakat represents the height of charity in Islam. Also, representative of Falah or theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, zakat is a kind of proportional wealth tax on adult Muslims who are able. It is a form of worship to God, a formal

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duty with set legal requirements and specified classes of beneficiaries. In Islam, God is the source of all good in the universe, and human beings – God’s vice-regents – are called to bring to fruition God’s just ends. Zakat is emplacement, since Muslims believe that giving alms makes pure and blesses the remaining wealth of the benefactor and purifies and makes sacred other Islamic acts connected to its payment, such as the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Zakat is connected to Taqwa, God’s gift of morality to human beings so that they may discern right from wrong, good from bad (Corrigan et al., 1998). Taqwa forms the basis of the private and public activities of Muslims, including obligations to act for the common good through social and government programs. Zakat represents a strong sense of mutual responsibility and support for fellow umma – the worldwide community of human beings. According to the Qur’an, the relationship between the Muslim and God is moral only if it results in the sharing of one’s good fortune or wealth with others (Corrigan et al., 1998). In Islam, a moral action like Zakat is done for God’s sake first, lest it may lead to self-aggrandizement or confusion about motives (Dean & Khan, 1997). The devotion to God is the basis of the duty of compassion and this love of God gives rise to loving acts towards others. Zakat can be a formal bureaucratic process in countries with Islamic governments or in non-Muslim countries, umma are allowed discretion in terms of how they calculate his/her proportion for almsgiving and who is identified as recipients, following guidance outlined by Islamic law, the Shari’a. Another central feature of compassion is mindfulness. In Islam, the expression of compassion through zakat is motivated by gratitude that all blessings come from God. A Hadith regarding gratefulness reads: “whoever is not grateful to man is not grateful to Allah” (quoted from Daily Hadith Online). Zakat reveals a nexus of interconnected themes, including charity as orthopraxy and an intimate connection with those who are vulnerable. Charity can be invested with divine love and joy. In sharing, the benefactor not only considers these ideas but performs them. They become actualized as the benefactor, motivated by love of God, and engage with the other spiritually, physically, intellectually and emotionally. Another religious tradition that emphasizes compassion is Buddhism. In Buddhism, compassion begets gratitude as a habit of the psyche, an aspect of mindfulness (Amaro, 2015). Gratitude is essential for integrity and results in the direct experience of the interconnectedness of all of life. In the case of integrity, the Buddha is attributed as saying: Now what is the level of a person of no integrity? A person of no integrity is ungrateful and unthankful. This ingratitude, this lack of thankfulness, is advocated by rude people. It is entirely on the level of people of no integrity. A person of integrity is grateful and thankful. This gratitude, this thankfulness, is advocated by civil people. It is entirely on the level of people of integrity (Bhikku, 2002).

Gratitude, the quality of being grateful or thankful, does not take existence for granted. One of the basic propositions in Buddhism is that existence is change and with change comes challenge and obstacles. Indeed, it is through ‘suffering’ that humans are taught lessons (Swearer, 1998). According to western Buddhist master,

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Jack Kornfield, some Buddhists pray the following: “May I be given the appropriate difficulties so that my heart can truly open with compassion” (Gregoire, 2014). Praying to be grateful is not for further good fortune but so that one can be fully present in the world. Gratitude opens the psyche to be attentive to how things are in themselves without subjective inclinations; a responsive mode of being, rather than a reactive one (Berkwitz, 2003). Buddhism invites its adherents not to see themselves and everyone else as separate atomized individuals with needs to be fulfilled. Buddhists attempt to soften the oppositional binary that can lead to overemphasis on meeting the interests and needs of the self. A grateful self is one who embodies ‘right view and right intention’, and comfortably sees how she belongs in the world and her connection to others (Baer, 2015). Having a grateful mind engenders patience with the uncertainty and impermanence of existence, one of the perfections (paramitas) that Buddhists cultivate. Gratitude can forestall the negative feelings associated with greed, regret, resentment or jealously and instill a sense of contentment, tranquility, and delaying instant gratification for true rewards (Berkwitz, 2003; Amaro, 2015). In Hinduism, giving gifts must accompany a certain degree of spiritual wisdom in order for the adherent to experience inner peace (Chandogya Upanishad 4:1–2). Adherents are called to devote time to serving others in a selfless manner (seva), for all things are supported by and belong to the Divine. One of the most common forms of this is sharing food with others (anna dana), seen as a part of one’s religious duty (dharma) – to provide hospitality to one’s guests and the needy (Chandgoya Upanishad 4:3).

6.4

Collective Acts Around Food and Eating: Religious and Spiritual Dimensions Between Human Beings and Towards Nature

Ritual, as a religious experience, centers upon embodied practice. Together with worship and self-reflection activities, adherents of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are called to engage in the world and express the tenets of their faith through spiritually inspired action. This practice can be performed on an individual or communal basis. The latter constitutes religious experience for a multitude of people all at once. Besides the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of communal practice, the evaluation of ‘how’ a certain ritual is being embodied as practice is also an important social aspect of religious life (Ludwig, 2006). As a ritual, food and eating are important religious markers that express adherents’ values. The world’s religions have a rich history and important narratives or commandments regarding food (Zwart, 2000), such as taboos about what can be eaten and how food ought to be shared and what constitutes eating well. Muslims share food with the less fortunate during the holy month of Ramadan as well as during Eid al-Fitr celebrations. The Shabbat meal is an important spiritual

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celebration for Jews. Food offerings are also important practices in Hinduism and Buddhism to mark significant events such as the birth of a child or the commemoration of a life, as well as how one demonstrates responsibility towards others (religious duty or dharma). In each religion, these activities are primarily social, functioning to bind adherents to each other, the wider human community and the divine. Further, these collective actions are performed by individuals for a common purpose – aid, spiritual expression, such as renewal, and celebration. It is important to recognize that social changes occurring with food in secular society can also have an impact traditional religious practices (e.g. Muslim husbands cooking as an expression of greater gender equality). In his essay, The Pleasures of Eating, Wendell Berry (1990) famously writes that “eating is an agricultural act”. Berry succinctly captures that we are all complicit in “the annual drama of the food economy” either directly or indirectly. What we decide to produce, buy, eat, waste and recycle or repurpose reflect our values and priorities, and has tremendous implications for the natural environment and the wellbeing of individual human beings and communities. As a communal experience, sharing à la annual drama of the food economy is a team endeavor. Acknowledging this team aspect of the food economy reveals aspects of our communal identity and responsibility. As beneficiaries of others’ labor or sacrifice (e.g. living organisms that become edible protein or fiber) in the food economy, we are complicit in how justice and injustice, humaneness and inhumanness, and virtue and vice are expressed from farm-to-fork and beyond. As a ritual (i.e. devotion sharing) vis-à-vis food, adherents are invited to shift their gaze from ‘me’ and ‘my’, and to resituate ‘eating well’ within the broader context of connectivity and relationality to human and natural communities. As a communal activity, being charitable or sharing amplifies the sacred materiality, which can be politically and socially contagious. Taking this into account can help expand how we think about eating well as a form of ritual or spiritual sharing. The subsistence lifeways of Alaska Indigenous groups such as the Iñupiat or Yup’ik reflect the collective action dimension underscored by Berry (1990) as well as the spiritual dimensions discussed above. Rituals relating to inculcating respect for animals and interspecies interdependence are ubiquitous and permeate day-to-day living (Bodenhorn, 1990). Subsistence hunting and harvesting practices are informed by ‘accrued knowledge’ and spiritual commitments that have stood the test of time. In the case of hunting, foundational myths describe an intimate and symbiotic relationship between the hunter and the hunted (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005), which encourages certain virtues such as humility and gratitude before killing an animal for food and specific rituals after the ‘hit’ once the animal has been downed. Alaska Native peoples, like other indigenous peoples across the world with deep embodied and spiritual ties to nature, have deep connections with animals in their ecology.11 Animals are regarded as having their own agencies and power

11 See also LaDuke, W. (1999) All our relations: Native struggles for land and life. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

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over natural elements like water, weather, and food supply (Kawagley, 1995). The agency or spirit of humans and animals are often linked to beliefs about reincarnation and the cycle of regeneration and in turn inform which and how animals should be hunted. For example, the Yup’ik are cautioned to never harm or make fun of animals, since animals and everything else will always be cognizant if misuse, abuse, or disrespect has occurred. Such behaviors would result in the spirits not returning to Earth to be born and renew their kind again, resulting in fewer animals returning in future seasons, and ultimately bringing hardship for the Yuupiaq (Kawagley, 1999). In ‘the annual drama of the food economy’ informed by spiritual beliefs and traditional ecological practices, subsistence hunting activities are carefully timed and carried out in a manner that ensures sustainability and respects the dignity of the animals. For the Iñupiat of Seward Peninsula, Alaska, the numbers of animals that exist between the real and spirit worlds is set and the “responsive interaction” (Haraway, 2008) or communication between hunter and animal results in mutual learning and co-shaping of behavior during a hunt. As part of conservation and important for food security, subsistence hunters have to be deeply in tuned with the surroundings and focus their collective energy on discerning how to deal with environmental challenges like loss or thinning sea ice and warm ocean temperatures. Hunters are ‘invited’ to participate in activities governed by the ‘ministry of nature’ with the animals that make up their ecology. Adapting to how fish, sea birds and marine mammals adapt in their ways to their changing realities (e.g. climate change) are essential to tackle the drivers that contribute to food insecurity (Wohlforth, 2004). In this tradition, an animal such as a whale that has allowed a hunter to kill it, is thought to have willingly given itself to the hunter (Peter et al., 2002). Under this biocentric and egalitarian worldview, environmental entities are bound to each other and thus contribute to the well-being of every other member. Thus, each spirit or ‘agency has a defined role that promotes overall ecological harmony and resilience (Peter et al., 2002). Elders or shamans are believed to be able to influence the animals’ agencies through rituals, charms, chants, and dance. The indigenous worldview reflects a cosmological view that spirit and matter are inextricably intertwined since it is established on the affirmation of the deep intermingling of all life (McKay, 2003) -a sense of being interconnected to all creatures and to place and tradition. Spiritually, by emphasizing the interconnectedness of humans to their natural environments, human beings are seen as contributors to and partners in the structure and sustainability of ecosystems (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005; see also LaDuke, 1999 and Hrynkow, 2018). Subsistence hunting and harvesting practices are informed by spiritual aspects that promote important social and environmental values and carry tremendous symbolic weight of sovereignty, respect, caring, and gratitude to subsistence animal species (Kawagley, 1995). Subsistence is directly related to and affected by everything that is happening . . . in the way of education, land use, economic development, wildlife management and other areas of public policy. Subsistence really is an entire way of life” (Harold Napoleon, quoted in Yupiktak Bista, 1974, p. 2).

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Overfishing, overhunting, and overforaging can have deleterious consequences for a subsistence community. Thus, hunters are instructed to observe what they have harvested and to adopt an ‘as needed’ mindset (Peter et al., 2002; Inuit Circumpolar Council, 2015). Ethically, subsistence practices stress restoration or regeneration as part of a responsible ethic of care for place – this includes a relationship of respect with the extended community, including the soil and sea as well as the animals. This duty of restoration has important consequences for the resilience of a community and ecological health of a place is a gift to future generations. The norms of mutual respect between the species are reinforced by an attitude of humility, gratitude, and reverence for environmental entities and reflect a culture of care about community and environment. A community celebration promoting gratitude and solidarity (between human and animal agents) is offered to the self-sacrificing animals in order to usher the spirits of killed animals back to the spiritual realm. Doing so ensures blessing for next season’s hunt (Stuckenberger & Nadeau, 2007). Harvested whale meat is shared with elders and other less able community members. The indigenous subsistence cum spiritual lifeways teach us about the importance of promoting interdependence, sharing and cooperation, gratitude, balance, and mindfulness as central community-oriented environmental virtues. These ancient belief systems also offer inspiration for ways to soften the dualisms between human/ nature and to recognize the symbolic power of animals and nature in ways that promote respectful treatment and appreciation and conscientious harvesting.

6.5

Religion as a Source of Normativity for More Sharing in Contemporary Food Ethics: Challenges and Take-Aways

The world’s religions and indigenous subsistence cultures are rich in wisdom that can be generalized ethically (to inform secular values and norms) to help shift the focus away from ethical consuming as the basis of eating and selling well (Buller, 2010, p. 1878). They highlight and nurture strengthening connectivity and relationality in our hungrier and more vulnerable world. Although religion can lead to detracting and sometimes violent expressions, they are still sought out for their shared residue of universal peace, compassion, justice, gratitude and humility as values. In addressing unequal assets and needs and the inequities they bring, the religious religions and philosophies illustrate the power of oneness, interconnectedness, social justice, compassion, gratitude, solidarity and love. Together, they provide a blueprint for a broader understanding of food ethics by emphasizing the significantly overlapping ethical norms and value commitments underpinning the enactment of those values in relation to fellow human beings. More sharing à la Buller, means greater inclusivity and equity in our food system. This can occur by giving visibility to food and climate vulnerable peoples, including by listening to

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stories, acting judiciously and being mindful of resources, time and talent expenditures and through socially just aid or charity. These voices are especially important in creating ethical partnerships to address increasing anxiety about the effects of climate inaction on vulnerable communities. Here, the distributive, recognition, restorative and intergenerational justice issues at our doorstep needs urgent responses. Religious leaders like Pope John Paul have urged solidarity, constructive dialogue and collaboration to find solutions quickly to stem the tide of what is “a brutal act of injustice toward the poor and future generations” (Harvey & Ambrose, 2019). Current, ongoing ecumenical and interfaith initiatives serve as models for laying the ground for tolerance, peace and solidarity, can unseat “objective certainty” (Žižek, 1992, pp. 34–35) that lies at the root of our ethical malaise or inertia, and provide important (ecological) wisdoms to frame our interconnectedness and relationality towards others (Hrynkow, 2018), as well as provide alternatives to overcome fragility and conflict, fueled by climate change. The religious teachings outlined above can help cultivate virtues to guide thoughtful and effective solutions for community-engaged projects for a more inclusive and equitable food ethics. Despite divergent understandings of who counts morally and why, these belief systems have generated overlapping values that will give them adequate basis for moving forward together and illuminate pathways for building peace and overcoming conflict
by marking our significance as ‘earthlings’ and “our interdependence with not only human others, but with all others” (Hrynkow & Westlund, 2015). Sharing is an implicit value, perhaps nearly universal for the spiritually-inclined. However, in our more secular present day, we might also uniquely draw wisdom from multiple spiritual or religious systems and through aggregation arrive at a set of guiding norms that emphasize sharing instead of consumption as the ethical way forward. The impulses of compassion and gratitude provide the bases for recalibrating the values behind our policies and industry practices that currently focus on short-term market-driven goals, which are unsustainable, damage our agriculture systems, and result in less-than-equitable treatment of farm workers, such as migrant or seasonal workers or those Kerber (2007) refers to as “citizens other,” and their compromised welfare (Bail et al., 2012). Besides, social justice, compassion, mindfulness and gratitude highlight our interconnectedness to others in the food system as well and the plight of human and animal ‘absent referents’ (Adams, 2000). Indigenous spiritual lifeways are important reminders of what is also practically possible in a more local food system (Leduc, 2010). In this worldview, “[i]f creatures and creation are interdependent, it follows that it is not faithful to speak of ownership. Life is understood as a gift, and it makes no sense to claim ownership of any part of the creation” (McKay, 2003, p. 520).12 Alaska Indigenous ecological philosophy, epistemology, ethics, and engagement with nature and tradition, as

12 This is in contrast to the notion of ‘dominion’ or stewardship in Christianity and idea of co-regency in Islam.

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described above, emphasize that all of the universe is irreducibly relational and challenge us to remove ourselves from a consumptive mindset (Anthony and Varner 2019) since creation is a gift that is not simply for people to exploit. We are encouraged to rebuild emotional, physical-visceral and ethical connections with people, animals and others with whom we are in community and which promote a strong sense of the plenitude of life. Acknowledging our interdependence on and deep spiritual connect to nature and each other sets us on the path of being more mindful of the harm and benefit we can do to others. This recognition also grounds what Hinduism refers to as a person’s dharma towards her family, community, the world and other living beings and imbues her with damah or virtue of self-restraint. This mindset cum virtues can encourage us to go beyond individual needs satisfaction to consider how a product is produced, what effect its production has on our community and environment, and who is benefitting or harmed from our activities, such as overconsumption, unfair pricing, and wastefulness. An obvious place to begin to see how to operationalize in practice the normative and social dimensions of the above discussion regarding social justice, ritual and virtues is the Golden Rule maxim. Found in most of the world’s religions (Hick, 1993), the maxim to treat everyone with dignity or equitably as a moral being can be deployed privately or communally. Begin by: 1. Gathering the relevant data, analyzing it to determine the alternative actions available for action. 2. Next, consider the impact of the suite of alternative actions on relevant stakeholders. 3. Then, place one’s self in the position of these various stakeholders and reflect on whether one would be willing to endure the impacts. 4. Lastly, determine that an action is morally unacceptable if we would not be willing, ourselves, to accept those impacts; alternately, an action is morally acceptable if we could universalize the reversibility principle at the heart of the maxim. Although everyone across the globe is feeling the impacts of climate change, it may be difficult for those in relatively affluent contexts to identify with the most vulnerable, such as the three out of every four people living in poverty who depend on agriculture and natural resources for their survival (FAO, 2016). Applying the Golden Rule maxim to the food system can serve as a starting point to help us realize the importance of sharing, i.e., contributing more to our common good and common future with the challenges posed by climate change, no longer a distant threat. Also, a la Levinas, it might catapult us to take in the suffering of others and participate in civic engagement activities to ameliorate it (i.e, demonstrating compassion). For Christians, it might lead to adherents to “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 NRSV). During these challenging and uncertain times, being compassionate and giving visibility to the plight of the global umma who are less fortunate also means listening to the stories of those made vulnerable by our policies and taking appropriate measures to address inequities. One way to address inequities is to be wary of who

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is telling the stories and how. Too often, the stories of those most displaced by agricultural policies or the impacts of climate change are told by scientists, policy makers and others in well-to-do countries participating in colonial knowledge reproduction, narrating the truth for others and imposing particular solutions that only entrench alienation and set up the antithesis to empowerment or selfdetermination. Scientific or policy reports should not only inform us about who is impacted by social, political and technological developments in agriculture and the food industry, but also encourage us to hear from those impacted so that we can truly understand how our agriculture or development policies and global commerce benefit or harm everyone across the food system and beyond. Listening to those who are vulnerable or made less well-off by global food policies, technological developments in agriculture, trade and patterns of consumption of the well-off can also inform which community-engagement projects to fund and how best to more effectively address global poverty and inequality and find ways of equitably sharing and conserving our environmental commons. The traditions above also remind us that if we are in a better-off position and can take personal and collective action to improve the lives of others, then we have a moral duty to do so. This can take the form of exerting public pressure on governments and businesses to end greed, address apathy and scientific denial or disinformation, forego business-as-usual conventions, and commit to distributive, recognition and intergenerational justice. It can also take the form of investing in programs that support human capital development as well as technological innovation that assist food producers in low income countries. In the context of development ethics, religion-inspired social and ethical justice call on us to make structural changes, i.e., to address alienability, exploitation and distributive injustices associated with unfair burdens weighing heavily on the economic security and moral standing of food producers and farm workers across the globe struggling with poverty and moral agency. Climate change stokes the flames of conflict, which is the primary reason for poverty and suffering in the world today. By exacerbating existing social, political, environmental, and economic challenges, climate change can magnify competition and conflict over access to and availability of resources. Ethical sharing, thus, should be cognizant of local realities facing food producers, and be integrated into existing efforts on the ground to produce and share food as well as to be good stewards of the environment without recompense or need for reciprocity. Enabling agricultural policy initiatives and strengthening local food systems by building structures and utilizing existing assets for effective, equitable, viable and sustainable local food systems, should take into account our tendencies for situating the other in relation to ourselves and be evidence-based. This selfreflection should include, for example the “[e]mpirical concerns about economic effects [of our food choices and activities] . . . Cheap grain is good for poor people who purchase food. It is bad for poor farmers who must sell it to derive cash income” (Thompson, 2010, p. 225). Thus, food aid programs in developing countries, as a form of charitable collective action, should consider how food is a ‘moral good’ and minimize the pitfalls of giving food aid or famine relief to urban dwellers at the cost of sinking the capacity of rural producers to endure the adverse consequences of

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market forces or curtailing their opportunity for social and economic mobility. The religious traditions and the indigenous Alaskan spiritual lifeways discussed above encourage constant vigilance in the moral life. This translates to the (re)calibration of our activities to ensure effective and responsible delivery of emergency, development, and/or security assistance for all who need it. In delivering humanitarian aid, we ought to be mindful, however, that our giftgiving can be alienating or even oppressive, despite our best intentions, especially if it results in dependency that calls of recompense, which in turn may breed resentment. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1983/1992), for example, has argued that in some instances, “the ones receiving [the gift are] not free to not accept it” (pp. 368–9) – that is, they are under a particular obligation to receive it. Here, Sartre is concerned that this form of generosity alienates the beneficiary. In this instance, the benefactor imposes her moral (and perhaps social, economic and political) freedom against that of the beneficiary. The latter is objectified, since “the act of gift-giving installs [the freedom of the benefactor] in the other as a subjective limit to the other’s freedom”. For Sartre, authentic gift-giving is “disinterested, gratuitous, with no motivation in the giving [and] presupposes a reciprocity of recognition [of the other’s freedom]” (p. 371). That is, it should be both freeing and liberating and devoid of mastery or proprietorship (Welten, 2015). A genuine gift requires a kind of anonymity of the benefactor in order to void any accrued benefit in giving and avoid the imposition of power. Sartre raises the specter of trust in his challenge about this aspect of aid. Trust, ethically speaking, is defined as: an attitude of optimism that the good will and competence of another will extend to cover the domain of our interaction with her, together with the expectation that the trusted will be directly and favorably moved by the thought that we are counting on her (Jones, 1996, pp. 5–6).

The foregoing discussion regarding gift giving in these various traditions reminds us that being compassionate or socially just is not only about awareness of or identification with the vulnerable. Also, we are invited to consider the nature of humility: How should being compassion rewarded? Should it be public or secret? Is it an act of moral superiority, or just a form of reparation for what is unfair (an instance of restorative justice)?13 Compassion and gratitude invite us to acknowledge the beneficiaries’ values, interests and ethical positions. Social and ethical identification in these contexts increases or prioritizes empowerment of agency. Further, the notion of sharing with others as a ritual that invests the profane with sacrality, focuses on love of neighbor or obedience to God as principal motivations for coming to the assistance of others. From a secular perspective, and to allay Sartre’s concerns, this translates to focusing on the dignity of the beneficiary of our aid and not the good intentions of or effects on the benefactor (Welten, 2015). Derrida and Kamuff (1994) notes that a gift can be an imposition for the beneficiary if it is associated with a tacit or obvious charge to reciprocate or respond. A genuine gift requires no repayment (pp. 29–30). Food 13

These are interesting questions raised by Leire Escajedo in a previous draft.

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policy makers would do well to consider and prioritize the same emphasis. A consequence of this is should be opportunities for greater inclusion of the vulnerable and up-to-now invisible participants in the ethical governance of the food system and reducing the equity gap between decision makers or influencers and those who are disadvantaged unfairly by it. Another important consequence of this that is integral to the development of a supplemental narrative for food ethics besides ethical consumerism is the importance of creating social identities (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) as psychological instruments of social change, around solidarity, tolerance/peace and shared vulnerability in relation to the challenges posed on the food and agricultural landscape by climate change. Social identification can increase awareness as well as empowerment. It increases action to work towards the group’s interests rather than one’s own. Broadening awareness of the realities of others through the reconstruction of social identities may provide opportunities to learn about shared vulnerabilities and engage in basic human rights advocacy that may be controversial (e.g. gender equity, migrant rights and the status of climate refugees, knowledge hierarchies) through familiar, less threatening and common interest themes like food security, sustainability and poverty reduction. As per the foregoing discussion: [I]n traditional Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese and Aboriginal societies selfidentity is constructed not by individual choices but by participating in a ‘family’ that may extend out to include caste, tribe, and all humans as well as plants, animals and the cosmos. . . Identity [and ethical agency] is in one’s harmonious interrelationships, not in one’s choices/rights, powers, and privileges. Such a broadened self-understanding leads to a focus on obligations to the whole. . . (Coward & Maguire, 2000, pp. 44–5).

A necessary part of this participation involves sharing, which has been a fundamental aspect of our species for the majority of our history. Sharing between in and outgroup members has kept us going as a species. Many of us, however, have gotten away from the values of and rituals that inculcate and foster sharing. Reflecting on the religious traditions and the indigenous lifeways highlighted above, provide wisdom beyond technical or scientific knowledge necessary to carve out an ethic of sharing during this time of climate crisis that may be our salvation as a species (Tutu, 2010, p. 7).

6.6

Conclusion

Disruptions to the food system due to the on-going SARS-CoV2 pandemic, and armed conflict on a number of fronts, including in Myanmar, Northern Ethiopia, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, continue to displace millions and push them into starvation or famine. In addition, the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, biodiversity and society are main drivers of increased food insecurity, malnutrition and food shortages, including in rural communities and now in cities and among low income populations (IPCC 2022). Reducing risks to people and nature requires not only technological solutions but more importantly, an ethical commitment to our

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fellow human beings – to share resources and minimize conflict and competition over resources in order to end humanitarian and environmental crises and advance cooperative, just, equitable and sustainable systems. Building upon the wisdom of the traditions discussed above, the framing of an ethic of sharing is tethered to moral responsibilities that are grounded in an explicit relationality that holds or binds us both spiritually and physically to each other now and with the future. Within this framing, the term ‘sharing’ denotes commitments to be socially just and to act from compassion and gratitude without expectation of receiving anything back. An ethic of sharing facilitates the development of rituals to help us make sense of the world “by creating a new frame for interpreting the problem” (Schirch, 2005 p. 104), especially during this time of global turmoil, when institutions and symbols of familiar social structures seem to be disintegrating or no longer working for many. The transformative aspects of ritual can help us experience the world and seek out confluences that may not be readily apparent. Here, ritual can inspire a much-needed addition to the conventional model of food ethics a la Buller (2010) by: • Facilitating the creation of social identities and spaces that promote sharing and cooperative action (e.g. targeted ethically aware initiatives at the local food systems level aimed at alleviating poverty of poor farmers and rural poor (Tollens & De Tavernier, 2006)) as an essential defense against food insecurity during the climate crises, including opportunities to promote agency and “substantial freedoms” (Sen, 1999, pp. 14–15); and • Reducing inequalities and social instability through the discovery and development of an ethics of sharing that does not impose preconceived ideas of the other on potential benefactors or perpetuate morally corrosive forms of dependency on humanitarian aid, but which addresses value assumptions and normative issues that hamper the needs of the rural poor and other vulnerable peoples experiencing forced migration. Our task then is to see how ritual and a call to action, inspired and the wisdom of the traditions mentioned in this chapter can be thoughtfully introduced to highlight the valuation perspectives of the food insecure, identify impediments to rural farmers and other food insecure groups, and address the question of open borders to climate refugees. Acknowledgments I am indebted to Kristin Helweg Hanson for her invaluable wisdom and guidance on a number of central points regarding the religions and Alaska Native perspective mentioned in this chapter. I am also grateful to Stephanie Westlund for offering significant insights in an earlier draft, including sharing ideas on how to link aspects of the above discussion on sharing to the peacebuilding literature.

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Chapter 7

Criminalising Poverty: The Stigma of Social Inequalities Within the Constitutional Framework of the European Union ‘Workfare State’ Ainhoa Lasa López

7.1

The Social Model of the European Union: A Quantitative or a Qualitative Normative Question?

The four-year period of management of the Eurozone crisis (2010–2014) has accentuated social inequalities across the European Union (EU), turning them into a structural issue, even if they are not addressed as such on the European political agenda. The short-term prospect of improved unemployment rates and situations of poverty or risk of social exclusion (Eurostat, 2019a, b) is obscuring the likely consolidated long-term effects of the integration policies of the crisis. The lack of any real convergence of per capita income levels between Eurozone member states, and the causes of this asymmetry, continue to be addressed in terms of monetary, fiscal and banking orthodoxy, with the rejection of any expansive economic policy stimulus to public investment. In this context, the tension between spiralling cuts in public spending
resulting in the third sector having to take over provision of basic needs (food, housing, health care, etc.)
and the determined commitment to maintaining austerity policies, is becoming unsustainable in terms of achieving real convergence across member states and increasing competitiveness (Schneider et al., 2015). The assumed lack of alternatives to austerity at the European level is leading to downward cyclical pressures on national budgets with predictable repercussions on social and employment policies. The introduction of stabilisation mechanisms to activate supranational countercyclical fiscal policies, based on state intervention to finance public goods (training, education, reception and integration of vulnerable people), is seen as inimical in this scenario. A. L. López (*) Department of Public Law and Historical-Legal Sciences and Political Thought, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_7

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The European institutional response conceived in the midst of the Eurozone crisis – the Europe 2020 Strategy (European Commission, 2010) – comprises a political document that seeks to move beyond the political instruments traditionally used in response to an economic crisis, and sets out a coordinated approach consisting of three priorities: ‘sustainable’, ‘intelligent’ and ‘inclusive’ growth. The general focus of the strategy, however, suggests that social progress will continue to be entrusted to the market and its ally, competitiveness. In this way, the social dimension is taken forward only through structural reforms by member states which, far from indirectly achieving the EU’s much vaunted aim of social cohesion, are more likely to reinforce its marginalisation. Such reforms focus on improving the dynamics of labour markets, implementing measures to tackle the high level of unemployment, reforming pensions and modernising social protection systems (pp. 16–18). The fact that reference to labour markets and social protection systems is linked to the idea of ‘modernising’ (see pp. 4, 16, 17 and 30) suggests that the modernisation of national welfare systems is seen solely in terms of ‘solidarity’ to improve ‘competitiveness’, as if these two terms were synonymous. Rather than proposing reform, within national laws, of workers’ rights, and of systems for employment protection and social security (now detached from any analysis of their potentially restrictive social impact), it would be preferable to raise expectations across the EU and implement effectively the right to decent jobs and social protection as the principal guarantees against poverty in all its myriad dimensions (Kowalsky, 2015). The increase in inequalities in Europe is seen in the Europe 2020 Strategy (European Commission, 2010) as resulting from individuals’ lack of engagement with employability policies and is thus conceived as a matter of individual responsibility. During both the period prior to the near-collapse of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), when legislative measures were being put in place to ensure its recovery and reinforcement, and during the final stage of consolidation of these legal mechanisms, the need for an agreed supranational definition of ‘wellbeing’ was ignored. Indeed, none of the various political documents recently drawn up by the Commission has considered the construction of a supranational welfare system with the aim of correcting the systemic failures of the internal market that have exacerbated existing inequalities and caused new ones. In this sense, the text presented by the Commission in April 2017
The Reflection Paper on the Social Dimension in Europe (European Commission, 2017b)
is telling: following the logic of the earlier White Paper on the Future of Europe. Reflections and Scenarios for the EU27 by 2025 (European Commission, 2017a), three options for the social future of Europe are considered: (1) the social dimension could be limited to free movement; (2) those member states wishing to do more in the social field could simply continue to do so; and (3) the EU-27 could work together on developing the social dimension. The main argument for the first option (which comes down to leaving everything to the market) is that high supranational standards of social protection potentially have a detrimental impact on the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises. In order to correct this competitive disadvantage compared with the

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rest of the world, member states themselves would need to be entirely responsible for their own redistributive and social welfare policies, although regulations designed to support cross-border mobility, such as ensuring the social security rights of mobile European citizens, the posting of workers, cross-border health care and the recognition of diplomas, would be maintained at the European level. By focusing EU responsibilities uniquely on freedom of movement, most decisions on social and employment issues would be taken at national level, and thus arguably at a level closer to citizens (pp. 26–27 of the document). We do not share the thesis that this approach would allow member countries complete freedom to decide their own employment policies; for example, “whether to allow temporary agency work or not” (p. 26). This is because, as the paper points out, instead of national labour markets converging, “there would be an increasing risk of labour costs diverging and the threat of a ‘race to the bottom’” (p. 27). But most fundamentally, no consideration is given here to reflecting on the fact that the EU’s commitment to competitive austerity has generated deep social divergences of a structural nature; these are simply not addressed in this document, nor, indeed, by any other European body. We would argue that the crisis in the European Union’s legal and political model (based on the market economy and competitiveness) and the coordinated supranational and intergovernmental effort to shore it up during the Eurozone crisis, has itself caused the social dimension to be side-lined. This is seen in the reductive consideration of social issues as ‘local demands’ that should be addressed by national and regional governments (Natali et al., 2015; Hyman, 2015). The second option, a flexible social Europe, focuses in part on the Eurozone countries as potentially ‘doing more’. The document reports the view that: [T]he crisis years have shown that those countries that share the euro as a single currency need to do more together in the social field to preserve the strength and stability of the euro and to avoid abrupt adjustments in the living standards of its citizens (p. 28).

It puts forward for consideration the idea of reinforced cooperation between Eurozone member states in order to adopt binding social legislation, specifying common standards in the following areas: labour markets, competitiveness, the business environment and public administration (p. 28). The main advantages would be the convergence of Eurozone labour markets, more efficient social systems, and stronger health and education systems. However, the document also recognises the risks implicit in this approach; that this could make it more difficult for other member countries to join the euro in the future because it would increase disparities, and in addition, that states outside the Eurozone might increase ‘social dumping’, reducing their labour standards, for example, in order to attract business (p. 29). At the same time, in relation to the 27 member states as a whole (EU-27), the document, considers ways in which member states could unilaterally go beyond the minimum social and employment regulations of supranational directives (secondary law) but again, warns of the dangers of this option. These would derive from possible divergences in national legal frameworks with respect to social and labour rights associated with EU citizenship, resulting in territorial social fragmentation and social

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inequality (p. 29). It can be argued, however, that it is the construction of a supranational social model based on the structural principles of the market and competition that has in fact been the main trigger for the weakening of national social systems. To maximise competition in internal labour markets, wage cost moderation is seen as the most effective instrument but suppressing wages has been shown to result in in-work poverty (Peña-Casas et al., 2019). The third option explores the case for joint action by the EU-27 to further advance social integration. This would most likely imply the re-evaluation of legislation, cooperation, guidance and financing in order to establish a more effective balance of competences between the EU and the member states. By way of examples, the document suggests that a Child Guarantee could be financed by the Union, and common EU benchmarks for good practice in social areas such as employment policies, education and health, and welfare systems might be developed. (p. 30). This option could result in enhanced social rights for EU citizens across all EU countries, greater integration of European labour markets and the reduction of the threat of social dumping (p. 31). At the same time, the paper recognises that ‘the centre of gravity’ for action in the area of social and employment policies continues to fall within the competence of the member states. This third option differs from the other two in that firstly, the approach involves all EU member states, unlike the second which focuses implicitly on Eurozone members; and secondly, it adopts a global approach based on legislation and ‘softlaw’ instruments, such as coordination between member states, in order to promote European social integration in a more global sense, thus taking a different approach to the first option, which focuses only on freedom of movement. However, it still does not consider how social integration can become part of the EU’s legal and political model (quality), but rather focuses on the improvement of legislative techniques and making financing conditional on the effectiveness of national social policy strategies (evaluated quantitatively). The reference to these axial parameters as measures of good social praxis that can serve as incentives for a more proactive social dimension, means that once again, we move away from the main cause of the EU’s social deficit, the fact that social integration is not recognised as an aim in its own right (Ferrera, 2017). Following on from this quantitative approach to the EU social dimension, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission launched in November 2017 the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) (European Union, 2017). This links to the fifth priority on the Juncker Commission’s political agenda (2015–2019) (Juncker, 2014): achieving “a deeper and fairer EMU”. The Pillar presents 20 principles and rights organised in three chapters which deal with: active employment policies (Chapter I. Equal opportunities and access to the labour market), the economic dimension of work (Chapter II. Fair working conditions), and issues outside the labour market such as homelessness, poverty and social exclusion (Chapter III. Social protection and inclusion). The Pillar reflects a ‘social Europe’ of necessarily variable geometry, conceiving its scope of action, at least in part, within the Eurozone framework. This means that it must consider the bases around which the EMU is articulated. The EU’s key

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economic specifications appear in articles 119 and 120 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (Official Journal of the European Union, 2012). Considering both these provisions, it is clear that the EU lacks flexibility in the definition of its economic policy both because it lacks competences and because it explicitly requires adherence to “the principle of an open economy and free competition” (article 119.2, article 120), and the principles of price stability, sound financial and monetary conditions and a stable balance of payments (article 119.3). The weakness of economic policy contrasts with the strength of monetary policy. The mechanisms provided for monetary policy have a considerably greater capacity for constriction than those that act on economic management. The fundamental instrument for the implementation of monetary policy is contained in article 126 of the TFEU, which establishes budgetary discipline as an area of exclusive EU oversight. The principles of budgetary stability are given in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) (European Union n.d.-a, n.d.-b), comprising a set of rules detailed under six headings and a further two clauses relating to exceptional circumstances, which serves as a complement to monetary policy. Four of the six headings focus on budgetary issues and the reform of SGP. The other two concern the process of identifying and correcting macroeconomic imbalances. These amendments imply that preventive and corrective dynamics refer not only to fiscal imbalances (public debt and public deficit), but also to global macroeconomic imbalances. Member states are subject to stricter scrutiny based on various macroeconomic indicators (public and private debt, market development and financial assets). At the same time, there is a strengthening of surveillance in cases of excessive fiscal or macroeconomic imbalances through sanctions, and the establishment of a new procedure in the EU economic surveillance framework for monitoring excessive imbalance (the so-called ‘Two-Pack’) (Costamagna, 2018a). We would argue that the European social dimension needs more than a purely sectoral approach, limited to the framework of the EMU, in order to strengthen it. Analysing the shortcomings of social integration and trying to make up for them by resorting to social objectives with a limited sectoral scope does not seem to be the most effective solution (Deakin, 2017). Beyond this, the Pillar does not envisage synergies with the EMU, but rather considers how it can increase the resilience of the Eurozone. It replaces social intervention with the idea that social conditions can be improved through the competitive conditions of workers; in other words, social protection can be achieved through competitiveness (Giubboni, 2018). In Chapter II of the Pillar, for example, none of the provisions proposed seeks to establish supranational common standards in the area of atypical labour contracting. At most, there is talk of the duty to avoid precarious or abusive labour relations within the Eurozone but without establishing social regulatory mechanisms to guarantee the right to economic protection at work (fair and decent wages) or a positive work experience (good working conditions). With regard to the former, the promotion of temporary and part-time job contracts has been one of the major factors in increasing precarity of employment and the consequent impoverishment of people who are forced to accept these types of contracts (Horemans et al., 2016). Moreover, involuntary partial work, significant in the south and east of Europe has, in turn, had intersectional effects such as the

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feminisation of poverty (Malgesini et al., 2017). In relation to the deregulation of labour protection, the de-collectivisation and contractualisation of labour has meant that work becomes a purely individual transaction outside of any political context, dependent on the market and at the mercy of the employer, fuelling social unfairness. Currently, work is not a guarantee for avoiding poverty. As the report In-work Poverty in Europe 2019 (Peña-Casas et al., 2019) points out, “while working is considered the best way to avoid poverty, this is not sufficient for almost one out of ten European workers.” Continuing with the analysis of EPSR, the Pillar’s preamble reveals how the document is committed to a convergence of pragmatic social standards within the model of an open market economy based on free competition. It reiterates the legal bases in the TFEU on which the different principles and rights are based. The reorientation of social and employment policy according to the principles guiding the reorganisation of the euro system once again highlights the absence of adequate protection for the key provisions of social constitutionalism against the negative effects of economic and monetary integration (Costamagna, 2018a). The reference to social justice in Chapter III does not equate to substantive equality, but rather links to the indirect social regulation of the European Semester (ES) guidelines. The ES was created in 2010 (European Council, 2010) to reduce macroeconomic and macro-financial imbalances by strengthening the coordination of the economic policies of member states. In order to support those targets, two types of mechanisms were developed: ‘soft’ coordination processes (the specific recommendations prepared by the Commission analysing the budgetary, macroeconomic and structural reform plans formally presented by each country, but which are not formally binding), and ‘hard’ monitoring mechanisms (in practice, these recommendations generate a higher level of compliance by transcending the general guidelines of Article 121 of the TFEU). The Commission’s specific recommendations to those member countries with a high level of indebtedness may appear ‘soft’ but given these countries’ greater vulnerability, they in fact constitute a hard law mechanism, requiring immediate applicability with direct effect (Costamagna, 2018b). This allows the exercise of hybrid regulatory functions outside any political and jurisdictional control at supranational and national levels, with the consequent democratic deficit effects (Snell, 2016). Finally, following the economic dynamics outlined above, the Social Pillar does not establish any limits, or set any conditions, which might trigger corrective intervention or in any way constrain the centrality of the market, which is now at the heart of the European project. The gap between the aims of the European Pillar and the EU institutional competences responsible for implementing them means that these social aims are marginalised to the point of being permanently ignored. In this way, the Pillar represents a significant indicator of the status of the European social dimension. It is not considered to be an autonomous area on the same level as economic integration, but merely a dimension of the latter, subordinate to the market and simply part of a market-driven ‘welfare state’. In other words, the mismatch between, on the one hand, the EU’s social objectives, and on the other, the lack of EU institutional instruments and decision-making procedures aimed at making them

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operational in intra-European relations and national systems, reflects the residual and subordinate space allotted to social integration, given the emphasis on economic integration in the single market (Bogoeski, 2018).

7.2

The Inequality Culture Within the Renewed Narrative of TINA

The political documents analysed in the previous section need to be contextualised within a specific legal framework that began to take root in the collective imagination of the EU member states in the 1990s. Coinciding with the application of economic slow-down measures, yet still some way from the more regressive mantra of the economic-political theory of restrictive fiscal expansion, the political proposal of the ‘workfare’ state as strategy for adapting social and employment policies to the globalisation of the capital market began to take shape. Since the 1980s, national economies and global economic relations have undergone profound changes. The new conditions and realities have required a re-evaluation of traditional concepts (welfare, production model, economic model) and the development of new ones. This new approach to welfare policies on a supranational scale was promoted by EU member states at the Essen Council in December 1994, and had as its main vectors: competitive market structure, tax policy that promotes sustainable growth, employment policy based on supply through welfare-to-work programmes and the adaptability and flexibility of labour markets based on the knowledge economy (Goetschy, 1999). Competitiveness required the flexibility of national labour markets, creating a new paradigm for employment policy. Full employment was replaced by ‘employability’, which subordinates employment to market requirements and competitiveness. Tailoring employment policy to the demands of the market implies that state intervention can no longer correct inequalities through measures designed to regulate supply and the demand in the labour market. On the contrary, it becomes necessary to abandon social investment programmes which are conducive to the expansion of aggregate demand, and aimed expressly at an expansionary policy of full employment. In the ‘workfare state’ strategy for employment, the aim of bringing down the unemployment rate is achieved through supply-side measures in line with the competitive dynamics of the market. This is far removed from the idea of public responsibility, central to social constitutionalism, which promotes redistributive solidarity. The emphasis on employability, together with adaptability, the development of entrepreneurship and equal opportunities, is part of a macroeconomic framework where growth policy is centred on stability, the consolidation of public finances, wage moderation and structural reforms. In other words, the competitiveness and competition of the single market are now the benchmarks in the new approach to managing employment (Visser, 2000).

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Alongside this change in the concept of employability, we find a two-pronged approach to the problem of unemployment involving, on the one hand, a re-conceptualisation of benefits, now seen as rewarding ‘activity’ (be it, demonstrably seeking jobs, undertaking mandated training courses, accepting any job offer) and on the other, public acceptance of the idea that jobs now available may well come with less advantageous conditions than those enjoyed by workers already employed. The solution finally adopted by the EU at supranational level was a hybrid between these two proposals, articulated around the paradigm of ‘flexicurity’. Its central tenet was that effective employability should be linked to the nurturing and growth of human capital through processes of training and lifelong learning, and to measures facilitating placement and relocation in the labour market. It was argued that this, in addition to making workers more flexible, would enable them to adapt to technological and organisational innovations, and would also make them subjectively less vulnerable to the risks of unemployment and precarity. Notwithstanding this high-minded statement of intent, ‘flexicurity’ is in fact little more than a fiction for hiding the need for a highly competitive labour market in order to enhance the competitiveness of business. The aim is to define a system of relations between capital and labour based on individuals rather than collective bodies, implying the renunciation of a consolidated system of employment rights and guarantees in exchange for increased employment opportunities – a kind of unequal social contract. Rights thus become part of a systematic link whereby they are traded in return for a bigger and better development of the economy; in other words, rights in exchange for employment. This paradigm shift has had an impact on national systems where there has been significant convergence in the activation of structural labour market reforms. Beyond the individual specificities of different national reforms, there are elements common to all that can be seen to have led to the emergence and consolidation of in-employment poverty and the criminalisation of people in situations of poverty or social exclusion. Firstly, such reforms imply a reconfiguration of the balance between the players in the labour relationship with a substantial reduction in guaranteed labour rights that existed in order to correct the asymmetrical position of the worker in the contractual relationship. In particular, labour recruitment rights have been redefined from a supply perspective, based on a political orientation whereby the promotion of business competitiveness is an indispensable condition for job creation. This normative reinforcement of capital, consisting of making the production process more adaptable, and production centres more competitive, manifests itself through the individualisation of labour relations, resulting in a return to contractualisation. Entrepreneurial power has further expanded in the area of employment stability. The disappearance of employment protection guarantees, together with the reduction in the costs of dismissal, have boosted the power of the private sector in the market (Auer, 2010). Secondly, the promotion of temporary hiring, with the aim of making recruitment more attractive for the private sector, together with reductions in worker protection (lowering the cost of dismissal), again place the emphasis on individual responsibility in the search for employment. This is seen in so-called ‘activity commitment’

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whereby claimants have to demonstrate their efforts to find work in return for benefits. This implies that what is being ‘protected’ is the search for employment, thus inverting the guarantees inherent in the protection systems of social constitutionalism. The contractualisation of unemployment protection implies a displacement of risk onto the unemployed, and therefore, an individualisation of social costs. The use of labour legislation as an instrument of competitiveness (through, for example, the legalisation of time-limited contracts) places the worker in a situation of permanent instability. The flexibilisation of entry into the labour market (seen in the multiplication of atypical forms of hiring such as ‘zero-hours’ contracts), may allow businesses greater freedom of action but ends up affecting the employment relationship as a whole. The unchecked flexibility of exit from the labour market (i.e. the introduction of forms of hiring without any guarantee of job security, and the segmentation of companies, which allows for job protection to be watered down) mean that workers simply become part of the means of production (Burroni & Keune, 2011). However, far from reducing unemployment, at least in qualitative terms, the employability policies pursued by national labour reforms through the application of ‘flexicurity’ have translated into the privatisation of welfare. The statistical reduction in the number of unemployed people in Europe has been accompanied by the devaluation of wages in order to protect competitive advantage, with the consequent worsening of quality of life and a reduction in expectations of improved living conditions. The declining share of wages in national income levels reflects a trend towards the progressive reduction of the political dimension of labour (workers’ unions) and the emphasis on higher profit margins for businesses. This reflects a double paradox: although unemployment has decreased statistically, social inequality has increased, as has the public discourse that blames citizens from other member states for underminding national social protection systems. The fact that income from work may now be insufficient to guarantee even a minimum level of vital subsistence reflects a highly complex situation, but one which comes down to the following: the growth of inequality is inherent in the current economic growth model. Firstly, we see the inadequacy of the benefit and support provision in traditional welfare systems. Most of these systems lack the strategic design that would allow for intervention at the initial stages of situations where people risk falling into poverty and social exclusion. Such early intervention could potentially prevent relative wealth loss. We are referring here to people whose income may be suddenly reduced, leaving them with insufficient disposable income to cope with contingencies, or those who may have experienced a significant loss of accumulated wealth over time leading to irreversible impoverishment, or to people without any accumulated wealth and with resources only enough to cover subsistence and therefore insufficient for an acceptable standard of living and participation in society. In short, we are referring to European citizens in increasingly common situations, given the social reality ensuing from the management of the EMU crisis.

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The EU thus needs to come up with legislative proposals that go beyond welfare benefits and charitable aid in order to address the chronic social inequality taking root in member countries, or risk the inevitable erosion of social democracy. The lack thus far of any such legislation has transferred pressure to organisations of the third sector (private foundations, charities, NGOs) that are now increasingly overwhelmed in their mission to provide basic necessities to those whose disposable income has been severely reduced. By way of illustration, the aptly titled report Democracy not for sale: the struggle for food sovereignty in the age of austerity in Greece (Backes et al., 2018) provides significant data on the qualitative social impact of the euro crisis and employability measures in the Hellenic Republic. In particular, the figures for the number of food banks now operating in urban areas to cover a basic human right -the right to food- are alarming. Thirdly, we see in member states the development of discourses and interpretations that argue for the ultra-nationalisation of social benefits (Ferrera, 2016); that is, that only those with national citizenship should have access to social benefits. This is perhaps one of the most dangerous effects for the construction of a common European identity based on social justice and solidarity between EU citizens. The EU’s review of the coordination of social security systems took place at a time when Brexit appeared to be increasingly likely, and was thus partly based on an evaluation of the risks posed to the sustainability of social protection systems by unrestricted free movement of workers, particularly as perceived by the United Kingdom. The concessions made to the UK are specified in Annex I of the Decision of the Heads of State or Government, meeting within the European Council, concerning a new regime for the United Kingdom in the European Union, and were adopted at the meeting of the European Council held on 18 and 19 February 2016. In particular, Section D, Social Benefits and Free Movement, of Annex I explicitly recognised the UK’s concerns that the exceptional number of workers from other member states entering the country could generate excessive pressure for the proper functioning of its public services. The other member states (with the exception of the Central and Eastern European countries) took advantage of this situation to assert the need for a proportional and justified review of access to social benefits designed to cover the minimum subsistence costs of economically inactive workers in the EU. Of course, these benefits are provided in order to facilitate access to the labour market in the host member states. Annexe 1 in effect implements a concept of EU citizenship that is dependent on the citizen’s economic self-sufficiency. A national of an EU member state who lacks sufficient income ceases to be considered as a European citizen with the right to freedom of movement, but becomes instead a ‘burden’ for the social security system of the host member state (Thym, 2015). In this way, Annex 1 conflicts fundamentally with the principle of equality of treatment, enshrined in EU laws affecting everyday life; yet it is precisely this ‘economistic’ interpretation of European citizenship that has now been endorsed by the European judiciary (Verschueren, 2015; Nic Shuibne, 2015).

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The fear of so-called ‘social tourism’ by citizens from certain member countries is easily refuted if we go back to the original inspiration of the ‘workfare state’ strategy, based on economic liberalisation in order to promote competitiveness between national labour markets. Wage cost moderation became the most effective mechanism to achieve this by ensuring that wages did not increase in line with business profits, as had been the case under the model of the welfare state. Although the effects of wage devaluation may have been positive in the short term, in the long term the diversity of social protection models in Europe has become a determining factor in increasing the asymmetry in the social conditions of European citizens, reinforced by the absence of any centralised mechanisms for direct intervention in social policy. The low cost of labour (low wages) has forced the citizens of some EU countries to exercise their freedom of movement and immigrate to other member states in search of real opportunities to improve their living conditions. Problems arise when the competitive pressure between the national workforces and those from these other member states is exploited by the host country in order to deepen the segmentation of their national labour markets. Thus, the social advantages associated with competition between the factors of production has resulted in a competitive model characterised by strong social asymmetry promoting a downward pressure on equality of treatment. A fourth feature of what we are calling the European ‘workfare state’ is the trap of ‘activity commitment’ whereby access to benefits is made dependent on social and labour insertion plans. Unemployment, following this premise, becomes a matter of individual responsibility and not a structural social problem. Thus, if an individual does not manage to enter the job market, it is either because they have personal shortcomings that make them unsuitable for work, or simply because they do not want to work. In this way, it is a short step from supporting the unemployed with charity to stigmatising them, and even punishing them. By emphasising the individual responsibility of job-seekers and explicitly linking it to the active search for employment and the acceptance of any type of job offer, other relational variables (age, gender, social and family structure, functional diversity or race, among others) are ignored. If we also take into account the type of employment contracts promoted by recent employment reforms -which have resulted in in-work poverty- we see the vicious circle of structural inequality clearly spinning into action. It seems, as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher prophesised back in 1980, that ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA) to market- and competition-oriented (employment) policy; in other words, in the current dominant political discourse, there are no (other) alternatives to generating employment than to promote economic growth at the cost of the human dimension of work. This is presented as how the market functions and is articulated around the principle of flexicurity as an expression of the policy of re-regulation. It seeks to adapt national labour regulations to a market that demands the elimination of labour protection mechanisms. As a result, there is now convergence between those employed under new labour relations based on flexible exploitation, and those with standard or typical contracts but who have seen their labour rights reduced in order to maintain job stability (Heyes & Lewis, 2013).

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Taking ‘Inclusive Growth’ Seriously: Anchoring Social Justice and Solidarity in the Framework of the EMU

The different observations made so far lead us to conclude that the nature of social inequality in the European Union has undergone significant change such that basic needs can no longer be universally covered by income from work alone. As a result, programmes aimed at reducing poverty and social exclusion can no longer be aimed solely at those excluded due to a lack of income; they must also target people who already receive benefits or whose earned income is insufficient. In this sense, the strict division between work/social inclusion, on the one hand, and unemployment/ social exclusion on the other, has become porous. The problem is that the legalpolitical treatment of this inequality is based on a purely quantitative approach rather than on a qualitative structural approach that seeks to understand and address those factors perpetuating inequality in the current social reality. The hegemony of quantitative measurement reduces inequality to a simple matter of income levels (what should be the minimum income threshold that implies a person is at risk of poverty or social exclusion?). This approach, in which the primary interest is to ‘measure’ inequality, does not critically consider the conceptual assumptions underlying the EU’s definition of inequality. This is based on what is known as the AROPE (At Risk of Poverty and/or Exclusion) rate according to the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). EU-SILC is an instrument that aims to collect timely and comparable cross-sectional and longitudinal multidimensional microdata on income, poverty, social exclusion and living conditions in member states. It has been used for monitoring poverty and social exclusion in member states since 2010, from the outset of the Europe 2020 strategy. The AROPE rate measures risk of poverty as arising when people have an annual household income below 60% of the average annual household income level in that country. In addition, ‘active poverty’, i.e. in-work poverty, is indicated when people fall below this threshold while working for more than half the year (at least 7 months). The AROPE rate explicitly does not measure “wealth or poverty, but low income in comparison to other residents in that country, which does not necessarily imply a low standard of living” (Eurostat, 2019b Glossary). While AROPE is one way of monitoring the risk of poverty quantitatively, we would argue that such a pragmatic approach ends up being one of the major handicaps in tackling inequality and the real causes that generate it. These, as we have shown, are intrinsic to the legal-economic model that is supported by EU member states. Of course, inequality can be defined and measured in a purely quantitative manner: lack of income necessary for people to have their basic needs satisfied in relation to the societies where they live. However, it can also be conceptualised from a qualitative perspective: inequality as a product or result of a juridical-political model based on the accumulation of wealth through dispossession, where well-being can only be achieved through economic growth subject to the parameters of a free market economy.

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The difference between the quantitative and the qualitative approaches is not trivial. If we adopt only the former, focusing on people’s lack of access to basic goods and services, the mechanisms to be adopted for its correction are likely to be linked to social aid and, ultimately, to charity. That is to say, the ‘problem’, as defined, can be alleviated but still within the system, i.e. the model that generates it in the first place. In this way, discussion of poverty becomes an ex-post discourse which does not examine the true causes relating to the structural character of inequality. For sure, the absence of a vital minimum for subsistence may be the direct effect of inequality, but it is no less true that inequality has its causes in the dynamics of the current model of economic growth. Hence, the question is not so much how to reduce inequality but why it has become so difficult to correct it. In order to address this question, we need to start with the definition of relative poverty as used in the AROPE indicator. Although this is a commonly accepted threshold, as Peña-Casas et al. (2019) point out, it is nonetheless arbitrary as it functions as a percentage of average income and can therefore vary according to macroeconomic trends, as acknowledged in the Eurostat Glossary. In addition, the relative poverty threshold takes the household, and not the individual, as the reference unit. This implies that people with low wages are not considered poor if the income of the rest of the household exceeds the 60% threshold. As the cohabitation unit formed by individual workers is not considered, some people who would otherwise be in a situation of relative poverty are excluded, which represents a clear contradiction. This measurement methodology is especially burdensome for women who have traditionally been the recipients of temporary or part-time contracts with low pay. The factor of gender is easily lost in this quantification of inequality. The AROPE indicator thus ends up being simplistic and inefficient for measuring the different social and relational situations in which people find themselves. From these premises, we can deduce how the Gordian knot of social inequality requires focus on political management; that is, on the determination of the rules regulating the distribution of income and wealth. In the EMU, macroeconomic policies have been determined by the fulfilment of nominal convergence criteria, reinforced in the post-crisis phase by mechanisms for the surveillance of fiscal discipline and the control of macroeconomic imbalances, as covered by article 140 of the TFEU (stable prices, sound public finances and monetary conditions and a stable balance of payments) and developed in Protocol No. 13 annexed to the Treaty of Lisbon. The post-crisis EMU combines legislative instruments with immediate effect (regulations) and deferred effect (directives), together with international law regulations and the judgements made by technocratic institutions without democratic legitimacy (Troika, Eurogroup, ES, Euro Summits). Although some of these appear as recommendations, the granting of EU funds is conditional on compliance with them. In this way, the enhanced economic and monetary integration of the EU is characterised, following Liebert (2016), by ‘solidarity’ redefined as ‘sound economic sustainability’ in order to justify financial assistance programmes in response to the unsustainable sovereign debt situations that have threatened the stability of the euro system. It is impossible to implement long-term aid, i.e. an automatic system of

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fiscal transfers such as unemployment benefit, that would mitigate the negative socio-economic effects of the crisis on labour income. A further feature of the EU is the disconnect between politics and an economy characterised by optimal fiscal contraction based on cuts in public spending, penalising any type of social investment. Finally, a third characteristic would seem to be the political hostility to applying any type of automatic stabilizer that would cushion social impacts in periods of economic recession. Based on these characteristics, the prioritising of macroeconomic stability as a way of ensuring the sustainability of EMU means structural reforms have to be made to national social models in order to reinforce dependence on the external competitiveness of the economy through wage depression, ‘flexicurity’ and the re-branding of public services. Fiscal consolidation has simply allowed restrictive fiscal policies and labour market deflationary policies to reduce costs and make labour markets more flexible, leading to dysfunctional austerity conditions that have resulted in a lack of economic recovery and decreased productivity. At the same time, EMU policies aimed at full employment and social progress are configured on the basis of compliance with nominal convergence guidelines through the recommendations set out in the reform programmes drawn up in the European Semester; in other words, as accessories to economic and financial stability policies. In addition, these policies lack the instruments to impose sanctions in the event of possible deviations or breaches in the area of social transfers. The configuration of market centrality is maintained despite the incorporation of the Pillar into the ES in an attempt to invigorate the social dimension of EMU The implementation of a ‘Social Scoreboard’ (European Commission, 2019) to monitor some aspects of the European Pillar of Social Rights in Eurozone countries and the wider EU27 has not generated a qualitative redefinition of the indicators used for the measurement of inequality. The methodology used by the EU continues to give priority to the improvement of statistics and not to the implementation of approaches which prioritise social inclusion and social protection with social transfers. The Scoreboard furthermore does not include all 20 principles and rights comprising the Pillar, so the methodological approach is selective in nature without specifying the reasons for this selection. Inequality is considered in two of the three EPSR areas: equal opportunities and access to the labour market, and public support/social protection and inclusion. In this context, the dependence of job creation on debt reduction to strengthen fiscal dependence
as if economic growth generated a decrease in inequality in the distribution of wealth (the trickle-down theory)
consolidates the rhetoric of fiscal restrictions and austerity. The negative impacts of austerity on public services, social protection systems, inclusive growth and labour relations are not measured. The deficiencies of the social indicators thus reveal that they are not true indicators of inequality; they do not reflect the problem of poverty in employment linked to the quality of jobs, nor of inequality in the distribution of income linked to whether jobs effectively allow people to avoid the risk of social exclusion (European Anti-Poverty Network, 2019).

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All the Scoreboard does is apparently support exchange of good practice among EU countries, but it does not allow them to consider alternative coordinated countercyclical fiscal policies to promote prosperity. Progress measures are referenced against EU averages (a quantitative approach), not against the objectives set out in the EPSR (a criterion-based methodology). In a context defined by fiscal consolidation, by self-help aid and solidarity conditional on sustainability, the positive effects of public investment to reduce inequality are underestimated. We therefore argue that it is necessary to replace the ‘workfare’ model described by a new one that prioritises economic justice in the structures of the economy (pre-distribution of wealth), and which does not undermine public investment in social rights, adequate public services and social protection. In short, we need to make the transition from nominal quantitative convergence to real substantive convergence based on solidarity in the form of inclusive (equitable) growth.

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Peña-Casas, R., Ghailani, D., Spasova, S., & Vanchercke, B. (Eds.). (2019). In-work poverty in Europe. A study of national policies (pp. 52–55). European Social Policy Network. European Commission. Schneider, M. P. A., Kinsella, S., & Godin, A. (2015). Redistribution in the age of austerity: Evidence from Europe 2006–13. Levy Economics Institute Working Paper Collection, 856, 2–18. Snell, J. (2016). The trilemma of European Economic and Monetary integration, and its consequences. European Law Journal, 22(2), 164–171. Thym, D. (2015). The elusive limits of solidarity: Residence rights of and social benefits or economically inactive union citizens. Common Market Law Review, 52(1), 17–50. Verschueren, H. (2015). Preventing ‘benefit tourism’ in the EU: A narrow or broad interpretation of the possibilities offered by the ECJ in Dano? Common Market Law Review, 52(2), 363–365. Visser, J. (2000). From Keynesianism to the third way: Labour relations and social policy in postwar Western Europe. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 21(4), 421–456.

Chapter 8

Other Ways of Eating in Spain: Food Itineraries in a Context of Increasing Precarisation Mabel Gracia-Arnaiz

8.1

Introduction

Since the beginning of the global economic crisis in 2008, living conditions in Spain have changed significantly. The government responded to the initial effects of economic recession by focusing its efforts on bank bailouts, liberalising labour regulations, reducing health spending and increasing direct and indirect taxes (Navarro, 2015). At the same time, it took regressive action that affected social rights, restricting family allowances, the ‘Renta Básica de Emancipación’ (which helped young people with accommodation costs) and support for dependents, and also reducing salaries, freezing retirement pensions and cutting school lunch subsidies (Mateos & Penadés, 2013). Although some macroeconomic indicators have improved since 2015 and, according to the Active Population Survey (EPA, 2018), the unemployment rate fell to 16.55% in the fourth quarter of 2017, the number of unemployed is still nearly 3.5 million. Additionally, the quality of jobs available has deteriorated, with more temporary contracts and lower wages which do not allow many workers to lift themselves out of poverty (Fernández, 2017). Both poverty and income inequality are among the highest in the European Union (European Commission, 2017). According to the AROPE index1, the proportion of Spain’s population at risk of social exclusion increased from 23.3% in 2007 to 29.2% in 2014, reaching nearly 13 million people (Llanos Ortiz, 2017), many of whom depend on social assistance

1

AROPE is an indicator developed by the European Union, and refers to the percentage of the population that is at risk of poverty and/or social exclusion.

M. Gracia-Arnaiz (*) Department of Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Work, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Catalunya, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_8

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for basic needs (Caritas Europa, 2015). Fuel poverty has increased dramatically during the crisis period, affecting more than 4.5 million people (BOE, 2017).2 This increasing impoverishment has had consequences in several areas of daily life for the most vulnerable groups (Laparra & Pérez, 2012), particularly in their diet and ways of eating. Studies indicate that the volume of food bought and the quality of meals consumed have both decreased, and the incidence of specific nutrient deficiencies has risen (Antentas & Vivas, 2014). However, the real socioeconomic and health consequences of precarisation are not well known because, as in other European countries (Borch & Kjaerns, 2016), research on people’s access to food has for many years been sporadic and fragmented, based on a variety of definitions and methodologies (Díaz-Méndez et al., 2018). There are hardly any studies at the state or regional level that systematically track the extent of food insecurity in Spain (Fargas et al., 2014). This article explores shifts in eating habits among people living in precarious conditions as a result of the crisis, and the strategies they have developed in order to obtain daily food. It is argued that food itineraries among the sectors of Spanish society most affected reflect the tensions and improvisations that have come to characterise their lives. Food deprivation creates uncertainty which, in turn, requires a change of strategies, environments and interlocutors. The empirical results show how people resolve problems of food procurement using various resources that, in some cases, go beyond the institutionalised forms of food assistance provided by charities or social services. These resources not only minimise the impact of irregular access to food, but also transform subjective experiences of food deprivation into points of departure for new ways of providing for daily needs.

8.2

Materials and Methods

The research presented here is part of a broader study entitled The precarisation of everyday life: food (in)security, gender and health’ (CSO2016-74941-P) carried out by a team of anthropologists at the University Rovira i Virgili. Following the same procedure as in a previous work (Gracia-Arnaiz, 2022), a variety of information sources were used to explore the impact of the recent economic crisis in Spain on food itineraries. First, an earlier literature review was updated in order to identify the socioeconomic dimensions of the crisis (Gracia-Arnaiz, 2017), searching the SCOPUS database in order to identify studies published between 2008 and 2017 that examine the negative consequences of unemployment and cutbacks in salaries and social services, and analyses of Spanish social policies that address increasing impoverishment and food insecurity. The studies selected were those published in Spanish and English based on populations in Spain, as well as comparative studies on Europe that include Spain. Search terms included ‘economic crisis’, ‘poverty’, 2

https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2017/10/07/pdfs/BOE-A-2017-11505.pdf

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Table 8.1 Flow of search Database search results (n ¼ 13,680) Records identified after database 12,919 records excluded, reasons: search (n¼13,680) Not published between 2008-2017 Not published in either English or Spanish No European-based studies, or European not compared to or based in Spain Subject area selected: social sciences, art and humanities, economics, medicine, psychology, nursing, management, and multidisciplinary Records screened by title and 563 records excluded, reasons: abstract (n¼761) Socioeconomic or health consequences of crisis not analysed Non-comparable studies Abstract not available for evaluation Full-text articles assessed for eligibility and appropriateness (198) Studies included (198)

‘food consumption’, ‘social cutbacks’, ‘food security’ and ‘social policy’. This search yielded 13,680 sources. After applying the inclusion criteria (publication dates, type of publication, language, study location and subjects) a total of 761 publications were identified. From these 761 journal articles and book chapters, 198 were finally selected based on their relevance to the study objectives (Table 8.1). Second, in order to analyse the social measures adopted to cover basic needs and food procurement, the main action plans and specific programmes to combat poverty and the food assistance programmes deployed by Spanish government bodies and third-sector organisations at the municipal, regional and state level were collected, focusing on documents published between 2008 and 2017. These included publications from the Spanish Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality, FEAD (the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived 2014–2020), the Spanish Federation of Food Banks (FESBAL), the Red Cross, and Caritas. Of the 37 documents initially selected, a total of 25 met the requirements for inclusion. Finally, ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in the region of Catalonia between 2014 and 2017. Although the broader study considers the relationships among several stakeholders (social workers, volunteers, health professionals and activists), this article focuses only on people living in precarious situations. Members of the research team worked in a variety of different contexts – soup kitchens, food banks, supermarkets and public spaces – using direct observation and in-depth interviews. Specifications for selection criteria of informants included people living in precarious conditions who were responsible for feeding themselves and/or family members, and who had applied for food assistance and/or social services, or received them as a result of a medical diagnosis or referral by a social worker, since the beginning of the economic crisis. All 51 informants selected were adults living alone, with other family members or in shared flats. Most were unemployed. Those who had jobs were employed in poorly paid positions or worked in the

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informal economy. Pensioners were also included if they had economic responsibilities for family members, most often adult children and grandchildren. A narrative approach, focusing on relationships between individual experience, cultural context and the construction of meanings (Garro & Mattingly, 2000), used biographical interviews to analyse experiences of food deprivation in order to shed light on how people with limited resources navigate the continuum between food security and insecurity. Literal transcriptions of interviews were digitalised using the ATLAS.ti 7 computer program, which facilitated data analysis by identifying the topics and themes that emerged from the practices and trajectories through which people obtain food for themselves and their families. A coding protocol was created by agreement among the members of the research team, and the resulting 53 concepts and labels were then classified into the five categories on which the analysis is based: precarisation, food access, practices and consumption strategies, welfare benefits and institutional support, social networking and health condition.

8.3 8.3.1

Results Food Insecurity and Social Assistance

With the exception of some local studies, there are no surveys focusing specifically on food insecurity in Spain, and much of the available data comes from statistical sources on living conditions, food purchased and nutrient intake. The diversity of research designs and data collection methods makes it difficult to evaluate and compare them (Del Pozo et al., 2015). Nevertheless, certain items from these surveys and other secondary sources point to the rising problem of food access. According to the Survey of Living Conditions (INE, 2016), 38.1% of households are unable to manage unforeseen expenses, while 15.3% report great difficulties in making their income last until the end of the month, an increase of 1.6% compared to 2015, and 17.2% say they cannot afford a meal with meat, chicken or fish at least every other day. Similarly, the latest Promotion of Social Studies and Applied Sociology report (Valls & Benzunegui, 2014) indicates that 16% of Spaniards consume a nutritionally poor diet due to loss of income. Some authors point to decline in purchasing power as the primary explanation for the changes in consumption of certain foods, especially increasing recourse to those that are cheaper and less healthy (Medina et al., 2015). Usually, these trends are based on annual figures provided by Food Consumption Panel of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment, which reveal changes in the purchasing patterns of some food groups. According to Antentas and Vivas (2014), a comparison between 2008 and 2012 confirms a downward trend in household food consumption, with the sharpest fall registered for meat and fish. By contrast, purchase of fruit and vegetables has barely changed. A report by the Office of the Catalan Ombudsman (Síndic de Greuges, 2013) interprets difficulty in

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consuming meat or fish at least every other day as a sign of food deprivation resulting in an increase in child malnutrition. In Spain, most of the available data relating to food insecurity at the municipal level are provided by third-sector organisations. A study carried out by the Creu Roja de Catalunya (2015) among beneficiaries of aid programmes, showed that in this population 60.6% of families with children consume a nutritionally poor diet and experience levels of food insecurity ranging from mild (29.5%) to moderate (40.7%) to severe (21.7%). Non-governmental organisation reports have highlighted an upward trend in the number of first-time applicants for food assistance (Caritas Europa, 2015), and it is estimated that more than two million people in Spain are dependent on public and/or private social assistance programmes in order to eat. Among people living in precarious conditions, 22.4% have had recourse to family members or friends for access to food or other basic goods, and 14.7% have approached private or religious organisations for assistance (Llanos Ortiz, 2017). Between 2007 and 2015, Càritas Barcelona spent more than 2 million euros a year on food aid, a fivefold increase from before the crisis (Càritas, 2016). In the face of increasing social demand, various government bodies have expanded or instituted a variety of emergency programmes including transfer payments of various kinds, food services, and distribution of food products. These forms of assistance are managed by a complex network of non-profit organisations. In Barcelona alone, there are 234 such organisations (Fargas et al., 2014). These policy responses are frequent in contexts where food overproduction and surpluses are common (Gascón & Montagut, 2014). The European Union’s Food Aid Plan (FEAD), co-financed by EU and Spanish government funds, is the programme that currently provides the most extensive assistance “to palliate food deprivation” in Spain (FEGA, 2017). Between 2008 and 2012 the number of beneficiaries of this programme rose by 217%. In 2015, 115 million kilograms/litres of food were purchased through this plan, including rice, children’s cereals, powdered milk, chickpeas, beans, UHT whole milk, olive oil, canned tuna, spaghetti and dehydrated cream of vegetables. While the government bought 63 million kilograms/litres of food in 2010, this figure had almost doubled by 2015 (Pérez de Armiño, 2018). These measures are accompanied by a programme for the collection of fruits and vegetables withdrawn from the market for distribution free of charge. Government has addressed the problem of food assistance by strengthening and institutionalising the role of third-sector organisations. Supranational institutions such as food banks, the Red Cross and Caritas store and distribute surplus basic commodities from the agribusiness sector and from private donations (producers, companies, large-scale wholesalers) in collaboration with local authorities. Distribution of food purchased through FEAD is controlled by the Spanish Federation of Food Banks (FESBAL) and the Red Cross. FESBAL, with 56 partners, has been the main non-profit volunteer organisation distributing foodstuffs since 1996. According to data provided by FESBAL (2016), in 2015 the Federation distributed 152.9 million kilograms of food to 8488 charities, which reached more than one and a half million beneficiaries – nearly twice as many people as in 2007. In the FESBALsponsored Big Food Collection that took place at retail outlets in November 2017,

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21 million kilograms of food were collected, making Spain the European country where citizens donate the most food. Apart from these institutions’ ability to bring food from agricultural surpluses and private donations within the reach of the poorest people, other initiatives aimed at decreasing food deprivation have emerged since the economic crisis began in 2008, particularly since the Spanish government’s ‘More food, less waste’ programme (MAGRAMA, 2013) began incentivising donations to charities. These include, among others, Alimentos Solidarios [Solidarity Foods], Muévete contra el Hambre y la Pobreza [Take Action Against Hunger and Poverty], Ningún Niño sin Bigote [No Child without a Moustache], Restaurantes contra el Hambre [Restaurants Against Hunger] and BCN Comparte la Comida [Barcelona Shares Food]. Some of these projects were backed by local authorities and non-profit entities after the consequences of drastic cuts in social benefits became apparent, but others, such as community gardens, the distribution of food in public spaces or solidarity soup kitchens, are the result of the growing mobilisation of civil society, which is supporting people whose needs are not met by charitable institutions. The impact of such interventions is unknown. A recent analysis of current food resources carried out by the Barcelona city government (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2017) reveals a fragmented map of aid recipients and services provided.

8.3.2

Food Itineraries: Changing Strategies, Contexts and Interlocutors

A new profile for applicants for aid has recently appeared, consisting of lowermiddle-class families whose daily life has been undermined by loss of income that jeopardises access to subsistence resources (Llanos Ortiz, 2017). People who have experienced rapid declines in income have seen their purchasing power severely reduced, and they try to cut expenses in all areas, including food costs. These people are quite heterogeneous in terms of situations and needs, and their food itineraries, understood as trajectories and social practices to resolve everyday food needs, reflect this diversity. Oral narratives reveal substantial changes in eating practices. These include changes in locations for purchase; changes in the types and frequency of the products purchased and the brands chosen, with the cheapest sought out in order to reduce spending; fewer meals consumed in restaurants and bars; and changes in the ways meals are prepared, avoiding dishes that require elaborate preparation and taking care to minimise waste, recycling any leftovers into future meals. As one study participant explained: “The first thing you do is eliminate any spur-of-the-moment purchases. You buy the cheapest food possible, and you don’t throw anything away, not even foods past their sell-by date” (woman, 42 years old). The unavoidable – although flexible – need to eat in order to survive means that all possible solutions are considered. Among the study participants, food aid has

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been incorporated into a range of old and new strategies that include community gardening, recycling of leftovers or even begging. In many cases this occurs at the same time as the emergence or expansion of the social support networks which are essential for understanding why food deprivation has not resulted in widespread hunger. While feelings of helplessness and shame in the face of day-to-day pressures are repeatedly mentioned by the study participants, they also say that they consider themselves lucky to have found support from different organisations (city council, parish, soup kitchen) and people (social workers, volunteers): “At first you don’t know which door to knock on, but once you’ve left your embarrassment behind, you find out about what’s available and you start to ask around” (woman, 45 years old). None of them had ever imagined themselves in this situation; none of the mothers thought they would ever have to skip one or two meals a day or eat less to ensure that their children had enough to eat: “My children eat first, then my husband and I’m last. If I’m hungry I eat more bread...and I drink more water. It swells up in your stomach and takes your mind off it” (woman, 39 years old). Loss of predictable income and the need to keep up with utility bills and rent or mortgage payments lead them to improvise in many areas, including food: I went to look where I thought they could help me. I remember asking my son’s teacher. Next day, she gave me a bag full of food. The meals that I prepare depend on the foods I get. A social worker evaluated my situation and I can have regular assistance (woman, 37 years old).

Changes in food supply and places of food consumption are the best evidence of the tensions caused by the difficulties that people face. They diversify their strategies, not only seeking food to take home, but also eating whenever and wherever possible. The limited food in the larders of those receiving food aid is striking compared to the number of times that some people leave their homes to eat. In these cases, people use strategies that differ markedly; from eating outside the home while at work or during leisure time, to making use of resources that free them from the need to use their kitchens, which in some cases cannot be used due to a lack of power. The groups that have established the most complex itineraries are families with children in their care. More than half of the study participants reported that they eat less at home since their living conditions became insecure, and they do not cook a great deal. Those responsible for providing meals, usually women, said that the non-perishable food that charities give them does not meet their needs: “I am very grateful for the help received, but it’s not enough. If we want to eat well, we would need more meat and fruit. When I have money, I buy them” (woman, 42 years old). They usually receive pasta and rice, milk and canned tuna, but fresh foods requiring refrigeration such as fruit, vegetables, eggs and meat are very scarce, although they are gradually being added to the stocks of food banks and charities. Study participants who eat outside the home do so for different reasons and in different ways. One possibility involves eating in other ‘homes’. Some people without access to energy in their home (the ‘energy poor’) have access to flats

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managed by charities or provided by municipal councils so that they can cook and even eat there. These have a pantry stocked with non-perishable foods such as pasta and rice, and users bring perishable foods which they have purchased either with cash or with supermarket vouchers, or obtained from charities. They are allocated three hours per week, and usually prepare simple dishes, thereby optimising the limited time available. They cook as quickly as possible, and several dishes at once: for example, pasta with meat and white rice with tomato sauce and a fried egg. When there are children in the household, instead of returning home for the midday meal, they eat in the school canteen if their school lunch is fully or partially subsidised  another meal consumed outside the home. Some children also have breakfast and their mid-morning snack at school. This aid programme for families with limited resources is provided by the parents’ associations of schools in working-class neighbourhoods. The parents appreciate this because, as one 31-year-old woman put it, “At least my children have a good meal once a day.” Another way of eating consists of returning to the parental home. Many senior citizens provide meals for their adult children and their grandchildren; they cook food their children obtain from donations, but above all, they use what they can buy with their pensions: “I used to complain because my pension was less than 800 euros, but now it pays for all of us to eat – the two of us, and my children and grandchildren” (woman, 72 years old). Going to their parents’ home “avoids the embarrassment of having to ask for food in other places, I prefer it a thousand times to a soup kitchen” (woman, 41 years old). But this choice is not only about shame. They reported that it is more convenient and personally more comforting. In addition to not being subject to inflexible schedules, they are able to eat familiar dishes that are also usually in line with their tastes and limited budgets: “My mother always asks me... but her kitchen isn’t a restaurant, so we adapt to her budget. The thing is, we all eat hot food together with the people we love” (woman, 41 years old). Going to a soup kitchen is another common way of eating, although it was not available to all informants. Although they have multiplied in many Spanish cities since 2009 (Pérez de Armiño, 2018), access to a soup kitchen is usually a result of a referral from social services. Some informants considered them to be one option among many possibilities: “Here I get only some meals; the place is closed at night and on weekends” (man, 52 years old). They usually provide one daily meal, either breakfast or lunch. Some parish churches, municipal services, and civil society organisations also deliver cooked food to be consumed at home, providing the main meal of the day for users who live in a hostel room or shared apartment, in most cases elderly couples or single people. Hired staff and volunteers prepare lunch almost entirely with products from food bank donations and private donations. In addition to maintaining the three-dish structure of the meal (starter, main course and dessert), they attempt to prepare dishes that replicate culturally accepted recipes; for example, noodle casserole, paella or Spanish omelette. This does not necessarily mean that the expectations and wishes of the diners are met. Emotions of gratitude are mixed with feelings of loss of autonomy over food choices and satisfaction of tastes: “You eat whatever they put on your plate regardless of preferences, but at least I eat a hot meal every day” (man, 29 years old).

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Eating in all these spaces is compatible with consuming food collected in grocery stores, or obtained from neighbourhood food collection points operated by civic groups. Some of the people who regularly use these spaces and food sources did not have a fixed address before the crisis, but now they are increasingly frequented by people waiting for a decision on their aid request. In general, asking for food from shops or collecting food distributed in public spaces is seen as one of many opportunities to increase their scarce resources: “When the soup kitchens are closed, I ask for food in bakeries or restaurants” (man, 52 years old). The study participants knew the days, places and times for the distribution food, often at night and first thing in the morning. Some said they take advantage of collective meals held in public spaces, but because of their sporadic nature no one considers them a regular source of food. The study participants, especially younger and single people, also explained that they visited neighbourhood bars, pastry shops, supermarkets, grocery stores, bakeries and cafeterias to collect any leftover food items, unsold bread, tapas, and cooked dishes from the set-price daily menu, as well as food in damaged packaging. “In my neighbourhood supermarket they told me that nothing gets thrown away there, and they let me take food from a box with items that probably had damaged packaging” (Maria, 38 years old). Encouraged by local policies against food waste, these businesses put leftover food in bags, plastic containers or cardboard boxes. At other times, when the practice is systematic, the informants bring their own receptacles. In general, people choose to eat this food in the street, “depending on how hungry I am or what the weather is like” (man, 52 years old). Sometimes they take it home to cook and/or share it with others, or simply consume it at another time of day. Soup kitchens and food banks self-managed by residents of the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods constitute an additional resource, although these smallscale initiatives can be difficult to sustain because they depend on volunteer labour and an irregular supply of resources, and are sometimes closed down by the authorities because they lack the requisite permissions. Their structure is groupbased, and they meet weekly to arrange collections from shops, transport, distribution and cooking. In the soup kitchen of one cooperative, “many food items come from neighbours or local shops and the cooks are pensioners, unemployed people or neighbours” (man, 49 years old). In working-class urban districts, neighbourhood associations and other local organisations have encouraged the use of community gardens, which in some cases have also been promoted by the city government as tools for community development, education and social transformation. In these collaborative projects, people living in precarious conditions participate actively, generating resources in their own communities, learning to grow food organically or rescuing and reusing food that is not considered edible: the vegetables collected are for our own consumption, but also for the neighbourhood social soup kitchen and charities. I attended a recycling workshop and I learnt to reduce waste and prepare meals with leftovers. No throwing away wilted lettuce leaves; they have vitamins, and you can use them to prepare delicious croquettes (woman, 37 years old).

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Some study participants also help to organise ‘soup discos’ in public spaces: culinary events that recycle unused vegetables from food producers, markets and restaurants in a huge soup distributed free of charge in order to dramatise the reduction of food waste. In one such event, organised in Barcelona by the non-profit Aprofitem els Aliments (Make the Most of Food), more than 150 volunteers were involved in cooking for 4000 people. While it is true that because of its sporadic nature the people interviewed for this study do not see it as a regular source of food, their participation is felt to be socially relevant, because they share experiences and knowledge that make it evident that other forms of eating, “cheaper and more sustainably” are possible in their view.

8.4

Discussion and Conclusion

In Spain, the economic crisis represents simultaneously a continuous restructuring and an institutionalised uncertainty embedded in the life of social groups (Alonso & Fernández, 2013). Both phenomena embody the notion of precarisation, understood by Paugam (2013) as a dynamic process related to increasing socio-economic difficulties. It is not necessary to be in extreme poverty to experience precarisation, which is not merely a financial indicator, but also points to changes in consumption on many levels as a result of unemployment or underemployment; difficulties in paying housing costs, electricity and gas bills, or purchasing food. Precarisation is no longer an exceptional situation in capitalist societies but a current that runs through people’s everyday lives (Lorey, 2015). The everyday eating behaviour of many Spaniards reflects this process of precarisation and highlights the paradox identified by Warde (1997): while food production is more abundant, flexible and diversified than ever, social class, which now has more fluid boundaries, continues to be the main explanatory variable for unequal access to food. Although indicators related to living conditions and types of food purchased reveal constraints on consumption in recent years, they rely on excessively general food categories (meats, vegetables, oils and fats) that make it difficult to determine whether these dietary changes are nutritionally healthy. Further, they do not show how the whole food pattern has changed (Gracia-Arnaiz, 2018). Because there are no studies of the nature and degree of food deprivation in Spain, there is no accurate diagnosis of its extent as a social problem. What is more, the government does not acknowledge that food insecurity exists and, consequently, it is not understood as a political issue (Escajedo, 2018). Instead, it is treated as a problem of individuals and families who are unable to manage their food requirements using their own resources and need emergency assistance, which is provided by strengthening mitigation programmes. Like the majority of wealthy states (Pfeiffer et al., 2015; LambieMumford, 2017), Spain has responded to the growing demand for food assistance by buying more food on the international and national markets and also by incentivising donations from food-related enterprises to charities in order to reduce waste. In this sense, food aid has become increasingly corporatised.

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This has required the creation of more locations for distributing food and authorisation of more organisations to do this. The institutionalisation of organisations such as FESBAL and the Red Cross is presented by the state as a kind of moral achievement that, according to Poppendieck (1998), implements the solidarity and altruism of thousands of donors and distributors of food, along with the volunteers who take part in food distribution. These organisations embody the triumph of top-down charity and non-judgemental solidarity because something donated or given away is not intended to change the causes of impoverishment, only to alleviate it (Riches, 2018). Food assistance helps the most disadvantaged groups to meet their basic food needs, but at the same time deflects social pressure on the state, and makes the recipients of these benefits increasingly dependent on charities. This is illustrated by the fact that many study participants have normalised the use of these services as a usual recourse. People manage their needs by adopting a variety of strategies, both old and new, negotiating with various interlocutors, groups and institutions in different contexts. As other experiences of material deprivation have shown (Heflin et al., 2011; Caplan, 2016), these strategies are not limited to public and private assistance, but also include informal resources based on family, neighbourhood and friendship networks. Food itineraries, understood as ways and means of obtaining food, reflect the improvisations that structure daily life for the most vulnerable. They also include the spaces in which people seek resources, their relationships with different interlocutors and forms of social care. Due to their flexibility, food itineraries reflect the changing nature of the practices and knowledge that people deploy in each situation/stage, underlining the importance that all the formal and informal support networks acquire in urban contexts when it comes to managing food assistance. Food itineraries are thus also a useful tool for analysing how each society applies and legitimises measures for the care/protection of those it renders vulnerable, while at the same time providing a record of alternative practices, both individual and collective, in the face of precarisation. Food itineraries reflect different constraints, particularly in supply and places of consumption. In a context of uncertainty, people attempt to diversify sources of food for their households. With the foods they buy, are given, or otherwise find, they try to create or reproduce orderly meals that are acceptable by cultural standards. But this replication is not always possible because changes have affected the whole food pattern. When food is in limited or uncertain supply, people may also engage in more improvised food practices, substituting cheaper or lowerquality foods, eating less, altering the distribution of food among family members or even eating food previously not considered edible. Some of these solutions entail experiences of suffering. Applying to social services for food assistance or searching for food among items discarded by restaurants, bars, supermarkets or bakeries is often accompanied by feelings of shame and guilt. Impoverishment is experienced as the inability to be autonomous and to cover basic needs. In this sense, the measures adopted in Spain by the state and by regional and municipal governments are failing to address what is specific about the experience of food deprivation. Although ‘being hungry’ in Spain may not be comparable to the

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problems described by international aid organisations working in other continents, the decline in the ability to obtain food independently and on a regular basis is reflected in the frequency with which expressions such as ‘shortage’, ‘eat what you can’ and ‘skipping meals’ appear in everyday speech. As embodiments of penury, these expressions constitute evidence that these social interventions can alleviate the problem, but they are not the solution. If increasing precarisation has led to serious difficulties for many people, it has also impelled some to discover other means of meeting their need for food. One of the consequences of insecurity in everyday life is the change that has taken place in ways of thinking about food. Among people who have suffered most from the effects of the crisis, food is considered something to which access is limited and uncertain, and must be rationalised. Although to date they are minority options, some initiatives based on collaborative work constitute an alternative response to official policies. Participatory projects have the potential to become political spaces in which people not only meet their basic needs, but also transform their subjective experience of food deprivation into a point of departure for more active ways of providing daily sustenance. These initiatives illustrate two important issues: other, more participatory ways of producing and redistributing food are possible; and people can draw unexpected conclusions from experiences of uncertainty. These activities are frequently unplanned and emerge from family, neighbourhood and friendship networks with the goal of achieving not only a greater coverage of basic needs but greater personal autonomy. Community gardens or collective soup kitchens require co-responsibility and resources, and their continuity over time can be difficult to maintain without political backing. As embodiments of impoverishment and penury, these solutions frequently constitute experiences of social suffering; but they are also opportunities to question the role of government and the institutional means currently being deployed to ensure the right to food. Considering the impact of the pandemic caused by COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020, we wonder how much more fragile the living conditions of the Spanish population – and thus its food security – are going to become. All the economic indicators predict a deep new global recession, particularly in those countries where the health emergency is having its worst effects. In the European context, Spain is one of them. In April 2020, the International Monetary Fund estimated that the Spanish economy would shrink by 8% and that unemployment would reach 20% this year, representing a contraction double that experienced in 2009. Following the failure to reduce the poverty risk rate to pre-2008 levels, another new crisis is giving way to an unprecedented social emergency. Given these circumstances, the current government has approved a package of measures to help its citizens. A case in point is the minimum living income, whose impact on inequality is as yet unknown. In fact, since the state of alert was declared, requests for social assistance have tripled, most of them to cover basic needs, while in the big cities there have been twice as many requests for food aid than in the previous year. After a decade of material constraints imposed by a context of economic and political instability, Spain seems to have learned little if the only policy response to the health and financial crisis is to go back to charitable and humanitarian organisations. We still do not have official

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estimates for the percentage of people living in food poverty –with untold consequences for their health and well-being. This lack of knowledge cries out for immediate action by central and regional administrations to make food insecurity a political issue. Acknowledgements The research on which this article is based forms part a larger research project, ‘The precarisation of everyday life: food (in)security, gender and health’ (CSO201674941-P, 2016-19) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. I am grateful to the Ministry, to the team of researchers, and particularly to the women and men who have agreed to be interviewed for this study. In Memoriam Susan M. DiGiacomo, Ph.D., my colleague in the Department of Social Anthropology, Philosophy and Social Work of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, who translated the final version of this manuscript.

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Garro, L. C., & Mattingly, C. (2000). Narrative as construct and as construction: An introduction. In C. Mattingly & L. C. Garro (Eds.), Narrative and the cultural construction of illness and healing (pp. 1–49). University of California Press. Gascón, J., & Montagut, X. (2014). Alimentos desperdiciados. Icaria. Gracia-Arnaiz, M. (2017). Taking measures in times of crisis: The political economy of obesity prevention in Spain. Food Policy, 68(C), 65–76. Gracia-Arnaiz, M. (2018). La (in)seguridad alimentaria en contextos de relativa abundancia: comer en tiempos de crisis. In L. Escajedo, E. Rebato Ochoa, & A. López Basaguren (Eds.), Derecho a una alimentación adecuada y despilfarro alimentario (pp. 139–162). Tirant lo Blanch. Gracia-Arnaiz, M. (2022). The precarization of daily life in Spain: austerity, social policy and food insecurity. Appetite, 171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105906 Heflin, C., London, A. S., & Scott, E. K. (2011). Mitigating material hardship: the strategies low-income families employ to reduce the consequences of poverty. Sociological Inquiry, 81(2), 223–246. INE. (2016). Encuesta de condiciones de vida 2016. http://www.ine.es/prensa/ecv_2016.pdf Lambie-Mumford, H. (2017). Hungry Britain: The rise of food charity. Policy Press. Laparra, M., & Pérez, B. (2012). Crisi i fractura social a Europa. La Caixa Obra Social. Llanos Ortiz, J. C. (2017). El estado de la pobreza seguimiento del indicador de riesgo de pobreza y exclusión social en España 2008–2016. EAPN España. Lorey, I. (2015). State of insecurity: Government of the precarious. Verso Books. MAGRAMA. (2013). Estrategia ‘Más alimento, menos despilfarro’. Ministerio de Agricultura. Mateos, A., & Penadés, A. (2013). España: crisis y recortes. Revista de Ciencia Política, 33(1), 161–183. Medina, F. X., Aguilar, A., & Fornons, D. (2015). Alimentación, cultura y economía social. Los efectos de la crisis socioeconómica en la alimentación en Cataluña (España). Sociedade e Cultura, 18(1), 55–64. Navarro, V. (2015). Ataque a la democracia y al bienestar. Anagrama. Paugam, S. (2013). La disqualification sociale, essai sur la nouvelle pauvreté. Quadrige, P.U.F. Pérez de Armiño, K. (2018). Los bancos de alimentos en España durante la crisis: su papel y discurso en un contexto de erosión de los derechos sociales. In L. Escajedo, E. Rebato Ochoa, & A. López Basaguren (Eds.), Derecho a una alimentación adecuada y despilfarro alimentario (pp. 225–262). Tirant lo Blanch. Pfeiffer, S., Ritter, T., & Oestreicher, E. (2015). Food insecurity in German households: qualitative and quantitative data on coping, poverty consumerism and alimentary participation. Social Policy and Society, 14(3), 483–495. Poppendieck, J. (1998). Sweet charity? Emergency food and the end of entitlement. Penguin. Riches, G. (2018). Alimentos desechados para personas que padecen hambre: caridad corporativa alimentaria, solidaridad crítica y derecho a la alimentación. In L. Escajedo, E. Rebato Ochoa, & A. López Basaguren (Eds.), Derecho a una alimentación adecuada y despilfarro alimentario (pp. 61–88). Tirant lo Blanch. Síndic de Greuges de Catalunya. (2013). Informe sobre la malnutrició infantil a Catalunya. Síndic de Greuges. Valls, F., & Benzunegui, A. (2014). La pobreza en España desde una perspectiva de género. http:// www.foessa2014.es/informe/uploaded/documentos_trabajo/15102014141447_8007.pdf Warde, A. (1997). Consumption, food and taste: Culinary antinomies and commodity culture. Sage Publications.

Chapter 9

The Clash Between Charitable Food and the Human Right to Food Amaia Inza-Bartolomé

9.1

Food Aid Resources in High-Income Countries

The last two decades have witnessed a proliferation of food aid resources in wealthy countries. Initially, these were deployed as emergency measures, but with time, they have become established as a means of tackling hunger and food insecurity. The organisation of these resources has gradually been taken on by the third sector, which has demonstrated considerable dynamism and versatility, for example, in the distribution of EU-funded food aid, and in fundraising through high-visibility campaigns. In turn, private interests have seen an opportunity here for fulfilling their corporate social responsibility objectives, achieving in this way valuable publicity for their brands. Food companies can re-direct excess stock towards food aid and thus get a better return on their production. Redirecting food surpluses to food banks means benefitting from tax deductions on donations, as well as reducing storage and transport costs. Although food aid may be considered necessary as part of a response to various emergency situations, it should be seen as a charitable resource as it is not part of the redistributive public resources invested in the welfare state to combat food insecurity. In the relationship that exists between the service user and charitable food aid – while this latter no doubt reflects an expression of community solidarity – the notion of a claimable right to food is lost or distorted. Consequently, irrespective of whether food aid is appropriate to alleviating hunger, or whether it is conducive to the involvement of different parts of the private sector, it is important to consider whether, and how, the right to food is observed in

A. Inza-Bartolomé (*) Department of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Labour Relations and Social Work, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Vitoria, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_9

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this new relationship between the public sector and the third sector, and just how far public social resources should extend in order to ensure that this right is guaranteed. According to Riches’s analysis (2002, p. 649), the international increase in the number of food banks in First World societies raises important questions not only vis-à-vis food security and how to achieve it, but also concerning the direction currently being taken by welfare reform and social policies: specifically, who, and what, is benefitting from food charity (Riches & Silvasti, 2014b, p. 2). This is all the more important at a time when there appears to be little public debate regarding the challenges involved in guaranteeing the right to food, and more specifically, in the charitable relationship between third sector resources and service users. This paper will address some fundamental issues concerning, first, the emergence and consolidation of food aid resources in high-income countries and second, the relationship between food security and the right to food. We start by considering the institutionalisation of food aid via third sector organisations. This is followed by a description of the changing relationship between food aid resources and the public sector, with discussion of examples from various countries.

9.2 9.2.1

The Institutionalisation of Food Aid The Food Bank, the Main Resource for Food Aid

Food banks can be seen as “a practical and simple solution to two important moral, social and political problems: hunger and food waste” (Power, 2015, p. 555). Currently, the European Federation of Food Banks (FEBA) represents a network of 421 food banks in 24 European countries. Its primary mission is the reduction of hunger and malnutrition in Europe by fighting against food waste and seeking community support or ‘solidarity’. In 2018, 21% of the food redistributed by the food banks came from the EU Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) programmes (with a budget of 3800 million euros for the period 2014–2020), 7% from food collections, with the rest comprising withdrawn or surplus food (FEBA, 2019). In the main, food aid functions as a form of income transfer, which enables service users to devote their very limited resources to non-food needs (Tarasuk & MacLean, 1990, p. 331). In 2018, food banks helped a total of 9.3 million people in need (FEBA, 2019). Food banks also provide an outlet for the agricultural surpluses of developed countries (González Parada, 2014, p. 17) and in this way, contribute to alleviating the environmental damage represented by the destruction of food surpluses (Pérez de Armiño, 2014, p. 145). The food industry that supplies the food banks, and the companies that use their surpluses to make donations, can in this way benefit from tax deductions, reduce their storage and transport costs and boost their corporate social responsibility profile (Caraher & Cavicchi, 2014).

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Food banks may also be spaces of care in which positive and progressive values such as hospitality, generosity and solidarity can be exercised and developed (Cloke et al., 2016). The spaces of solidarity associated with food banks can promote community cohesion and camaraderie, and set aside the inequality and stigma traditionally associated with food aid (Gómez Garrido et al., 2018). They may also strengthen informal networks of mutual aid among minority groups (Mares, 2013).

9.2.2

Third Sector Responsibility for Food Aid in a Welfare State in Decline

Resources such as food banks seem now to have taken root and “appear to persist indefinitely” (Ronson & Caraher, 2016, p. 79) independently of the economic circumstances of the society in which they function. It is important here to highlight the relationship between these organisations and changes in the nature and functioning of the welfare state. The institutionalisation and corporatisation of charitable food banks in high-income countries is ongoing; they are now seen as a key response to food poverty and inequality, as secondary extensions of weakened social security networks (Riches, 2002, p. 648). The trend towards the shrinking of the state has thus diverted collective and public responsibility for food poverty from the state to private charity (Riches & Silvasti, 2014b, p. 9). For Lambie-Mumford and Green (2017) too, food banks are an example of the growing importance of ‘charity’ in the context of an increasingly diminished welfare state. This culture of charity may help alleviate the suffering derived from poverty, but in so doing, it potentially normalises destitution and legitimises personal generosity as a response to social and economic displacement (Poppendieck, 1999). Intervention by charities in richer countries is now aimed not only at the homeless or refugees, i.e. those in extreme need, but, more and more frequently, at people with jobs and homes who face sudden or on-going social and economic instability (Dowler & O’Connor, 2012, p. 48). The charitable food movement also embodies neoliberal and commercial processes that in fact “bring about the food insecurity to which they are a response” (Lambie-Mumford, 2017, p. 5). Food banks act as a means of offsetting the impact of potentially problematic and punitive welfare reforms, ensuring that those who are dependent on dwindling social aid will be fed (Ronson & Caraher, 2016, p. 86); they are sad testament to the incapacity of public authorities to fulfil the right to food (De Schutter, 2013). The social construction of hunger as a question of charity and privatised welfare has also led to the depoliticisation and denial of domestic hunger by governments, despite its increasing prevalence (Riches & Silvasti, 2014b, pp. 3–4). This depoliticisation draws public debate and media attention away from government responsibilities and the human right to food (Silvasti & Riches, 2014, p. 192).

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There has also been a legitimisation of hunger as a matter for charity via discourses on the responsibility and participation of the community; the ‘problem’ in this view is construed as the lack of donations, which makes the ‘community’ responsible for the ‘solution’ (Carson, 2013/14, p. 6). The use by public administrations and the media of the term ‘solidarity’ in this context is highly misleading, because it appears to seek individual and charitable altruism, ignoring the fact that public authorities have a mandate to provide services to citizens and should neither delegate this obligation nor seek stakeholders for its fulfilment (Mata & Pallarés, 2014, p. 15). In order to understand the institutionalisation and spread of food banks, Ronson and Caraher’s (2016, p. 81) explanation of the characteristics that ensure the longevity of these institutions is particularly useful. They use Seibel’s (1989) expression “successful failures” to describe organisations that proliferate indefinitely without anybody pointing out that they may no longer fulfil the purpose for which they were conceived. Such organisations require infinite resources in order to satisfy endless demand. Seibel also refers to what he calls the “mellow weakness” of these organisations, which operate to the best of their ability in difficult conditions, but whose voluntary or religious nature renders criticism of them socially unacceptable. In these conditions, the main challenge is finding the resources in order to operate, for example, through fundraising. The mellow weakness of the voluntary sector means that, on the one hand, it can address problems that cannot be resolved politically, but, on the other, this then diverts attention from the causes underlying the original problem and its symptoms. In other words, despite failing to achieve food security for the population, food banks, run in the main by volunteers, end up appearing ‘necessary’ as they are presented as a socially and politically legitimate resource that can alleviate hunger for those in need.

9.3

The Relationship Between Food Aid Resources and the Public Sector

Third sector organisations are thus now occupying what was public sector space, contributing in the process to reconfiguring civil society in a way that is entirely compatible with the dismantling of the welfare state. The fact that political power is relegated to a secondary position in the delivery of food aid resources means that “the notion of right is compromised, due to the lack of institutionality” (González Parada, 2014, p. 21, pp. 32–3). This corresponds to the disappearance of “a means of holding public administrations accountable vis-à-vis their obligations in terms of satisfying the basic needs of the population as a whole” (SiiS, 2009). This shrinking of the state, relative to the third sector, is seen in the privatisation of social services that once were universal. This transfer from public to private provision involves the loss of standardised claims procedures and assigns to third sector organisations the role of judge and jury with regard to who receives, or does not receive, specific aid, and for how long etc. (Mata & Pallarés, 2014).

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In principle, then, the parallel network generated by charitable food aid has resulted in the lack of accountability of public institutions in relation to poverty; yet, somehow, this has not been challenged. Charitable networks may provide, for example, “welfare-type [our italics] subsidies to combat malnutrition”, bearing in mind that a significant proportion of the food distributed by food banks comes from social allocations provided for in the European Union budget (Gascón & Montagut, 2015, p. 49). A key contributor has been the European Aid Fund for the Most Disadvantaged (EAFMD). Although not intended as a substitute for political policies applied by member states to combat poverty and social exclusion, the EAFMD, according to Nogués and Cabrera (2017, p. 13) “has contributed towards transferring public responsibility to private organisations”. This reconfiguration of the roles played by the public sector and the third sector has led to the service user becoming framed within a charitable relationship. This represents a significant step towards denying the right to food. As Riches (1999, p. 207) has pointed out: “governments will frequently refer welfare claimants to charitable food banks, clearly indicating that international commitments to the human right to food are only worth the paper they are written on.” Some authors thus conclude that there is a real need to “rebalance the interaction between charity initiatives and the aid provided by the State through the welfare system” (Galli et al., 2016). Coinciding with the withdrawal of the state, a ‘shadow state’ has thus emerged. In this way, the third sector can be seen as facilitating the strategy of neoliberal structural adjustment to commodify public goods and services. This in turn affects the notion that citizens should be included in decision-making, and thus, the health of civil society, the development of social capital and the improvement of social cohesion (Evans & Shields, 2000). Mitchell (2001) explains how voluntary organisations play a fundamental role in the achievement of neoliberal objectives. The real institutional insertion of neoliberalism as an extensive system is closely linked to the sociocultural norms and assumptions that are taken for granted in a particular society. In order to understand how and why neoliberal rhetoric and politics succeed, we need to examine hegemonic formation at the micro-level, the level at which cultural expectations and conceptions are in a constant state of flux. The general effect produced by the growth of ‘shadow state’ voluntary organisations is that they help to consolidate the economic policies of neoliberalism in a recurring hegemonic process, by means of the social and cultural reworking that affects the hegemonic norms of society and alters state-society relations at a fundamental level. Building on Mitchell’s insights, it can be argued that the displacement of the state -in particular, in the relinquishing of responsibilities in relation to food safety- consolidates the status of food banks as a fundamental instrument in the construction of the shadow state.

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Food Safety, the Right to Food, Health and Stigma

According to Mechlem (2004), the right to food is based on the pre-existing commitment to the value of human dignity, and places people and their rights at the centre of politics, enabling them to hold governments accountable and seek reparation in the event of the violation of these rights. This is not based on vague and changing political objectives which might be subject to periodical redefinition, but on specific existing obligations that are part of a broader set of development approaches, based on the rights to which states have made a commitment by virtue of human rights legislation. The ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights (FAO-ACNUDH, 2010) which enshrines the nature of the legal obligations of member states vis-à-vis the right to food, means that the right to food should be understood as a legal obligation, not as a choice based on benevolence (Riches & Silvasti, 2014b, p. 14), since any ratifying country is obliged to act in order to guarantee food security in accordance with international law. It is also necessary, according to Dowler and O’Connor (2012, p. 44), “to recognise the clear interdependence between the right to food and the right to health”. The achievement of food security implies respect for the right to food. The generic definition of food security states that it is achieved when “all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO, 1996). This definition needs to be broadened for high-income countries, as the social dimension is all important. According to Anderson’s definition of food security (1990, p. 1560), it is socially acceptable access to food which is key, for the reasons we outline below. Food insecurity exists whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire acceptable food in socially acceptable ways, is limited or uncertain. This implies that in high-income countries, food security should involve compliance with both social norms and those relating to health and nutrition. In other words, people need sufficient money to buy the food they wish to eat, without their resources being absorbed by other spending needs; they thus need to be able to access adequate food at affordable prices (Dowler & O’Connor, 2012, p. 45). Food charity, on the other hand, is not generally designed to meet different people’s dietary and nutritional requirements. Many of those who receive food aid have special dietary needs because of allergies, obesity, illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases or AIDS; not being able to choose one’s own food can lead to dependence on food of low nutritional value that may be harmful (Silvasti & Riches, 2014, p. 197). Research (Otero, 2015) has highlighted how meeting food needs by means of a food charity system can have a negative impact on the diet and health of recipient households.

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Among the seven fundamental problems associated with food aid – Poppendieck’s (1999) “seven deadly ‘ins’”
we can highlight insufficiency, in that the food available through donations is frequently not enough; inadequacy, as the food available at food banks often does not correspond to users’ preferences or needs in terms of religious restrictions or health requirements; and nutritional inadequacy, since much of the food provided by food banks consists of non-perishable products, and thus does not comply with nutritional recommendations for fresh food. Furthermore, people lose their inherent freedom of choice and human dignity, because they have to accept charitable food aid irrespective of their needs and preferences (Riches & Silvasti, 2014b, p. 9). Institutionalised dependence on charity can also have psycho-social consequences, as dependence exacerbates social stigma and a sense of impotence associated with poverty (Tarasuk & MacLean, 1990, p. 32). Resorting to food banks often provokes feelings of humiliation (Poppendieck, 1999). They reproduce an assistentialist logic that favours disempowerment and the loss of personal autonomy, and risks reinforcing chronic impoverishment and social exclusion (Gascón & Montagut, 2015, p. 74). Other research (Van der Horst et al., 2014; Simmet et al., 2018) has stressed the sense of shame associated with requiring food aid. Douglas et al. (2015) found that using food banks generates a range of feelings such as gratitude, despair and impotence while Garthwaite (2016) highlighted users’ sense of fear and stigma. That using charitable food banks is socially stigmatised is clear evidence that this is not a normal channel of food distribution; it is, in effect, a socially unacceptable way of obtaining food (Riches, 2002, p. 650).

9.5

Experiences in Different Countries

Reviewing the experience of various countries with regard to food aid, different relationships between food aid resources and public institutions emerge. In his book First World Hunger: Food Security and Welfare Politics, Graham Riches (1997) analysed the situation in a number of countries with a liberal welfarist tradition (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USA). He concluded that, given these countries’ capacity to export food and thus their basic food security, hunger was should be seen as a question of distributive justice and human rights; in other words, a political issue. Seventeen years later, based on an analysis of twelve wealthy countries, Riches and Silvasti (2014a) found that domestic food insecurity in rich societies had increased, in particular since the economic recession of 2007–2009, and that food charity was continuing to expand. Governments were continuing to look the other way, ignoring the obligations required by international law to respect the human right to adequate food. The case of Canada highlights “the potential for food banks to fill gaps created by inadequate social programs” (Tarasuk et al., 2014, p. 1406). In such a food secure country as Canada, hunger is clearly not a problem of food supply; rather, it arises

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when limited financial resources make it impossible to acquire adequate and nutritional food in the normal fashion. It is thus a problem of economic and social policy, income distribution and public health (Riches & Tarasuk, 2014, pp. 55–6). In the Canadian case, the development of food banks has closely paralleled the dismantling of the welfare state. Today, their role as the sole response to the problems of hunger and food insecurity arising as a consequence of inadequate social protection is wellestablished and universally accepted, and the current direction being taken by social policies does not suggest that the original problems are going to be resolved (Tarasuk et al., 2014). According to the Special Rapporteur’s 2012 report on the right to food in Canada, it is the failure of social services to meet the needs of hunger-affected households that has resulted in the proliferation of charity-based food aid. The main reason why people in Canada suffer from hunger is the cost of housing; social welfare provision thus needs to ensure that the poorest families do not find themselves having to go without food in order to pay for accommodation (De Schutter, 2013). Commenting further on the Canadian context, Riches (2002, p. 648) concludes that the increase in the number of food banks is concrete evidence of both the collapse of the social safety net and the commodification of social assistance. Food banks have become key institutions in a residual welfare state. Governments rely on them as charitable partners providing last-resort food programmes. This enables the state to disregard its obligation to protect the powerless and vulnerable, thus promoting the view that food poverty is not a fundamental question of public policy, and allowing the corporate food industry to be seen as a responsible community partner. In their study of food aid in Canada over the past thirty years, Riches and Tarasuk (2014, p. 56) state that food aid is “integrated into mainstream community services and public institutions, the provision of food assistance remains an act of charity, with no accountability for the adequacy or accessibility of the food or nutrition supports provided.” In the United Kingdom, the expansion of the food banks run by the Trussell Trust has been unprecedented. The trust established its first food bank in 2000, before expanding throughout the country. There were 20 such food banks in 2009, rising to 251 by 2013–14 (Lambie-Mumford, 2013; Loopstra et al., 2015). The UK currently has thousands of food banks. They have been absorbed into the prevailing political and cultural discourse (Lambie-Mumford, 2017, p. IX) with their visible presence becoming the symbol of social injustice and the failure of welfare, replacing the previous iconographic position occupied by homelessness (Cloke et al., 2016). It has been argued that social policy cleared the way for welfare banks through the processes of welfare restructuring (Lambie-Mumford, 2013). Food banks in the UK are yet another example of the growing importance of charity in an increasingly reduced welfare state. Since 2010, the UK has been dominated by austerity measures and welfare reforms which have led to a particular interpretation of poverty and its solution (Lambie-Mumford & Green, 2017). The UK government’s resistance to acknowledging the role of structural issues in the growth of household food insecurity is a clear dereliction of their duty to implement the human right to food (Dowler, 2014, p. 175)

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In Finland, national food aid is not coordinated by any central charitable organisations. Nevertheless, charity-based food aid resources have proliferated since 1990. Although food aid was initially regarded as a short-term response to the consequences of the recession, these resources have gradually grown in somewhat chaotic fashion, based on the efforts of hundreds of groups distributing food throughout the country (Salonen et al., 2018, p. 2). Acceptance of the fact that charitable food aid is an acceptable approach to combatting poverty separates Finland from the Nordic welfare model based on universalism, where the state assumes responsibility for people in need of protection. The use of charitable aid reflects a lack of willingness to combat social inequality, with many people in a vulnerable situation left in the hands of charitable organisations and the third sector (Silvasti & Karjalainen, 2014, p. 84–5). As Salonen and his colleagues point out (2018, p. 2), in theory, there are no explicit connections between food aid and public social policy. However, in practice, food aid enjoys public support, albeit partially and indirectly, despite the fact that permitting situations where people have to depend on charitable food aid is not only a violation of the right to food, but also of the Finnish Constitution (Silvasti & Karjalainen, 2014, p. 85). In Spain, after the 2008 financial crisis, the need to reduce the public deficit meant that traditional areas of welfare protection came under intense pressure due to insufficient financial resources (Guillén et al., 2016). Austerity policies have led to an increase in inequality, greater relative and absolute poverty, lower wages and higher unemployment (Muñoz de Bustillo & Antón, 2015). In this context, relying on private welfare services was found to be a feasible solution (Laparra & Pérez Eransus, 2012), to the detriment of public services. The Spanish welfare state is framed within the Mediterranean family-based model, with strong interactions between family, public institutions, and civil society (Moreno, 2012). If basic needs are not covered by the welfare system, people who cannot afford to cover them by themselves are forced to resort to family or private social organisations for help. In the Spanish case, in a context where welfare policies and the state’s commitment to guaranteeing the human right to food and other socio-economic rights are being limited, food banks are making a significant contribution (Pérez de Armiño, 2014, pp. 144–5). FEAD food aid is distributed through 56 food banks and by the Red Cross, which channels it through thousands of collaborating organisations. The state co-finances the programme, assuming 15% of its cost. Almost half the total economic resources obtained by the Federación Española de Bancos de Alimentos (FESBAL) for 2017 are public sector subsidies (FESBAL, 2017). Instead of funds for social inclusion assistance being provided through state institutions, organisations participating in the delivery of EU food aid are required to administer social assistance for service users as an additional service. Food distribution is organised at national level, but the specifications of social assistance and the support public authorities must provide have been left in the hands of each autonomous community (Escajedo San-Epifanio & Inza-Bartolomé, 2018).

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Conclusions

Over recent decades, food aid resources have been used periodically in various contexts to alleviate hunger and malnutrition for people in vulnerable situations. Beyond these specific moments, however, they have now taken root and expanded exponentially. Behind their palliative role lies the interest of companies for whom they represent a means of capitalising excess stock and building brand profitability. This current response to food insecurity reveals starkly the decline of the welfare state since the beginning of the twenty-first century; in particular, those resources related to the right to food. The reconfiguration of the role of social services, and the narrowing of their sphere of action, marks a shift towards a residual welfare state. Efforts to guarantee food security are thus left in the hands of the third sector. There is plenty of evidence now highlighting the harmful nature of the charitable relationship implied in the functioning of resources such as food banks; not only can they not fully guarantee food security, they also often preclude dignified access to food. The “mellow weakness” effect of these resources – based on the fact that volunteers will always step in to do what they can when faced with people in need
contributes to hiding the adverse effects of charity and contributes to stifling any debate over the right to food. As the public sector has backed away from its role in guaranteeing respect for the right to food, its relationship with the third sector has been reconfigured. The central paradox of this whole dynamic is that a network of collaboration has now developed whereby the third sector functions with direct or indirect public support. These risks undermining the notion of public solidarity, which can no longer be exercised in a legitimate and democratic manner though public institutions that ensure redistribution. The fact that service users now benefit from ‘charity’ further stigmatises poverty and exclusion, and denies them the right to demand food appropriate to their own particular dietary needs. The backdrop to this entire dynamic is “what we mean by solidarity with the poor and why the human right to adequate food matters to us all” (Riches, 2018, p. 2).

References Anderson, S. (1990). Core indicators of nutritional state for difficult to sample populations. Journal of Nutrition, 120, 1559–1660. Caraher, M., & Cavicchi, A. (2014). Old crises on new plates or old plates for a new crises? Food banks and food insecurity. British Food Journal, 116, 9. Carson, E. A. (2013/14). Canadian food banks and the depoliticization of food insecurity at the individual and community levels Canadian Review of Social Policy, 70, 7–21. Cloke, P., May, J., & Williams, A. (2016). The geographies of food banks in the meantime. Progress in Human Geography, 41(6), 1–24. De Schutter, O. (2013). Freedom from hunger: Realising the right to food in the UK. A lecture by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food. Social policy, the media, and misrepresentation. Routledge.

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Douglas, F., Sapko, J., Kiezebrink, K., & Kyle, J. (2015). Resourcefulness, desperation, shame, gratitude and powerlessness: Common themes emerging from a study of Food Bank use in Northeast Scotland. AIMS Public Health, 2(3), 297–317. Dowler, E. A. (2014). Food banks and food justice in austerity Britain. In G. Riches & T. Silvasti (Eds.), First world hunger revisited. Food charity or the right to food? (pp. 160–175). Palgrave Macmillan. Dowler, E. A., & O’Connor, D. (2012). Rights-based approaches to addressing food poverty and food insecurity in Ireland and UK. Social Science & Medicine, 74, 44–51. Escajedo San-Epifanio, L., & Inza-Bartolomé, A. (2018). EU welfare States, food poverty and current food waste policy: Reproducing old, inefficient models? In S. Springer & H. Grimm (Eds.), Professionals in food chains (pp. 205–210). Wageningen Academic Publishers. Evans, B. M., Shields, J. (2000). Neoliberal restructuring and the third sector: Reshaping governance, civil society and local relations, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Ryerson University Working Paper Series, 13 http://www.ryerson.ca/~cvss/WP13.pdf. Accessed on 13 May 2016. FAO. (1996). Rome declaration on world food security. FAO. http://www.fao.org/3/w3613e/w3 613e00.htm FAO-United Nations. (2010). The right to adequate food (Human rights Factsheet 34). FAO-United Nations. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet34en.pdf#:~:text¼The%20 right%20to%20adequate%20food%20is%20realized%20when,procurement.%20Committee% 20on%20Economic%2C%20Social%20and%20Cultural%20Rights4 FEBA. (2019). https://www.eurofoodbank.org/ FESBAL. (2017). Memoria 2017. FESBAL. Galli, F., Hebinck, A., Arcuri, S., Brunori, G., Carroll, B., O’Connor, D., Oostindië, H. A. (2016). The food poverty challenge: Comparing food assistance across EU countries. A transformative social innovation perspective. In Proceedings of SIDEA 2016, San Michele. https://www. researchgate.net/publication/306414405_The_food_poverty_challenge_comparing_food_assis tance_across_EU_countries_A_Transformative_Social_Innovation_perspective Garthwaite, K. (2016). Stigma, shame and ‘people like us’: an ethnographic study of foodbank use in the UK. Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 24(3), 277–289. Gascón, J., & Montagut, X. (2015). Food Banks ¿Combatir el hambre con las sobras? IcariaAsaco. Gómez Garrido, M., Carbonero, M. A., & Viladrich, A. (2018). The role of grassroots food banks in building political solidarity with vulnerable people. European Societies, 1–21. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14616696.2018.1518537 González Parada, J. R. (dir.). (2014). Emergencia alimentaria. Grecia, Portugal, España. Icaria/ Antrazyt. Guillén, A. M., González-Begega, S., & Luque, D. (2016). Austeridad y ajustes sociales en el sur de Europa. La fragmentación del modelo de bienestar mediterráneo. Revista Española de Sociología (RES), 25, 261–272. Lambie-Mumford, H. (2013). Every town should have one: Emergency food banking in the UK. Journal of Social Policy, 42(1), 73–89. Lambie-Mumford, H. (2017). Hungry Britain. The rise of food charity. Policy Press. Lambie-Mumford, H., & Green, M. A. (2017). Austerity, welfare reform and the rising use of food banks by children in England and Wales. Area, 49(3), 273–279. Laparra, M., Pérez Eransus, B. (coords.) (2012). Crisis y fractura social en Europa. Causas y efectos en España (Colección Estudios Sociales, 35). Obra Social La Caixa. Loopstra, R., Reeves, A., Taylor-Robinson, D., Barr, B., McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2015). Austerity, sanctions, and the rise of food banks in the UK. British Medical Journal, 350, h1775. Mares, T. (2013). Here we have the food bank: Latino/a immigration and the contradictions of emergency food. Food and Foodways, 21, 1–21. Mata, A., & Pallarés, J. (2014). Del bienestar a la caridad. ¿Un viaje sin retorno? Aposta. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 62, 1–23.

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Chapter 10

The Corporatization of Food Charity in Canada: Implications for Domestic Hunger, Poverty Reduction, and Public Policy Graham Riches

10.1

Evolution of Food Banks: The Canadian Experience

Canada’s first charitable food bank was established in 1981 in Edmonton, Alberta. It was a community response to the deep economic recession at that time, which contributed to the mushrooming of this and other food banks across the country. Ironically, five years earlier the Federal Government had ratified the right to food as a core element of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN, 1966). Under international law, governments are recognized as the ‘primary duty bearers’ for ensuring that states meet their obligations to realize food security for all. The right to food is not about charity and being fed but the right to feed oneself and one’s family with choice and dignity (Ziegler et al., 2011) – in other words, having sufficient income (from wages or benefits) to shop for food like everyone else. Yet, today, with over four million Canadians experiencing food insecurity (Tarasuk et al., 2012), food charity under the leadership of Food Banks Canada (FBC) is publicly recognized as the country’s primary response to widespread domestic hunger. More than 550 food banks within FBC’s ten affiliated provincial associations, along with 3800 participating agencies (including unaffiliated food banks and meal programs) are feeding over 850,000 individuals per month, an increase of 26% since the Great Recession of 2008 (FBC, 2015). Canadians have been led to believe that community compassion expressed through charitable food handouts is the most effective way to feed our hungry

This chapter was originally published in Jamie Brownlee, Chris Hurl and Kevin Walby, eds., Corporatizing Canada: Making Business out of Public Service (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2018), and is reproduced here by permission of the publisher.

G. Riches (*) Emeritus Professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_10

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poor and homeless. While millennials were raised with food banks, only baby boomers in the second decade of the twenty-first century will remember a time before food banking became entrenched, indeed culturally embedded, as the customary response to food poverty. This stands in stark contrast to the post-WWII sentiment that we should reject the breadlines and soup kitchens of the 1930s in favour of a welfare state committed to full employment, income security, and a publicly funded social safety net (Guest, 1986).

10.2

Corporate Food Charity and Public Policy

Community service agencies and faith-based charities such as the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul have long provided inspiration for charitable food banking. Less acknowledged is that hunger in Canada has been socially constructed as a matter for corporate philanthropy, rather than a political and human rights issue necessitating the attention of governments. Although charitable food banking may be on the public’s radar today, its national organization and management is largely invisible and seldom addressed. Scant attention is paid to the food bank industry’s increasing reliance on ‘Big Food’ for feeding hungry people. The corporatization of food charity in this chapter refers to the process by which the management of food banking, including the funding and supply of surplus or wasted food, has become controlled by, and principally dependent upon, the corporate sector. This process is largely mediated through the narrative of corporate social responsibility, and it reflects the increasing control and influence (direct and indirect, intended and unintended) of corporations in reshaping Canada’s social welfare policy and social safety net. The rise of corporate food banking has several important implications for addressing food insecurity and poverty reduction. These include the public perception that hunger is primarily a matter for food charity, which allows governments to look the other way. From this perspective, the public is encouraged to accept the corporate claim that “food banks are the link between food waste and hunger,” implying that food charity is the best way to alleviate both (Riches, 2018). At the same time, corporate-managed charitable food assistance is replacing income assistance as the primary strategy for addressing poverty and domestic hunger. It has also led to the establishment of a secondary tier of the welfare system and the creation of a parallel ‘charity economy’ (Kessl, 2016). When governments rely on food charity and refer welfare claimants to food banks, they evade their public obligations to ensure the adequacy of minimum wage policies and welfare benefits. Questions of social values also arise regarding the altruistic nature and ethics of providing wasted food (surplus to the needs of the food industry) to feed hungry people (surplus to the requirements of the labour market). Meanwhile, little attention is paid to increasing reliance on food transfers/food assistance as opposed to cash transfers/income assistance for addressing poverty reduction.

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Is it the government, the private sector, or civil society that is in charge of food security in Canada? What is the role of public policy, informed by the right to food, in addressing food insecurity? (UN, 1966). Who wins and who loses from the corporate capture of food charity and welfare policy through the redistribution of wasted and surplus food to hungry people? It is important to consider how this state of affairs has come about and who is actually in charge of Canada’s social safety net. Tracing the historical development and corporatization of Canada’s food bank movement provides some critical insights.

10.3

Origins and Institutionalization of Canada’s Food Bank Movement

Charitable food banks emerged in Canada as a direct response to the deep recession and high unemployment of the early 1980s. It was the inadequacy of federal unemployment insurance and provincial social assistance benefits that sparked their arrival on the welfare scene. Food banking models in Canada were imported from the United States, where the movement had been active since the 1967 establishment of the St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, Arizona. St. Mary’s soon branched out, and by 1979 Second Harvest was formed. Second Harvest acted as a broker for sixty-one regional food banks forming the backbone of the US food charity system. The organization was re-branded in 2008 as Feeding America, the country’s leading domestic anti-hunger organization, which in 2014 was feeding 46 million people (Feeding America, 2015). Those who established the first Canadian food banks in Alberta (1981), British Columbia (1982), and Saskatchewan (1983) had previously worked with US food banks. They were also advised by prominent US practitioners such as Bob McCarty, first director of Second Harvest, and John van Hengel, co-creator of St. Mary’s Food Bank. The first national conference of Canadian food banks took place in 1985 (Riches, 1986). One of the purposes of the conference was to create a national association of food banks in Canada. In 1987, the Canadian Association of Food Banks (CAFB) was formed. Local community and faith-based charities buttressed by provincial and national institutionalization informed food banking’s early development. The ‘globalization’ of charitable food banking was not far behind. In 2006, the national food bank associations of Canada, Mexico, and the US founded the Global Foodbanking Network, based in Chicago (GFN, 2020). The same year, the GFN’s Food Bank Leadership Institute (GFN, n.d.) was established in Houston, Texas, operating as a global forum for training food bank social entrepreneurs from around the world. In 2008, the CAFB was restructured and rebranded as Food Banks Canada (FBC). Not all Canadian food banks are affiliated with Food Banks Canada. Indeed, community food programs have flourished at the local level where there has been: a proliferation of charitable meal programs, including initiatives for children, as well as a myriad of meal and snack programs for homeless and impoverished youth and adults. This

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work has been taken on by a wide variety of community organizations including multiservice agencies, faith groups and even health centres. (Riches & Tarasuk, 2014, p. 46)

Likewise, local community food organizations, such as meal programs, community gardens, collective kitchens, and farmer’s markets, have blossomed. However, a generation on from the founding of Canada’s first food bank, the food industry along with professional sports organizations, the music industry, and the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) have become persuasive public promoters of food charity. Corporate Canada exerts increasing control and influence in terms of managerial expertise, capacity building, and funding, and by shaping public attitudes toward food banking.

10.4

The Corporatization of Charitable Food Banking in Canada

10.4.1 National Restructuring, Management, and Funding When the CAFB was rebranded as FBC in 2008 (“renewing our brand” was the term used in that year’s annual report), the influence of corporate Canada became clear. Symbolic of this development during the transition period, the chair of the CAFB/ FBC board was a staff member of the Conference Board of Canada, one of the nation’s leading business-oriented think tanks (FBC, 2008). The former CAFB board, comprised mainly of food bank directors from across the country, was disbanded and a two-tier management structure was introduced: a board of directors comprising fifteen members largely drawn from the world of business, and a separate advisory Members Council (renamed Network Council in 2014). Currently, two provincial food bank executives from the Network Council serve on the FBC board of directors. Since 2008, representatives of Big Food transnationals, such as McCains, Kraft, Loblaw, and Pepsico Foods Ltd Canada, as well as Farm Credit Canada and national transportation companies, such as Purolator, Canadian Pacific, and Canadian National, have served on the board. They provide corporate management skills, financial expertise, and direct aid in cash and kind to ensure the distribution of food across the country through the National Food Sharing System (Riches, 2018). Today, more than 100 large and medium-sized corporations, ranked at different levels of partnership according to the value of their donations, contribute a mix of financial support, gifts in kind, food, and consumer products. Some also partner in food drive campaigns. In addition to the companies represented on the board, these partners include transnational food and beverage conglomerates, such as Campbells, Cargill, ConAgra Food Canada, French’s, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Mondolez, Nestlé Canada, Ocean Spray, Procter & Gamble, Quaker, 7-Eleven, Unilever, and Walmart. Between 2007–08 and 2015–16, FBC’s corporate donations more than

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doubled from just under $1 million to over $2.6 million, and by 2016 the value of donated food products stood at over $30 million (FBC, 2008). It is worth noting that Canada’s corporate model of food banking imitates but is out-classed by the system south of the border. Feeding America, the third largest US charity, co-ordinates a network of 200 food banks working with 60,000 participating food programs. In 2014, it fed 46 million people, or roughly one in seven Americans. Its twenty-two-member board of directors includes Big Food representatives from Con Agra, Kroger, Mondolez, Mars, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, and Walmart. Overall, its $2.1 billion budget in 2014–15 depended on food and funding donations from 117 corporate partners and 139 celebrity supporters (Feeding America, 2014).

10.4.2 Professional Sports and the Music Industry Food charity’s public legitimacy is not just derived from the corporate social responsibility of Canada’s food, finance, and transportation sectors. Professional sports and the music industry have also been active promoters. Each year during the CFL football season, fans are encouraged to donate food at Purolator’s ‘Tackle Hunger’ food bank drives during CTV televised games. Indeed, FBC’s treasurer during the restructuring period was a representative of Purolator Courier Ltd (FBC, 2008, n.d.). Likewise, NHL and WHL teams support food bank drives, make financial donations, host dinners for the poor, and organize gift programs for needy children, especially at Christmas time. The Victoria-based Times Colonist reported that the months-long NHL lockout in 2012 was not just frustrating for hockey fans – it certainly was, I remember it well – but also “penalized some food banks” as “food drives usually conducted during the holiday seasons by teams and sports bars” were put on hold (Wyatt & Chiasson, 2012). Particularly affected were food banks in Montreal and Ottawa. The Toronto Maple Leafs did not respond to a request for comment, but in 2016 the Lady Jays, working on behalf of the MLB Toronto Blue Jays, organized their thirty-second successful annual food bank drive. Additionally, the music industry publicly supports charities of all kinds and plays an important role in promoting food charity. One only has to conduct a quick Google search to uncover the names of rock stars and bands, such as David Myles, Justin Bieber, the Elastic Band, Rush, The Tragically Hip, BareNaked Ladies, Sarah McLachlan, and Neil Young, who have been associated over the years with food bank appeals and donated their concert or album proceeds to food charities (CBC, 2010). Celebrity appeals to community compassion resonate with music lovers, young and old. Despite good intentions, however, both professional sports and the music industry feed into the corporatization of food charity by further depoliticizing hunger and diverting the public gaze from its root causes.

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10.4.3 The Media and the CBC While the media warrants attention in terms of its support for philanthropic causes, the CBC, as Canada’s nationally funded public broadcaster, demands special scrutiny. It plays a significant role in the corporate construction of hunger as a matter for charity. For thirty years, the CBC’s annual Christmas fundraising efforts on behalf of food banks have perpetuated the myth of food charity as the primary and appropriate response to domestic hunger. The CBC’s national mandate enjoins it to “inform, enlighten and entertain” and to engage in “news, content and commentary.” Fundraising for this or that external charity, however worthy, is not mentioned. Certainly, the CBC reports from time to time on food banking and the social issues that necessitate them. However, when it offers prizes to attract donations to feed hungry Canadians, one has to wonder whether the CBC regards itself as a fullyfledged food bank partner. The donation values of the prizes offered at the 2015 Vancouver CBC Open House & Food Bank Day ranged from $225 to $3000. The twenty-four prizes included “Essential Victoria: Tea at The Empress and Treasures at the Royal BC Museum”; “Winter Storm or Whale Watching Season Getaway for Two at the Wickaninnish Inn”; “Whistler Dream Getaway; Private Gourmet Feast for Eight”; and “Backcountry Snowcats Adventure for Two” (CBC BC, 2015). Promoting such prizes raises awkward ethical questions not only for the winning donors but also for the CBC’s interpretation of its own corporate social responsibility. Outrageously, the basic welfare rate in British Columbia was frozen for ten years since 2007. For single employable people dependent on social assistance, $2.57 per day is what remains from the welfare cheque after non-food expenditures have been deducted (Raise the Rates, 2016). While the CBC’s 2015 BC food bank drive raised $630,000 – a laudable sum – this amounts to only $6 per person when account is taken of the more than 100,000 food bank users across the province (FBC, 2015). In the same year, 485,500 British Columbians experienced some level of food insecurity, including 91,100 people some of whom may go days without being able to put food on the table (Li et al., 2016). There is no doubt a moral imperative to feed hungry people. But there is no evidence that such expressions of corporate social responsibility have resulted in adequate incomes or reduced poverty. Moreover, why is the largely publicly funded CBC using taxpayer dollars to promote food charity and corporate welfare? Why not also support campaigns for a living wage, adequate income security, affordable social housing and childcare, enhanced mental health services, together with an integrated national food policy? Such activism would, of course, be construed as political advocacy, but so too is fundraising for food charity, which helps to frame hunger and poverty as outside the purview of formal politics and human rights requirements. When the CBC functions as an institutionalized part of the food bank system, it weakens its presumed journalistic role of independent and unbiased reporting.

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157

The Consequences of Corporatization for Poverty Reduction and Public Policy

With the erosion of Canada’s welfare state over the past thirty years, it is not surprising that a powerful combination of business, financial, and cultural forces have created a parallel system of corporately managed food banking that has propped up Canada’s battered social safety net. Indeed, by the late 1980s, research had already shown that food banks occupied a second tier of the welfare system (Gandy & Greschner, 1989). Little wonder that food banks are now perceived as a practical community response to hunger, and governments at all levels lack any appetite for public intervention. Why bother when corporate Canada has stepped up to the hunger and food bank plate? Interestingly, in 2010, the Conference Board of Canada established an organization called the Centre for Food in Canada, which, in 2014, released its Canadian Food Strategy. Its approach to addressing household food insecurity included tax credits and incentives for food donations (Bloom, 2014). Who has benefited from the corporate embrace of food charity? And from the perspective of the right to food, what have been the consequences, intended and unintended, for poverty reduction and public policy in Canada?

10.5.1 Public Perceptions: Governments Looking the Other Way Perceptions are everything in politics. Food banking’s socially constructed appeal feeds the public perception that hunger is primarily a matter for charity (Riches, 2011). Certainly, the corporatization of charity – with its assumption of managerial effectiveness and efficiency – has done much to entrench this view. Yet, as Bread for the World (n.d.), the Christian anti-hunger organization, has calculated in the case of the US: amongst meals based on food assistance, only one in 24 is derived from private giving; the other 23 come from government sources. That is, $4.1 billion worth of food was distributed through charities in 2011, while USDA spent $96.9 billion on food and benefits. (Poppendieck, 2014, p. 18)

Comparative data is lacking in Canada, but it is likely that a similar discrepancy exists north of the border when comparing financial expenditures on charitable food banks and meal programs with those on federal employment insurance and provincial social assistance. Yet, current employment insurance and social assistance programs remain insufficient. It is the engrained public perception of corporate food charity’s legitimacy and effectiveness that enables governments to download their obligations to the corporate sector and the community, while deflecting political attention from the inadequacy of minimum wages, housing allowances, and social

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security benefits, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Canadian households being unable to pay the rent and feed their families. Consequently, for the hungry poor, charitable food handouts have become the meal ticket of last resort, marking the retreat to residual welfare minded by the national food bank industry. In this way, corporate food bank sponsorship acts as a major obstacle to ending domestic hunger and advancing poverty reduction in Canada.

10.5.2 The Effectiveness of Corporate Food Charity How effective has the business-driven food bank model proven to be? It is generally acknowledged by food banks in Canada that they are not the answer to long-term food insecurity. FBC clearly states that “while food banks provide an essential service in their communities they are nevertheless a partial and imperfect solution to the problem caused by widespread poverty and food insecurity” (FBC, 2015). Even America’s food banks say charity will not end hunger (Powers, 2016). The scale of the problem with its deep roots in poverty, material deprivation and income inequality is far beyond the resources and capacity of charitable organizations to resolve. Indeed, food charities are often unable to meet their clients’ needs on a dayto-day basis; too often food banks lack funding, run out of food, resort to rationing, and close early. Despite the generosity of Canadians, demand consistently outstrips supply, necessitating the constant need for more food drives and more fundraising. None of this is surprising. According to Statistics Canada’s, 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), food insecurity in Canada – defined as the “inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints” – was experienced by four million individuals, comprising 11.5% of the population, an increase of over 600,000 people since 2007 (Statistics Canada, 2012; Tarasuk et al., 2012). This hungry population includes the marginally food insecure, people who worry about not having enough food; the moderately food insecure, those relying on low-cost food and unable to afford balanced meals; and the severely food insecure, who do not have enough food and sometimes go days without eating. Even the CCHS survey is an underestimate, as it excludes the homeless and on-reserve First Nations populations. In 2012, food banks across Canada reportedly fed 882,188 individuals (Riches, 2018). Therefore, less than one in four food insecure individuals actually use food banks. The majority of the food insecure are working poor (Riches & Tarasuk, 2014). Furthermore, the claim made by the Global Foodbanking Network that the effectiveness of food banking can be traced to “the link between food waste and hunger” is also troubling (GFN, 2013). In Canada, this argument is currently advanced by the National Zero Waste Council (NZWC, 2016) and FBC (Shore, 2015), through a national campaign directed at municipalities to support federal tax

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exemptions incentivizing food retail stores to divert greater amounts of food waste from landfills to food banks. Is this really a ‘win-win’ for reducing food waste and domestic hunger? As Tim Lang has argued, such policies cannot deal with the countless problems associated with our modern food economy, including the “structured mismatch between production, consumption, environment, health and social values,” of which food waste is just a symptom (Lang, 2013). Nor will it address issues such as low wages in the food retail market or the unsustainable nature of industrial food systems (Carolan, 2011). As mentioned, charitable food banks are a symptom of dysfunctional welfare states unable to address the upstream causes of poverty and inequality. Linking two symptoms of dysfunctional systems together as an effective remedy for widespread food waste and insecurity is hardly good medicine (let alone long-term preventive care). Tax incentives might benefit transnational food giants and smaller food retailers, but they will also further institutionalize ‘secondary welfare systems’ and ‘secondary food markets’ for ‘secondary food consumers’.

10.5.3 Social Values and Corporate Social Responsibility At any time, but particularly when austerity strikes, issues arise regarding the ethics and altruistic nature of the food industry supplying its surplus food to feed hungry people, who themselves are surplus to the requirements of the labour market and leading precarious lives. There are vexing questions about food access for financially insecure people dependent upon a profit-conscious food industry benefiting from tax incentivized savings by supplying charities with its unsellable food. It is true that FBC is involved in research and advocacy at the national level. The organization claims to work with the federal government in supporting food bank clients to “gain access to affordable housing, sufficient income and nutritious food through improved public policy and sufficient social services that ensure our most basic needs are being met nationwide” (FBC, 2008, n.d.). In this way, FBC expresses its corporate social responsibility. Yet, as Pat Caplan notes in her study of UK food banking, the “charitable giving of surplus food and money by food retailers also confers considerable benefits on the corporate donors,” (Caplan, 2016) perhaps more akin to “corporate social investment” (Hendriks & McIntyre, 2014), market branding, and the search for competitive advantage. We should be asking whether the social and political functions of food charity – both community and corporate – act as a moral safety valve that allows the public to feel good about doing their part (Poppendieck, 1998). Again, there is a moral imperative to feed hungry people. It is a fundamental expression of social solidarity and compassion (Lambie-Mumford, 2015). However, as Pérez de Armiño asks in his analysis of the Spanish food bank movement, to what extent is food charity a form of

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“uncritical” solidarity which fails to deal with the root causes of poverty? (Pérez de Armiño, 2014).

10.5.4 From Income Assistance to Food Assistance Corporate food charity in Canada has quietly and successfully established itself as a parallel and secondary welfare system. Yet, the longer-term implications of this shift for social policy, public health, and poverty reduction have attracted little political attention. The seamless and unquestioned way in which a US charitable food banking model has been adopted suggests public policy indifference to the shift from income assistance to food assistance in meeting the needs of vulnerable populations. Is it possible that corporate food relief might be legislated into publicly funded social programs in Canada? Perhaps attention should be paid to the fact that: the US differs from virtually every other OECD nation in its heavy reliance on food assistance rather than income transfers to aid impoverished families. While both social insurance and modest cash income guarantees are available to elderly and disabled Americans, able-bodied adults and their dependent children receive very little cash assistance. (Poppendieck, 2014, p. 171)

One clear difference between the two nations is that unlike Canada, the US, through its agricultural subsidies, has a significant stockpile of surplus food upon which it draws for overseas and domestic food aid. Yet, US public and charitable food assistance programs make little contribution to poverty reduction. In light of Canada adopting the US corporate food bank model, together with the mistaken public perception that domestic hunger is now being effectively addressed, Canada is sleep walking its way to radically undermining its social safety net in favour of a mishmash of provincial food safety nets across the country. Another worrying consequence of the corporatization of food charity are the implications for democratic governance and public accountability when addressing domestic hunger and poverty reduction. Who is responsible for ensuring that Canada’s vulnerable populations can both pay the rent and feed themselves? While Canada’s historical commitment to a publicly funded welfare state and its ratification of the right to food under international law suggest that governments (federal and provincial) are the ‘primary duty bearers’, the corporatization of food charity has created ambiguity and confusion. Political and policy leadership have been lacking and cannot simply be blamed on the jurisdictional problem of passing the buck between different levels of government. The corporate food banking industry has allowed governments of all political stripes to hide behind the curtain of its presumed effectiveness, as well as ethical claims that charitable food assistance is the necessary course of action. Yet, charity is not a right that can be claimed. As Louise Arbour (2005) has written, “there will always be a place for charity, but charitable responses are not an effective, principled or sustainable substitute for enforceable human rights guarantees.”

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References Arbour, L. (2005). Freedom from want – From charity to entitlement. La Fontaine Baldwin Symposium, Lecture, Quebec City, 2005. Bloom, M. (2014). From opportunity to achievement: Canadian food strategy. Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada Centre for Food in Canada, 2014. www.conferenceboard.ca/temp/88a98e04957b-436f-a62d-a90cf7d489bd/6091_canadianfoodstrat_cfic.pdf Bread for the World. (n.d.). Churches and hunger fact sheet. www.bread.org/library/churches-andhunger-fact-sheet Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) News. (2010, December 15). Sarah McLachlan makes food bank appeal. www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/sarah-mclachlan-makesfood- bank-appeal-1.892056 Canadian Broadcasting Company British Columbia (CBC BC). (2015, December 7). CBC Open House & Food Bank Day incentive prizes. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/events/ cbc-food-bank-day- incentive-prizes-2015-1.3313057 Caplan, P. (2016). Big Society or broken society? Food banks in the UK. Anthropology Today, 32, 1. https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8322.12223 Carolan, M. (2011). The real cost of cheap food. Earthscan. Feeding America. (2014). Hunger in America 2014 study reveals the current face of hunger. Feeding America. http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/news-and-updates/pressroom/press-releases/more-than-46-million-people-turn-to-feeding-america.html Feeding America. (2015). Annual report. Feeding America. Food Banks Canada (FBC). (2008). Building momentum. Available at: https://homelesshub.ca/ sites/default/files/attachments/w3ywmam3.pdf Food Banks Canada (FBC). (2015). HungerCount 2015. Food Banks Canada. https://www. foodbankscanada.ca/Hunger-in-Canada/Research/HungerCount-2015.aspx Food Banks Canada (FBC). (n.d.). Annual reports. https://foodbankscanada.ca/Annual-Reports. aspx Gandy, J., & Greschner, S. (1989). Food distribution organizations in Metro-Toronto: A secondary welfare system. Working papers on social welfare in Canada, University of Toronto, Faculty of Social Work. Global Food Banking Network (GFN). (2013). What is food banking. The Globa Food Banking Network (online). www.foodbanking.org Global Food Banking Network (GFN). (2020). Why we exist. GFN. www.foodbanking.org/hungerfood-banking/food-banking Global Food Banking Network (GFN). (n.d.). Food bank leadership institute. https://www. foodbanking.org/what-we-do/training-and-knowledge-exchange-2/#food-bank Guest, D. (1986). The emergence of social security in Canada (3rd ed.). University of British Columbia Press. Hendriks, S. L., & McIntyre, A. (2014). Between markets and masses: Food assistance and food banks in South Africa. In G. Riches & T. Silvasti (Eds.), First World hunger revisited: Food charity or the right to food? (pp. 117–130). Palgrave Macmillan. Hoffman, B. (2013). Behind the brands: Food justice and the Big 10 food and beverage companies. Oxfam International. https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/behind-brands Kessl, F. (2016). Charity economy – A symbol of a fundamental shift in Europe. Unpublished paper, University of Duisburg-Essen. Lambie-Mumford, H. (2015). Addressing food poverty in the UK: Charity, rights and welfare. SPERI Paper no.18. http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SPERI-Paper-18food-poverty-in-the-UK.pdf Lang, T. (2013, June 25). Food waste is the symptom not the problem. The Conversation. http:// theconversation.com/food-waste-is-the-symptom-not-the-problem-15432 Li, N., Dachner, N., Tarasuk, V., Zhang, R., Kurrein, M., Harris, T., Gustin, S., & Rasali, D. (2016). Priority health equity indicators for British Columbia: Household food insecurity indicator

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report. Research to identify policy options to reduce food insecurity (PROOF). http://proof. utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/1186-PHS-Priority-health- equity-indicators-EXECSUMM-WEB.pdf National Zero Waste Council (NZWC). (2016). Tax incentive to reduce food waste. www.nzwc.ca/ food/FoodIncentives/FAQ-taxincentiveSummary.pdf Pérez de Armiño, K. (2014). Erosion of rights, uncritical solidarity and food banks in Spain. In G. Riches, T. Silvasti, & T. (Eds.), First World hunger revisited: Food charity or the right to food? (pp. 131–145). Palgrave Macmillan. PLoS Medicine Editors. (2012). PLoS Medecine series on Big Food: The food industry is ripe for scrutiny. PLoS Medecine, 9(6), e1001246. http://collections.plos.org/big-food Poppendieck, J. (1998). Sweet charity? Emergency food and the end of entitlement. Viking Penguin. Poppendieck, J. (2014). Food assistance, hunger and the end of welfare in the USA. In G. Riches & T. Silvasti (Eds.), First World hunger revisited: Food charity or the right to food? (pp. 176–190). Palgrave Macmillan. Powers, J. (2016). Special report: America’s food banks say charity won’t end hunger. WHYHunger. https://whyhunger.org/images/publications/Special-Report.pdf Raise the Rates. (2016). 5th annual welfare food challenge. https://welfarefoodchallenge. wordpress.com/2016challenge/ Riches, G. (1986). Food banks and the welfare crisis. Canadian Council on Social Development. Riches, G. (2011, February 1). Why governments can safely ignore hunger. The Monitor. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/whygovernments-can-safely-ignore-hunger Riches, G. (2018). Food bank nations, poverty, corporate charity and the right to food. Routledge. Riches, G., & Tarasuk, V. (2014). Thirty years of food charity and public policy neglect. In G. Riches & T. Silvasti (Eds.), First World hunger revisited: Food charity or the right to food? (pp. 42–56). Palgrave Macmillan. Shore, R. (2015, November 18). Edible waste tax break campaign gaining traction with cities. Vancouver Sun. http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/edible-waste-tax-break-campaigngaining-traction-with-cities/ Statistics Canada. (2012). Household food insecurity, 2011–2012. Canadian Community Health Survey. www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-625-x/2013001/article/11889-eng.htm Tarasuk, V., Mitchell, A., & Dachner, N. (2012). Household food insecurity in Canada 2012. Research to identify policy options to reduce food insecurity (PROOF). United Nations (UN). (1966). International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (ICESCR). Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 1966/1976. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx Wyatt, N., & Chiasson, P. (2012, December 14). Even some food banks feel penalized by NHL lockout. Times Colonist (Victoria). www.timescolonist.com/life/food-drink/even-some-foodbanks-feel-penalized-by-nhl-lockout-1.27738 Ziegler, J., Golay, C., Mahon, C., & Way, S.-A. (2011). The fight for the right to food: Lessons learned. Palgrave Macmillan.

Chapter 11

Epilogue. Charitable Food: More Reflection Needed Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio

11.1

Understanding the Narrative, Understanding the Ethical Dilemmas

As we stated in the first chapter, undertaking a critical ethical analysis of charitable food may come as a surprise to some. In practically all cultures throughout the world, feeding the hungry tends to be seen as a positive gesture towards others; an expression of generosity, maybe even a moral duty. Why then is it necessary to consider the ethical dilemmas (in the plural) associated with charitable food? That is the question we have attempted to answer throughout this book. As we were finishing this book, the so-called ‘hunger queues’ (people queuing for food handouts) were multiplying in many countries, exacerbated by the economic and social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has further widened the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ who, ironically, may be sharing space in the same affluent cities. The number of people who now depend on food banks has increased exponentially, according to many of those involved in this sector; and such figures underscore the fact that contemporary food charities have now become an essential provision. If we were to summarise, then, the two key problems with charitable food which imply serious ethical dilemmas, they would be the following: first, that there are people living in countries of the wealthy Global North who now depend on charity to feed themselves; second, that organisations that were originally conceived as an emergency network, as an exceptional and temporary resource, have now become established and institutionalised, leading to the narrative that describes them as ‘essential’.

L. Escajedo San-Epifanio (*) Constitutional Law, and Law and Ethics in the Biosciences, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Escajedo San-Epifanio, E. M. Rebato Ochoa (eds.), Ethics of Charitable Food, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93600-6_11

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Food banks have now become so essential that in countries such as Spain, funds received from the European Fund for the Most Deprived are used to purchase food from large corporations for distribution through the food bank networks (see in this book Inza Bartolomé, The Clash between Charitable Food and the Human Right to Food). Such large in-kind purchases make it necessary to invest significant sums of additional money and volunteer effort in maintaining an extensive logistics infrastructure in order to store and distribute food across the official food bank network. Furthermore, this large-scale purchasing operation takes little heed of what people in situations of social exclusion actually need in nutritional terms; it is the government that decides which companies to purchase from, buying up their excess production using money from the European Fund. For the moment, nobody seems to raise any questions about the cost of this infrastructure or, indeed, about the impact on recipients of receiving food from distribution warehouses, rather than, for example, accessing shopping cards that would allow them to purchase food in the normal way, from shops and stores used by the majority of the public in the neighbourhoods in which they live. Maintaining and reinforcing these secondary forms of access to food means that some recipients and their families (see Riches and Gracia-Arnaiz in this volume) are increasingly separated from primary forms of access to food, and this has serious implications for their autonomy and fundamental freedoms. Let’s briefly point to some of the inconsistencies in the uncritical narrative that has built up around charitable food in the Global North. The contributions to this book demonstrate, from various perspectives, how contemporary charitable food in its many forms and formats is in urgent need of rethinking. When it corresponds to long hunger queues in the big cities of affluent countries, or when it is adopted as a mechanism for reducing our scandalous rates of food waste, charitable food can no longer be considered an expression of generosity and solidarity towards those in need. To continue to see it in this way, we would argue, is a case of distorted ‘cognitive bias’. This term was first used by Kahneman/Tversky (1972) to refer to how human beings misinterpret objective reality, based on irrational perceptions. Such misinterpretation influences our attitudes and behaviours; the way we think, the way we make judgments and the way we make decisions. In relation to charitable food, various authors, both in this book and in the wider literature, have highlighted the ease with which we fall into simplistic assumptions about the meaning of charitable food and, in particular, about the impact charitable food has on its recipients. Such simplistic assumptions lead us to perceptual biases which make it difficult, if not impossible, to find effective solutions to the emerging problems. The analyses presented in this book, ranging from the bioanthropological to the political and legal, through ethics, religion, sociology and social work, encourage readers to question their assumptions and look at charitable food with different eyes.

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Bias 1: Perceiving Charitable Food as Synonymous with Sharing Food

We have seen in the preceding chapters how the notions of ‘charitable food’, ‘feeding the hungry’ and ‘food sharing’ are often conflated in people’s minds. Objectively, all three expressions refer to food changing hands in the same direction: a person possessing food in abundance provides it to another who – at least at that moment – lacks it. The materiality of these actions, which objectively involve the same elements, means that they are easily assimilated one to another. However, there are significant differences in their connotations; in particular, in the attitudes and behaviours of the person performing the action, the personal situation of the person receiving the food and the framework of relationships that, both at individual and social (sociological) levels, exist between these people. The starkest contrast can perhaps be conjured up in the images, respectively, of a host inviting friends over for dinner (sharing food) and a queue of people waiting in the street for their turn to receive a package of donated food (charitable food). Throughout the chapters of this book, there are triggers that should encourage us to reflect on how we personally think about food charity. In his Chap. 2 entitled When Wealth Can No Longer Hide Hunger: International Politics, Welfare Policies and the Need to Take Action, Filibi highlights the social context in which charitable food systems have developed in the Global North. Food shortages have typically been assumed to be a feature of certain countries – the ‘poorer’ countries – of the world. But when hunger is present in wealthy countries, it calls into question the morality of the dominant values in those societies, as well as the state’s ability (and the political will of governments) to protect (their) population. During 1980s and 1990s, hunger and absolute poverty re-emerged as significant social issues in many rich industrial countries (Riches, 1997) and, as of 2008, the gradual deterioration in living conditions has accelerated. The exceptional and unexpected situation generated by the Covid-19 pandemic has brought further pressure on the most vulnerable – and we are talking about the vulnerable not just in ‘poor’ countries but in the wealthy ones too. There has long been resistance to accepting that hunger exists in wealthy countries (De Schutter, 2014, p. ix) and thus to recognising that ‘hunger’ has a multiplicity of faces. In this way, the dominant narrative has ensured that the current day hunger queues are not perceived as evidence of the failure of a socio-political and economic model that is incapable of ensuring a minimum standard of living for all. Remarkably, those who can afford to meet their basic needs at the present time – even if only just – are likely to perceive themselves as far removed from people in the food bank queues; it does not register that if they lose their job or their social support network suffers, they may also find themselves queuing. This may explain why there is not more outrage expressed that states have failed to find adequate responses to the increasing numbers of people living in food poverty.

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The work on altruism by Rebato Ochoa (Food Sharing and Altruism: Reconstructing the Behavioural Evolution) encourages us to reconsider what altruism consists of, and what impact (or impacts) it has on people and groups. Altruism is defined as "behaviour that benefits others, even at the expense of self-interest". Altruistic behaviour is voluntary and, in principle, the actor does not anticipate external benefits in return. The truth is, however, that from an anthropological and psychosocial perspective, apparently altruistic behaviours often occur in humans where the actor does expect some kind of reciprocity (even if this is not immediately forthcoming). This has led to the questioning of the nature, and even the existence, of altruism (see Sloan Wilson, 2015). Authors do not deny that they are ‘apparently altruistic acts’ but wonder whether they are in fact based on altruistic intentions. Food charity, like other forms of altruism, reflects and generates thoughts and feelings, and has impacts on interpersonal and social relationships. It is not simply a concrete act, and the multiplicity of motivations underlying such altruistic behaviour are almost always much more complex than they appear at first glance. Generalisations about ‘altruism’ group together a range of diverse actions and can prevent us from considering apparently altruistic actions in context. In the case of ‘feeding the hungry’, we seem to be oblivious to anything other than the supposedly altruistic act of sharing food, and fail to consider how the various ways of ‘feeding the hungry’ in different contexts may have very different impacts. If we examine them from a human rights perspective, the premises and key facts on which food charity systems are based can often be paradoxical. The UNDHR states that human beings are born and remain free and equal in their rights; among those rights is the right to be able to provide food for oneself, without depending on anyone else. However, contributions to this book have highlighted just how far current food distribution models are from being consistent with the dignity of the person (highlighting issues such as the stigma associated with food banks, dependency, etc). And perhaps what should surprise us even more is how this situation has evolved in such a way as to make it seem ‘understandable’, or ‘natural’. We understand the desire to respond generously in urgent social crises, we understand feelings of altruism, whether religious or not. In this way, food banks are typically seen by many as a pure expression of solidarity. Nothing, it seems, could be more altruistic than feeding the hungry. Where food poverty and food waste coexist within a few metres of each other, ‘feeding the hungry’ has to be interpreted in different ways, but this should not cause us to overlook the obvious. Before considering how to solve both problems, we must recognise that the co-existence of two such apparently contradictory phenomena is a symptom of the same thing: social and economic inequality. Social food exclusion is just one more expression of social and economic injustice, of the ease with which our societies accept that there will be ‘people in need’ – people whom we typically see as ‘other’, as different from ‘us’. In Western countries, there was a time when governments became involved in regulating the economy, healthcare, education and social welfare in order to try to counterbalance social and economic disparities. However, in the last decades of the twentieth century, there was a significant retreat in the social welfare state (Sheppard, 2015). It remains an open question today whether we

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wish to address the increasing and systemic socio-economic inequalities in our societies. This is not because of the values that we say underpin our societies (which, at least on the surface, appear to favour greater equality) or because of any ethical dilemmas; it is because working for cohesion with people we see as ‘other’ – ‘those in need’ – necessarily implies rethinking the way we ourselves live in society. In addition to rethinking how people access the essential elements of well-being (such as food and shelter), we need to build opportunities for all to participate in meaningful ways in social life. The Chap. 5 The Right to Food and the Essential Promotion of Personal Autonomy: the ‘How’ matters (Escajedo San-Epifanio) places special emphasis not on how so-called ‘food bridges’ may be justified or motivated, but on how they work and what kinds of thoughts, feelings and relationships they generate. Food bridges are apparently simple to understand. They are logistics systems that exist to obtain food before it becomes food waste and to redirect it to people who, in the urban environments of the Global North, do not have adequate access to food. But these logistics systems do not challenge the practices – public or private – that in fact limit adequate access to food for the recipients of redistributed food. The European social agenda currently does not have a plan to address this. Thus, in the medium and long term, what remains to be redistributed is not ‘leftover food’ but welfare and wealth. In this way, states are neglecting the need for social support systems that are decent and respectful of people’s rights and freedoms (see Escajedo San-Epifanio).

11.3

Bias 2: The Fight Against Hunger Is Apolitical

Perez de Armiño (Ethical Debates on Global Hunger: Moral Obligations to the Distant Other and Global Justice) explores the interesting debate on what generates a sense of responsibility towards those who suffer in other countries, especially those who experience hunger. At the current time, a version of this debate is being played out internationally in relation to access to anti-COVID vaccines. The issues that Perez de Armiño examines are still unresolved, but they prompt theoretical reflection and also highlight the discursive practices and patterns of action (or inaction) of states in relation to famine in other countries. This discussion raises a number of fundamental questions which may serve as a basis for our ethics. Do we consider that the whole of humanity in some way shares a common destiny? Do we accept that we are part of a global community that has strong moral ties? If so, do we accept that rights and obligations arise from these strong moral ties? The answers to these questions are highly significant, given the important implications that derive from them. How we see charitable food will differ depending on whether we accept that humanity is bound together by strong moral ties, and how we see these ties. Voluntary charity can surely not be seen as an adequate response to ‘strong moral ties’, because no rights or justice arise from voluntarism; yet, in ultraliberal understanding, such moral ties are simply seen as something ‘private’, ‘individual’, and in no case collective.

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Throughout this book, we have seen how arguments and approaches are presented and contrasted depending on whether or not moral obligations are felt to exist and, crucially, what that might imply in terms of action or, more specifically, moral judgment of action or inaction. The fight against hunger is not just a legal or political issue; it involves ideas and values as well. It links into the debate about whether states should adopt a clearly defined roadmap to fight against economic precarity (see Inza Bartolomé, Riches, Escajedo San-Epifanio on a range of wealthy countries, and Lasa López, Criminalising Poverty: The Stigma of Social Inequalities within the Constitutional Framework of the European ‘Workfare State’ on the Eurozone in particular). Should inclusive and equitable growth be the explicit aims of our policy agendas? The welfare states – or, perhaps more precisely, those illusions that societies have projected onto the social democratic state model since the Second World War – seem to be fading. Peter Häberle (1995) used to say that in welfare states, the constitution and its promises are like a beacon on the horizon; a light towards which society, the community, walks with the illusion of significantly improving the lives of all citizens. The light from that lighthouse on the horizon now seems to be obscured in the fog. The (fair) distribution of wealth in societies, and the extent to which social cohesion and integration should be objectives for a society, are issues where ideological differences remain prominent. However, these differences are typically hidden in the functioning of charitable food distribution systems which, at least on the surface, appear to be solely concerned with supplying food to those who need it. But, as we have seen, describing food banks as ‘apolitical’ is unhelpful: no associative model escapes politics, unless we simply understand politics to mean linked in some manifest way to a given political party. Food exclusion is just one more form of social exclusion, or a symptom of it. There is nothing ‘apolitical’ about it; by not questioning exclusion or actively working for change for those who are excluded, food distribution organisations already position themselves politically. Consciously or unconsciously, they are helping to normalise food exclusion in the medium and long term. As Graham Riches highlights (The Corporatization of Food Charity in Canada: Implications for Domestic Hunger, Poverty Reduction and Public Policy), in some countries of the Global North, the children of the first users of the institutionalised model of food banks are now second-generation users. It has become almost ‘normal’ that they should inherit this situation of food exclusion. There is thus something highly paradoxical in the current way of functioning of many states in the Global North. From the perspective of those who have much more than they need to live on, the welfare state still appears to be a reality. From the perspective of those who are excluded from society’s resources, who may observe wealth but have no hope of achieving even a minimum standard of living, it’s not a ‘welfare’ state that they see, but a ‘badfare’ state. There are severe limitations in public understanding of the real situation for those who receive donated food. Do we really believe that these forms of food distribution contribute to social integration and community cohesion? The Chaps. 2 and 3 by Filibi and Pérez de Armiño show how affluent societies have effectively excluded

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some groups and individuals from access to food. Food is not ‘shared’. Some people can afford to buy food, while others are excluded from this and at most, may be able to obtain charitable food. But that surely does not satisfy their human right to food; because there is no autonomous (non-dependent) or stable access to sufficient food to cover their nutritional needs. The roots of poverty and famine run deep and cannot be eradicated without decisions aimed at improving the well-being of all, without exclusion. As Amartya Sen (1990) explains based on historical data, food catastrophes are not simply due to factors such as scarcity; in many if not most cases, they have their origin in the unfair distribution of wealth. The global experience of the current CoVid pandemic reinforces that view.

11.4

Bias 3: Institutionalising Food Banks Is a Matter of Common Sense

In affluent societies, there is surplus food and there are people who do not have adequate access to food. It seems common sense that we should create networks to redistribute surplus food, so that it is not wasted. As stated by the European Parliament, this appears to be a most efficient solution from an economic, social and environmental point of view. This is, however, an illusion. Redistribution in this way does nothing to address the causes of either food waste or food poverty; indeed, punctual access to food can reinforce exclusion. As stated in the Declaration of Rome (1996): “Food security exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to enough safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” When access to food for some people occurs only at predefined and limited times, and furthermore, depends on others donating food, there can be no autonomous access. Yet at the same time, at least for those not experiencing poverty, the presence of charitable food adds to the sense that ‘something is being done for the poor’. This in itself can lead to more ‘charitable’ acts being directed at ‘the poor’. But not only does this not solve poverty, it threatens to reinforce the perceived separation between ‘the poor’ and other ‘citizens’. In this way, the essential objectives of democracy – such as inclusion and equity – are lost sight of. The chapters by Riches and Gracia-Arnaiz in this book pay special attention to the dynamics of food redistribution from an anthropological-social and sociological perspective, and focus particularly on the recipients of charitable food. The cases of Canada and Spain are particularly revealing, given that both countries have very high user rates for food banks and thus provide examples of how food banks operate in wealthy countries. In Spain, currently, a million and a half families (out of a population of forty million inhabitants) rely on food charity to complete their diet. The routes that some people have to travel to obtain food in wealthy countries can be tortuous. In contrast, Anthony (in Food Sharing in Religious and Indigenous Traditions: Drawing Inspirations for Contemporary Food Politics and Ethics)

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considers many examples of how deeply rooted the sharing of food is in different cultural and religious traditions, including indigenous subsistence cultures. Food sharing is clearly based on the assumption that we live in community with others. What motivates sharing, and the relationships that are implied for the recipient in food sharing, are considered carefully in these traditions so as to avoid selfish motivations undermining the spiritual value of the act of sharing. In different ways, which Anthony details, cultures and religions warn that the act of sharing should not come with expectations of reward, appreciation or benefit to benefactor. Compassion, gratitude and humility should guide the action; nothing more. Sharing is a gesture that expresses a way of being towards the other. In the institutionalised framework built up by some food charities, in the logistical deployment and in the structures designed to maximise fiscal benefits from donations, we can see how far removed these organisations are from the notion of compassion towards the other. As highlighted in the chapters by Escajedo San-Epifanio, Inza Bartolomé and Riches, food banking models are often designed to be maintained over the long term (in other words, they are not about providing emergency support), and to provide positive feedback and incentives to benefactors, especially in the form of tax benefits; in the end, paradoxically, they need the ongoing existence of recipients to provide justification for their own existence.

11.5

The Human Rights Approach to Charitable Food Policies and Practices

The various voices that have contributed to this book all agree on the need to look with new eyes at the reality of charitable food and, in particular, at the reality of those who find themselves in need of it. If we do not identify with those who are vulnerable, it is hard to imagine how things could be different, without hunger queues. We need to imagine ourselves in a situation of need, waiting in those queues, grappling with the realisation that this the only support society can offer us in the face of hunger. What is it, then, that that keeps us from wondering if this is fair, if it’s okay? What is it that keeps us from demanding greater effort to support people in need? The answer is easy. We do not identify with them. We do not believe that one day we could find ourselves in their place. The reason we do not identify with those in the hunger queues is because they allow us, who do not have to queue, to distinguish ourselves from those who do. Adopting a human rights approach implies recognising that we are part of a global community in which every human being deserves basic conditions for a free, safe and healthy life, by the mere fact of being born. This goes well beyond simply waiting for change in the laws or constitutions of our countries that would specifically recognise new rights in order to transform the deficient structures that have been put in place to address food poverty. Human dignity, freedom and equality form the cornerstone of democracies. In this book, we have reviewed the difficulties

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that human rights in their juridical-legal formulation have had – and still have – in achieving tangible results in the face of economic inequality. Translating commitments into embodiable rights requires specific criteria and, no doubt, relevant efforts but as Moyn (2018) has explained, mere recognition of human rights does not help to address the growing gap between rich and poor in many countries around the world. Human rights have been “unambitious in theory and ineffectual in practice in face of market fundamentalism’s success” (Moyn, 2018, p. 216). Human rights legislation today does not provide the tools necessary to bring about material equality in the world. Essentially, this is because HRL legislators never had it in mind to provide such tools. Human rights legislation is designed to defend individuals against direct abuses (usually in the form of specific actions by the state), but it is not equipped for other forms of defense of rights. The intellectual history of human rights has been inspired by, and draws most notably on, political thought in Western Europe and Northern America. In these areas, economic and social rights are not violated by specific abuses perpetrated by specific actors; there is no way to litigate and ‘name and shame’ the abusers. Given that inequality is already present, mere laissez-faire is already a form of abuse or, at least, of collusion. There may well be global rejection of hunger and poverty in the abstract, but there is no one to litigate with in this case, no ‘naming and shaming’ of those who violate these rights. Efforts to judicially enforce social and economic rights have been limited and the impact of such litigation has been disappointing (Yusuf, 2012; Langford, 2008). However, the fact that human rights legislation is not an effective tool in juridicallegal terms does not imply that it cannot go some way to help resolve the dilemmas that charitable food generates in politics and practice. For decades, says Moyn, “human rights have occupied the global imagination” (Moyn, 2018). They help us think about a more just world, one which protects the dignity of all human beings (Escajedo, 2010). Even in the post-pandemic scenario, human rights continue to allow us to visualise a world worthy of all. Bills of rights, and in particular the UNDHR, were created to define the minimum that we are all morally committed to recognising for every human being. The Sustainable Development Goals now have more prominence in political speeches than the UNDHR, but the declaration has not lost one iota of its value as a moral benchmark. Even today we must continue to maintain it as a reference against which to judge any action towards another person. Even those actions that, with good intentions and in good faith, we may promote as ‘solidarity’ are nevertheless actions that we must analyse in the light of human rights. As the UNDHR itself warns, no human right should be interpreted in a sense that may pervert its fundamental objective. People have the right to food; and that human right constitutes a right to autonomous, stable and sufficient access to food appropriate to their needs, wishes and beliefs. Ways of sharing food that are not respectful of this autonomy may be well-intentioned, but nevertheless threaten the dignity and human rights of the recipients. Any organisation – voluntary or institutionalised – that is dedicated to charitable food, any public or private subsidy that is allocated to charitable food, any action that contributes to charitable food, must ask itself some simple but far-reaching questions. First, it is important to question whether the framing of a charitable action is

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(or is not) based on an assumption of human fellowship. How do benefactors see recipients, what kind of relationship is generated between them? In this regard, it may be useful for benefactors to imagine themselves in the place of recipients, to empathise and sympathise with them, breaking through that imaginary division between ‘them and us’. A second question – no less important – relates to the origin of donated food. We need to understand the itinerary that donated food takes on its way to recipients, and consider whether structures which appear to enact solidarity are in fact serving to whitewash the practices of corporations that abuse the food market. A third and final question to ask is how we envisage the future for those who currently use food banks, and to reflect on what we are doing to bring that future to fruition. From the point of view of human rights, the future for all human beings must be one in which the rights to dignity, autonomy and basic resources can be satisfied for all. Focusing on whether or not we are working towards an “enhancement of freedoms that allow people to lead lives that they have reason to live” (Sen, 2001) is what distinguishes a rights-based approach from the charity-based model that fails to build human capacity.

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