Participatory Practice
Explore the question ‘Who gets to eat?’ Addressing the problem of creating a food system where everyone gets to eat, Hazel Healy (2021) outlines 10 steps to end world hunger, summarised in the following:
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10 steps to end world hunger 1. Put food before trade: change global trade regulations – end the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and bring civil society to the table. 2. Curtail corporations – and end impunity: famine, malnutrition and hunger are political choices, make them punishable crimes. 3. Redistribute riches: distribute wealth fairly and repay historical debts for slavery, colonialism, patriarchy, and so on. 4. Rights to land, seas – and better pay: recognise indigenous rights and customary rights to pastures, forests and fisheries as well as women’s rights – women are crucial in preventing hunger and malnutrition in families. 5. Smaller, fairer, slower trade: local markets and short supply chains privilege suppliers from indigenous and traditional communities, plus urban farming and fair trade cooperatives. 6. Free lunch – or funds to buy it: social safety nets must be extended and based on entitlement – not charity! 7. Balance with nature’s systems: slash carbon emissions to balance ecosystems and fund alternatives to industrial scale agriculture. 8. Incentivize good food: target unhealthy food and drink and redirect subsidies to reduce the price of healthy diets. 9. Eat ethical: consumer power as wealthy societies move to ethical, organic and vegetarian diets needs sourcing with public data tools that check sustainability claims. 10. Organize: civil society needs to build critical alliances between consumers, workers and producers to forge more democratic food politics the world over. See further Healy (2021). Each one of these points diametrically opposes the fundamental aims of neoliberal ideology and the policies that emerge from it.
The reality is that we are living with a worldview that is killing humanity and the planet, and until we realise the flawed and unjust thinking behind it, the world will face increasing crises. The symptoms of violence and division will get bigger and will continue to be normalised – images of people homeless and destitute in shop doorways, seen as responsible for their own poverty in rich countries, with 50
