Emergency food systems: Food access outside the commodity chain

Abstract

Food systems analysis has developed over the last 15 years to analyze the social, economic, and environmental relations along the food commodity chain: from the land tenure relations and knowledge politics that inscribe traditions of planting to the locations of quality and quantity purchase and consumption. Important advances have been made to shorten the physical and psychological distance between “field and plate” through shortened “food miles” traveled and popular participation in “civic agriculture.” The approach of food systems analysis, and perhaps even more particularly local food systems analysis, can and should help to place more theoretical and practical emphasis on class relations in the food system—what I call the “emergency food system”. While excellent case studies exist that link community food security and emergency food projects, e.g., “building bridges” through CSAs that cooperate with food pantries and soup kitchens, the growing field of “local food systems” may benefit by systematically reviewing such relationships and expanding them to institutionalized purveyors of emergency food support such as WIC and food stamp offices, schools’ subsidized meal programs, and municipal and county level food assistance programs. The recent study, “Improving Food Security for New Jersey Families: Identifying Food Source, Need, and Tools for Connecting” has a scope that includes: (a) a GIS-based Gap Analysis of the emergency food services in the State; (b) an analysis of food providers’ programs, needs, and possibilities for regional cooperation.