Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Food security and its effect
Importance of food in our life
Short paragraph on food security
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Food security and its effect
Essay Proposal: Food Security and Community Gardens
Cyrus Woo
Student #: 210950582
York University
ENVS 3160
Race/Racism and Environmental Justice
Professor Jinthana K. Haritaworn
06th April, 2015
Key Reading/Class Theme Engaging with: Food Justice
Primary Research Question: Can community gardening be used to achieve food justice in a community?
Secondary Research Question: Does community gardening fit into a model of popular education?
Thesis:
Community gardens contribute to food justice by allowing community members to have a higher level of food security. They are also based on concepts of popular education and contribute to the self-reliance in communities by allowing them to learn how to grow their own food as a community.
Nature of the Proposed Study: The study that is being proposed will focus on community gardens and the prospects for achieving food security. Kirkpatrick and Tarasuk(2009)explain that 1 in 10 people in household in Canada experienced food insecurity in 2004. Food insecurity appears to be primarily caused by inadequate incomes(p. 135). In this sense food insecurity can be seen as a result of food injustice in which economic, social and political system result in people experiencing food insecurity.
…show more content…
One of these methods is the use of community gardens. Studies have found that community gardens have impact food insecurity. For example, Patricia A. Carney et al(2012)found that food insecurity dropped from 31 percent before becoming involved in a community garden program to 3 percent after becoming involved in a community gardening program(p. 874). Findings like this would seem to suggest that community gardens have a major impact of food security. This would suggest that community gardens offer a real opportunity to deal with food security issues which would go a long way towards realizing food
Many in the U.S., today, try to eat well,balanced, meals to order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. They do so by purchasing their food at farmers markets or making their own meals, so their food isn’t processed or genetically modified. Even though people are trying to maintain health in order to live long lives, without medical complications, many don’t have the opportunity to pursue life like this. In “Research shows food deserts more abundant in minority neighborhoods,” the author, Kelly Brooks, portrays an anecdote and logical reasoning, from Kelly Bower’s research, to thoroughly describe the food deserts in poor minority neighborhoods and how this issue needs to be repaired.
The documentary film “The Garden,” by Scott Hamilton Kennedy captivates and captures the South Central Los Angeles farmers struggles and conflicts they faced trying to save the South Central Farm. The 14 acre garden grows fresh vegetables and fruits, such as: corn, beans, papayas, and etc. It was one of the largest community garden and became known as the urban garden. Doris Bloch, the founder of the community garden, said in the documentary that the land could be use to build a garden for the community residents to grow their own food. Bloch said “ very low income family that deserves to grow their own food… land, people, food, it's a pretty simple idea. happy days.” The farmers took an advantage to use that land to grow their own vegetables
A community health assessment of the Hillside-Quadra area was performed and considered various aspects of the community, including the population, the socioeconomic environment, and health and social services. Personal communication with some of the residents determined that food insecurity is of major significance for many in the community. “Food insecurity exists within a household when one or more members do not have access to the variety or quantity of food they need due to lack of money” (Statistics Canada, 2015). Community kitchens (CK), are easily adapted to an IFK concept, have been implemented by two communities within Victoria (Appendix B; Personal Communication) and are capable of serving as a public health initiative that benefits the communities they serve (Iacovou et al.,
A major issue that is occurring in America is a phenomena known as “food deserts”, most are located in urban areas and it's difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food. Whereas in the past, food deserts were thought to be solved with just placing a grocery store in the area, but with times it has become an issue that people are not picking the best nutritional option. This issue is not only making grocery store in food deserts are practically useless and not really eliminating the issue of food deserts because even when they are given a better nutritional option, and people are not taking it. In my perspective, it takes more than a grocery store to eliminate ‘food deserts’. It's more about demonstrating the good of picking the nutritional option and how it can help them and their families. For example, “Those who live in these areas are often subject to poor diets as a result and are at a greater risk of becoming obese or developing chronic diseases.”(Corapi, 2014).
Nutrition and food security are among the top 4 social indicators of health in Canada, with limited access to nutritious, affordable food linked to poor health. (*According to the Canadian Medical Association 's What Makes Us Sick? 2013 report.) Food insecurity in Canada*:
Even though closely related to poverty, not all that have food insecurities are in poverty. Often it is the working poor that are hit the hardest. The working poor are a group that, despite having a job, their income is too low to meet their needs or that of their family. Most of the working poor (56%) live in families with children, so the poverty of these workers affects many others as well (Problems Facing the Working Poor, Kim 1999). Many lower to middle class families will temporarily struggle with food insecurity at various times during the year.
Rosier, K. 2011, ‘Food insecurity in Australia: What is it, who experiences it and how can
In Canada, 1 in 7 people suffer from poverty, this is translated to about 4.8 million people (Just the Facts, 2015). When living in poverty, people are faced with hardships that make it challenging for them to live a proper, healthy life. Living in poverty does correlate with the fact that these families will suffer from a low income. Families that have a low income are more likely to suffer from poor physical and mental health because they are unable to support themselves when it comes to nutrition and cleanly living conditions. Fresh, nutritious, organic foods typically cost much more than freezer and fast foods, charities that help these families do not provide enough fresh foods to maintain a healthy diet, unsanitary living conditions
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increases in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation in the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance.
Gundersen, Waxman, Engelhard, and Brown (2010) found in their study that 50 million people (including 17 million children) were food insecure in 2010. Poverty and food insecurity affects the lives of billions of people worldwide and millions of people in the United States. More than two billion pe...
As of 2007, there have been reports that 48.7 million Americans are or have experienced being food insecurity at some point in their life. According to Central California Area Social Services Consortium (CCASSC), it has been reported that 45% of people who are food insecure are not below the federal poverty line (2012). There are many situations that are created for a person to become food insecure. Some examples of how food insecurities are created are issues with job stability, job loss, low or minimum wages, being a single parent, and/or unexpected expenses that can cause families to sacrifice or relocate money for food to pay for bills such as car repairs and medical bills (CCASSC, 2012). Many believed that food insecurity and hunger are the same thing. However, they are two completely different things. Congressional Digest (2010) stated that, “although hunger is related to food insecurity, it is a different phenomenon. Food insecurity is a household-level economic and social condition of limited access to food while hunger is an individual-level physiological condition that may result from food insecurity.” According to the CCASSC, it has been reported that 40.4% of the citizens living in California are food insecure. Unfortunately, as we hit closer to home in Fresno County, where it has been reported that 41.9% of out own citizens are food insecure
For economists and politicians, there are a few things that still are not considered, and the missing answers are only piling up; someone always has to win or lose out. Food policies are one of them. Bringing urban agriculture to cities is an incomparable move. When community food growing flourishes, the consumers seem to be healthier and smarter about what they eat, less p...
In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.
Canadians work very hard to earn an honorable lifestyle however there are a lot of Canadians the still are not able to feed themselves or their family. Most food banks do not have enough donations that they give to fill people as these events rely on donations and most companies instead of donating they throw away the food causing food banks to have less amount to give to the poor (Alison Howard, 2013). This is a serious issue because people have a wrong perspective of food banks but what they don’t know is that if food companies decide to throw it away instead of donating, this causes food banks to have limited amount of supplies which results to not all individuals getting enough food, harming their dietary intake (Howard & Edge, 2013). The social determinants of this would be associated with low income families not receiving enough nutrition in their diet. This shows that families with low income do not receive enough nutrition and due to low income and lack of education, under these conditions they are unable to provide a proper diet and accept food from food banks. Also, another social statue that plays an important role is unemployment because since some people are not financially stable this causes them to have difficulty providing for their families and end up starving and face critical health conditions in their lifetime, this is one reason food banks are presented as they help provide such families
Food insecurity and poor nutrition is an alarmingly large problem for low income families, especially in developing countries. Many strategies exist to fight this problem, although not many of these address all the factors contributing to it along with all the possible solutions to solve it. In many cases, multiple strategies must correlate and work together so that all the determinants of this issue are addressed and can fight food insecurity from different angles. This essay will discuss the significance of the problem, a range of possible strategies to solve the problem, and go into detail on a select few that will correlate and work together to solve different factors of food insecurity and poor nutrition.