MAE KIMBERLY GOMEZ BSA 203A

“…liberty and justice for all.” Sure, maybe food wasn’t in mind when Francis Bellamy
penned the Pledge of Allegiance. However, when our nation treats their food with
dignity, they also treat themselves with dignity.

The Food Justice movement has been occurring for years, but what is exactly is it?
Food Justice is a multifaceted movement, working towards access to healthy food
options, food cost, diminishing global malnourishment, supporting local farmers,
sustainable agriculture, etc. It’s about consuming GMO-free food, buying local, and
understanding that those with varying socio-economic standing should have the same
opportunity to buy healthy food for themselves and their families. Understanding food
justice also means understanding the process of food production, from the farming to
the industry workers to the promotion.

So how can you help bring justice to food? To help with malnourishment and hunger, try
volunteering at a local food pantry or bank, such as Community Servings or The Greater
Boston Food Bank. Promote healthy grocery stores, such as Trader Joes or a local
healthy café, rather than fast food restaurants. Support farmers by visiting a nearby
farm, or travel to the Roxbury Food Justice Hub to become more aware on Boston’s
urban food movement.

Justice for food means justice for all. We've seen the images of animal activists and
protesters trespassing on farms, disrupting and vandalising their operations. While we
respect the right to protest, trespassing and causing damage on private property is not
acceptable. As well as putting food on our tables and contributing to the state's
economy, farms are family homes, where in many cases, several generations have
lived. We're introducing new measures to better protect farmers and primary producers
from trespassers.This is an issue that is likely to generate strong feelings from many in
the community, which is why we will be encouraging people to have their say now that a
Bill has been drafted.

Food security and food justice are areas of increasing importance at local, national,
transnational and global scales. While various political and non-political agents at
various scales have recognized that global hunger and food security (of which food
justice is a primary component) is a key challenge requiring urgent interdisciplinary
investigation and problem solving, there remains limited agreement as to how best to
approach these issues and at what scales. This module provides students with a
background to the problems encompassed within the food security/food justice nexus by
drawing on current debates that focus on both the macro and micro impacts. By drawing
on diverse country case studies, the module also critically evaluates different strategies
for mitigating the impacts of food insecurity and injustice. “Napakahirap sa lahat, ang
matulog nang gutom (The hardest of all is to sleep hungry).” Rice farmer and fisherman
Rolando Merto, 57, still remembers November 2004, when flash floods and mudslides
swept through Infanta, Quezon Province. His village, Barangay Bubuin, was one of the
many communities that suffered from the disaster triggered by a typhoon, along with
those in Real and General Nakar, also in Quezon.For farmers like him who rely on
subsistence agriculture to feed families and for income, the loss was severe, and even
traumatic. Communities saw bodies on the shore or buried in the mud, or dogs
underneath cut logs and uprooted trees. The fallen trees, locals say, were the
consequence of widespread illegal logging in the province. Plantations were ruined and
some locals had to rely on fishing, which was also difficult due to weather conditions.
Others ended up borrowing money from neighbors. Some locals would agree it was the
worst disaster the province has experienced in years, that not even calamities brought
about by more recent typhoons could compete. Merto said that during the days of the
calamity, they did not have enough to eat. His family no longer had enough bigas or rice
grains. They had to ration their meals. Relief efforts could not reach their area
immediately, blocked by the flash floods, mudslides and heavy rain. Some aid
eventually arrived but locals said it had to be transported across the sea. Many parts of
the land area were uncultivated for a long time.

The time came when rice from the National Food Authority (NFA) was already being
sold in town, after relief goods had already run out after a month’s distribution. Merto
asked his son to buy a kilo. But when they cooked the rice, he said the rice smelled so
bad, he could not eat it.
He believes the NFA rice bags were kept in storage for so long (to reserve them for
calamities) it had gone stale. He said he tried to eat it, but he couldn’t. Hunger and
frustration brought tears to his eyes. He ended up just eating fish and the soup that
came with it. He still went to sleep with an unfilled stomach.

Food security and poverty are everyday struggles for Merto and many other locals not
only in Barangay Bubuin, Infanta, but in many other communities where farming and
fishing are key sources of livelihood and alternative sources of employment and income
are lacking. Disasters and extreme weather conditions – from flash floods and
continuous heavy rains to tropical storms and strong earthquakes – aggravate food
insecurity for many communities. They increase the risk of hunger especially when
access to food is blocked and relief distribution is limited. But for small-scale farmers
and fishermen in the countryside, in rural areas and in far-off provinces, their
vulnerability is heightened not just by these environmental conditions, but also by the
cumulative challenge of few livelihood opportunities, lack of education, and poverty.
Filipino farmers like Merto can relate to the broader problem of hunger and food
insecurity in the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
majority of hungry people in the world live in developing countries, particularly those in
Asia and Africa. Many of them live in poor, rural communities and depend on agriculture
for food. The FAO estimates that nearly half of hungry people in the world live in small
farming communities with some land area, while another 20% rely on farming but do not
own land at all. Meanwhile, some 10% rely on fishing and forestry.