The Problem With Foodbanks - Resistance Kitchen

Foodbanks can never solve the problem of hunger, as hunger is the product of poverty, which is the result of social injustice in our society.

Fighting hunger has to be inextricably linked to fighting injustice if we are serious in our intentions.

But many people in our society, including some who have selflessly dedicated their time to volunteering in food banks, cannot see this and feel they are separate struggles.

Fighting hunger is charity, a humanitarian endeavour, pure goodness, worthy of praise from all. Each mouth you feed is one less hungry today – today’s good deed.

Whilst fighting injustice is politics, causing trouble with no gain in sight – effort with no results.

There is pressure not to mix the two, don’t pollute the selfless purity of feeding the hungry with a political agenda of trying to bring about social change. One will be rewarded with universal praise, whist the other condemned as trouble makers using the hungry to push an agenda.

Furthermore they cannot see how the charity of feeding the hungry can actually contribute to the crisis it’s trying to solve by absolving the state – which unlike foodbanks actually has the means to end hunger – of its responsibility. Foodbanks, detached from the fight against social injustice become part of the problem – the means through which the state reneges on its human rights obligations under international law.

Parable

A parable I came across in Janet Poppendiek’s seminal 1998 book “Sweet Charity – Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement” illustrates this much better than I can. In the book she uses the parable to bring the various chapters of her book together as a conclusion, going into great detail of all the various parallels between the parable and the reality of food banks in the US. Here I just touch on the main aspects, and in the way they relate to the UK:

In the course of my travels, several people referred me to a parable of uncertain origin that captured the situation of compassionate people confronted with a steady stream of need. It depicts a village on the bank of a river. One day a resident of the community sees a baby floating down the river. She rushes out to save it, and, with the help of her neighbors, finds dry clothing, a crib, a blanket. The next day two babies are rescued, and the day after that, several more. Soon the babies are arriving in large numbers, and they become a regular feature of life in the village; very nearly the whole village becomes involved in rescuing them. Finally, one of the villagers suggests making an expedition upstream, to see how the babies are getting into the water in the first place. The villagers, however, are afraid to take time and energy away from the immediate rescue project, afraid that babies will drown if they are not there to save them.

Asked to weigh a known, compelling, and widely recognized good—rescuing the next baby—against an uncertain gain, finding out what’s happening upstream, which may or may not be something they can do anything about, it does not surprise me that many people in our mythical community have decided to stick with the rescue project and leave explorations upstream to someone else. Nor does it surprise me that after a while, the townspeople begin to regard this as a way of life and stop talking about “after the babies stop coming,” that groups of volunteers decide to pool their resources and hire someone to direct the work on a full-time basis, and that they begin to develop pension plans for baby rescue directors.

In this amplified scenario, it is easy to imagine that the town might have rallied around the baby rescue project.

Young people would have been integrated into the project and taught the essential lifesaving skills and, with them, through the example of their parents and grandparents, teachers and scoutmasters, the relevant lessons concerning the importance of human life and the value of cooperation.

Suppose that the town’s religious leaders gave a hearty blessing to the rescue work, and took turns reading scriptures that directed people of faith to save the lives of the drowning, reminding them that each baby was a new incarnation of God. Suppose that celebrities from the entertainment world visited the community and added their support, perhaps leaving behind a donation to cover the cost of a new piece of equipment, or agreeing to spread the word about the effort. Finally, suppose that the town’s revered leaders and elected officials joined in encouraging the rescue project, helping out on special occasions when photographers would snap their pictures clad in waders and knee-deep in the river, or cradling a dripping tot under each arm. Suppose they held an annual awards banquet to recognize the accomplishments of those who rescued the most babies or those who cared for them with particular tenderness after their rescue.

Perhaps, then, there is more involved in their reluctance to trek upstream than a feeling of comparative efficacy or the fear that if they shift some of their effort to politics, people will suffer.

Best not good enough

Now suppose that there are some channels in the river that even the most skilled rescuers cannot reach, and that babies who have the misfortune to enter those troubled waters are seldom rescued. Imagine that, with increasing frequency, the flow of babies exceeds the town’s rescue capacity, and some slip by unaided. Or suppose that the equipment suddenly begins to break down, the nets give way, the boats develop leaks, and donations of more up-to-date equipment that had been expected from government or corporate sources fail to materialize. Our villagers improvise, but some babies are not rescued. And finally, suppose that the work of actual rescue takes so much time and energy that the village begins to fall down on its commitment to care for those who are saved from the roaring flood—they lie crowded together in the nursery, waiting for permanent homes, with little attention and virtually no enrichment. The college students who had planned to do an early childhood education project with the toddlers are drafted to help pull the new ones from the river.

Even so, we might argue, the village is doing the best it can with what it has. Our rescue project may not be perfect, but it gets maximum utility out of limited supplies. All things being equal, it appears better to keep as many babies as possible from drowning than to interrupt that work to try to stanch the flow.

Part of the problem

But what if all things are not equal? What if our rescue projects are making it easier for the people who are throwing the babies in upstream?

Perhaps the first few tumbled in by accident, because a retaining wall fell into disrepair or the riverbank eroded. At first, perhaps there was denial that there was anything amiss—no need to look too closely if you can count on a rescue operation downstream. And then, when the numbers became too great for plausible denial, perhaps there was a debate between those willing to allocate the funds needed to repair the breach, and those who thought the treasury too depleted to undertake such efforts.

Certainly the knowledge that an extensive safety net downstream would rescue most of the casualties from immediate harm would give strength to those arguing against the proposed expenditures. And since the rescue efforts were staffed primarily by volunteers, might not the advocates of inaction argue that rescue was cheaper than prevention?

Or perhaps they might argue that the children upstream should not be protected from the risks of life—that they needed to learn to be careful, that retaining walls invite careless behavior—better to let them get a taste of the cold water, and then rescue them.

Finally, suppose that a new group takes over, and begins throwing the children into the stream on purpose, hoping that they will learn to swim, and counting on the labors of our villagers if they do not.

In this situation, we cannot help but wonder if the rescue project, with its attendant publicity, has contributed to the very problem it seeks to solve.

Dilemma

This is a very real dilemma the Resistance Kitchen faces – as a foodbank we are contributing to the very problem we claim to fight. It is for this reason that’s its essential we not ignore the fight for social justice at the expense of feeding people, that we attempt to go upstream and confront those throwing the babies in the water.

Our Reflection Table, though very modest, is part of that journey upstream.

As an example consider the very real, barbaric two child policy as equivalent to the policy in our parable of throwing babies in the water. The two child policy, introduced by the Tory government in 2017 and now supported by Starmer’s Labour party, punishes poor people by cutting their benefits if they have more than two children. Essentially its a social engineering project to stop poor people having more than two children, otherwise all the children will be made to starve. It has been identified as being responsible for pushing over a million children in to poverty and led to unprecedented levels of abortion of otherwise wanted babies. The campaign against the two child limit has huge potential rewards, if the policy is overturned then 250,000 children are lifted out of poverty overnight, and another 850,000 saved from deep poverty. Rescuing the odd baby from the river – feeding a few score people every week – though a must, cannot compare.

The Child Poverty Action Group summed up the effect of the two child policy succinctly: ‘if you set out to design a policy to increase child poverty, then it would be hard to do much better than the two-child limit’.

The reason the Tory government got away with passing this policy, and now Labour feels comfortable in supporting it, is because the media obsession with poverty porn, unchallenged spin of benefit scroungers, of women getting pregnant just to jump the housing queue or to retire on child benefits, has worked. Some polls show up to 60% of people have fallen for the lies and actually support the two child policy! Of course the polls are dependent on how the question is put and what the context is, a poll by the by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service in 2021 showed the opposite result with the majority of the public opposing the two child limit.

So in the first instance, the Reflection Table is to educate the public – drip by drip, what austerity, the benefits cap, and two child policy actually mean, and how it has destroyed countless lives. Where ever possible we use the actual words of the victims, amplifying their eloquence to educate our community.

The letter to our MP then builds on that and tries to lobby our local MP to stand on the right side of history, by opposing his party leader, and demanding the two child policy be scrapped by any incoming Labour government.

We appreciate these are very small steps, but as someone once said – every journey begins by a single step.

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Parable

Best not good enough

Part of the problem

Dilemma

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