Our growing and shocking dependence on food banks

Monday, December 3, 2012

Corporate bottom lines may be better and hundreds of thousands of jobs are being created, yet food bank use is now higher than before the recession began

by BARRY WILSON


The contrast could scarcely have been starker, the distance between wishful thinking and grim reality greater or the gap between rhetoric and action more profound.

In Turin, Italy, this autumn, the director general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told delegates from 130 countries at a conference about all things food that the world should dream big when it comes to combating hunger. He called for the end of hunger "within our lifetimes."

The prescription was the usual high-level international fare – end food waste, create "sustainable" food systems, help smallholder and female farmers in developing countries and "ensure" all people have year-round access to nutritious food. Bromides like these have sustained well-fed delegates at FAO and international food conferences for decades.

Across an ocean in a much colder Ottawa, where lofty rhetoric and big dreams seem increasingly like museum relics from a more optimistic age, a small part of a much more bitter on-the-ground reality was being unveiled. The headline was "growing hunger in a land of plenty."

In a typical month, food banks across Canada serve meals to almost 900,000 Canadians, a record level since the first Canadian food bank was created 30 years ago, and the number is growing.
More than one-third are children.

"It is shocking that in a country as prosperous as Canada, hundreds of thousands of children rely on food banks to have enough to eat each month," Food Banks Canada executive director Katharine Schmidt told a small group of reporters on Parliament Hill.

In rural Canada, the total number of people receiving food bank help was almost 130,000 in March when the count was taken, a 12 per cent increase over the previous year total of fewer than 116,000.

With 413,000 reported customers and more than 160,000 children, Ontario is by far the largest user of food banks. An additional 12,000 people made the trek to ask for food charity this year. It is a shocking and sad statistic.

Schmidt said the core issue is poverty. While the Canadian government brags about Canada leading all industrialized countries in its rebound from the Great Recession of 2008-09, the reality is that food bank use is higher in 2012 than it was before the recession began.

Corporate bottom lines may be better, but hundreds of thousands of Canadians still struggle to make ends meet, sometimes choosing between food and rent. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created, but many are low-paying service jobs replacing high-wage professional or union jobs.
Cynics and conservative commentators often mock food bank statistics, arguing it is a "dependency industry" that simply gives people a shield against trying harder or making better decisions.

The thousands who work in or support food banks see it a different way – as a symbol of fairness failure in a country where obesity is as big a problem as hunger and poverty leads to some difficult choices.

The bright side of this is the dedication of volunteers, farmers and donors who give time or produce to help. The Ontario Association of Food Banks annually honours special agricultural contributors to the cause, this year Whittamore's Farm in Markham.

It is a noble endeavour by farmers, churches, unions, corporations and ordinary citizens, who pitch in every year.

But the "success" of food banks also allows this to be a largely hidden Canadian disgrace – hunger in a country surely rich enough to ensure that no one should have to beg for their food. BF

Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture.