{"id":49501,"date":"2021-01-29T19:17:24","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T18:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=49501"},"modified":"2021-02-03T15:57:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T14:57:47","slug":"kartik-raj-uks-independent-food-banks-a-lifeline-in-a-year-of-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/01\/29\/kartik-raj-uks-independent-food-banks-a-lifeline-in-a-year-of-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Kartik Raj: UK\u2019s independent food banks: a lifeline in a year of crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Food banks, including those in the <\/span>Independent Food Aid Network<\/span><\/a> (IFAN), which <\/span>The BMJ<\/span><\/i> is supporting in its <\/span>2020-21 appeal<\/span><\/a>, have provided a lifeline for many people in the UK who have been left vulnerable and exposed by a deeply flawed social security system. The need for them will most likely be even more acute over the coming months, with the added economic pressures that the covid-19 pandemic has visited on the people living on low incomes, and the impact of pandemic-related border closures and Brexit-related freight delays on food supplies and prices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the start of 2020, based on <\/span>my research<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> I suggested that we should pay attention to more people going hungry and relying on aid to feed their families in the world\u2019s wealthiest countries. I had no idea then that the covid-19 pandemic would take over our lives during the year that followed, or quite how the demand for food aid would surge once it was clear that the resulting economic shutdown was not just for a matter of days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The work of IFAN\u2019s small core team and its member organizations across Great Britain, is showing clearly where the UK government has fallen short on its obligation to ensure the basic <\/span>human right to food<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As our <\/span>research has shown<\/span><\/a>, cuts to UK welfare spending on families and children are closely linked to the increase in demand for food aid. Food banks, including <\/span>IFAN<\/span><\/a>\u2019s<\/span> or the <\/span>Trussell Trust\u2019s networks<\/span><\/a>, and many others, are providing more help each year to people unable to access or afford enough food. They are filling the gap created by a social security system <\/span>beset with problems<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>cuts<\/span><\/a> by the central government to local welfare assistance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As the IFAN Coordinator, Sabine Goodwin, has observed, food bank use is just \u201c<\/span>the tip of the food insecurity iceberg<\/span><\/a>.\u201d And similarly, <\/span>food insecurity<\/span><\/a>, with much of it <\/span>hidden<\/span><\/a> or underreported because of the <\/span>stigma around food bank use<\/span><\/a>, is really\u00a0 just one visible tip of the broader phenomenon of poverty. Some 200,000 children in the UK entered <\/span>absolute poverty<\/span><\/a> over the past year, and <\/span>specialists expect<\/span><\/a> that to grow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, the economic shock of the public health emergency has been harsh, with a reported <\/span>decade-high rise in unemployment<\/span><\/a>.<\/span> Claims for the UK\u2019s flagship social security system, Universal Credit, hit <\/span>new records<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> with 1.5 million claims between 13 March 13 and 9 April alone, six times more than in the same period the previous year. So, it is no surprise that <\/span>more people<\/span><\/a> are again having to turn to food banks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>latest data<\/span><\/a> from IFAN members show an 88 percent increase from the previous year, and the Trussell Trust <\/span>reports<\/span><\/a> a 47percent increase across its network. There has been much attention paid \u2013 justifiably \u2013 to children being left without adequate food during school closures, propelled by the <\/span>footballer Marcus Rashford<\/span><\/a>\u2019s <\/span>remarkable campaign.\u00a0 Even as we published <\/span>findings<\/span><\/a> in May about the <\/span>faulty school meal voucher scheme<\/span><\/a> in England, we heard from IFAN network member organizations in Fife, London, Northumberland, and Pembrokeshire that they were also providing food parcels to more children than before.<\/span><\/p>\n

And as if the effect of public health emergency were not enough for people living on low incomes to bear, the disruption of food supply and price fluctuation caused delays in freight as a result of Brexit-related procedures. In late 2019, when the prospect of serious supply chain disruption last seemed likely, we <\/span>documented<\/span><\/a>, with the help of IFAN members in Merseyside, the Black Country, the London Borough of Brent, Cumbria, and Northamptonshire, food bank supplies running low and concerns around the impact of price spikes in essential foods on people living on low, fixed incomes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the recent <\/span>covid-19 related border closures<\/span><\/a> and the additional disruption to food supply chains<\/span>, it is hard to feel hopeful about what 2021 holds in store for low income households in the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

One reassuring thing, however, against this grim backdrop, is that the charities running the UK\u2019s food banks are increasingly <\/span>taking the view, together with other anti-poverty advocates<\/span><\/a>, that they must not become an <\/span>institutionalized part<\/span><\/a> of the UK\u2019s social safety net. They are <\/span>learning necessary lessons<\/span><\/a> from the <\/span>North American<\/span><\/a> experience, where industrial-scale charitable food aid has become a permanent part of the welfare landscape. IFAN, in its <\/span>vision and strategy document<\/span><\/a>, and Trussell Trust <\/span>more recently<\/span><\/a> in their public communications, have made clear they want to see a UK with a strong social security system, with food banks no longer needed. One important development this year is a greater push by food banks and anti-poverty advocates for a \u201c<\/span>Cash First<\/span><\/a>\u201d approach, to ensure people in need receive financial assistance rather than emergency food aid. These organizations envisage a country with fewer food banks, not more, in the long run. UK food banks are participating in wider campaigns to <\/span>end hunger<\/span><\/a>, for better <\/span>food insecurity measurement<\/span><\/a>, for <\/span>technical changes<\/span><\/a> to social security law and policy, and to <\/span>place their work in a right to food framework<\/span><\/a> \u2013 all while providing urgent relief to those who need it. Their approach is a reminder that fighting hunger and poverty during crises requires immediate, front-line aid alongside long-term, structural rights-based solutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please donate generously to The BMJ Appeal 2020-21. Donations can be made here: https:\/\/www.foodaidnetwork.org.uk\/bmj<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kartik Raj<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/a>, Western Europe Researcher, Human Rights Watch<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Competing interests<\/strong>: <\/em>I have no competing financial interests. I have an ongoing working relationship with IFAN. HRW has co-organized one event with IFAN and other organizations, and I have previously authored a chapter in an edited volume for the End Hunger UK Campaign, of which IFAN is a member. I have also spoken at the 2019 IFAN AGM and have recorded a statement played to the AGM of one of IFAN\u2019s member organizations \u2013 both were on the right to food.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Food banks, including those in the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN), which The BMJ is supporting in its 2020-21 appeal, have provided a lifeline for many people in the UK […]<\/p>\n

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