Food is a Human Right, Not a Charity

By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet. Posted May 29, 2001.

President Bush, in his recent commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, renewed his call for a war on poverty. Once again, he linked this call to his tax cut initiative. The idea is that tax benefits for the rich will stimulate charitable giving and create a type of altruistic market dynamic that will eventually trickle down to the poor.

Of course, the historical record flatly defeats this logic, and policies such as these have proven to be the fertile soil in which poverty and hunger flourish. Feeding each American must certainly be considered a necessity, one more pressing than enriching the top 10 percent of the population with nearly three fifths of the tax cut benefits.

For a nation endowed with the world's greatest acreage of arable land, the United States is plagued by hunger and poverty. According to USDA estimates, 10.5 million American households (one out of ten) did not have adequate access to food in 1998. A survey of 25 cities conducted in December 2000 by the U.S. Conference of Mayors showed an increase of 17 percent in requests for emergency food assistance, the highest increase since 1992.

To respond to this crisis, President Bush said in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, "In the next bold step of welfare reform, we will support the heroic work of homeless shelters and food pantries. Government cannot do this work. My administration will give taxpayers new incentives to donate to charity."

But relying on charity is simply not enough. The growth of private sector food programs is a sign not of success, but of political failure -- the failure of American policy makers to join other nations that long ago adopted the human right to feed oneself.

Implicit in the idea of human rights is that these rights are guaranteed to all, not charitably bestowed on some by the patronage of others. Human rights belong to the realm of government, not the discretion of the wealthiest citizens. With the United States losing seat at the United Nations Human Rights Commission, it's time to strengthen our human rights record at home and implement every American's right to feed oneself.

Seeking solutions through charitable handouts fails to address the loss of human dignity associated with the inability to house, feed, and clothe oneself and one's family. Of the thirty-six million food-insecure individuals living in America in 1998 (40 percent of which were children under the age of 18), half belong to households with at least one full-time worker. The leading cause of growing food insecurity is not simply joblessness, it is poverty, low-paying jobs, high housing costs, food stamp cuts, and welfare reform.

Cutbacks in federal food programs have created a tremendous pressure for private food assistance programs to fill the void. The hunger gap left by the food stamp program cuts is four times the amount that Second Harvest, the national food bank network of emergency food providers, could provide every year. Most of the people requesting emergency food assistance are children and their parents. And almost half are employed. Yet this emergency is largely relegated to the domain of charity while discussions are underway for a budgetary reordering that siphons ever greater funds away from social programs.

Leaving responsibility for human rights to the private sector is unacceptable. Private sector programs cannot displace the responsibility of government to the basic social and economic human rights for its people. In the age of "personal responsibility," does it not follow that we each have a responsibility to hold our elected government accountable to the universal standards it holds other nations to? Which of the following best stands for the values espoused by Americans -- a broad and sturdy safety net for all members of our society, or one of five children hungry and poor in the richest nation on earth?

Anuradha Mittal is the co-director of Oakland-based Food First, which raps up its high-profile anti-poverty bus tour on May 31. For more information, or to get involved with Food First's local campaigns, visit www.foodfirst.org.

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