Since 2020, we have seen a huge increase in the demand for charitable food aid, due to multiple political and economic crises. Initially seen as an emergency measure, corporate-backed food aid programmes are now entrenched ‘solutions’ to hunger. But who really benefits from them?
In Hunger Inc., Kayleigh Garthwaite travels across Britain, North America and Europe, working with food banks, co-ops, urban farms and food justice organisations. She documents the limitations of these programmes, and how institutionalising charitable food aid absolves governments of their responsibility to ensure that people have a right to food. As hunger and inequality continue to rise within advanced capitalist countries, this issue is more urgent than ever.
Proposing radical key policies for governments, she explores alternative community-led responses grounded in solidarity, not charity, to end the need for food aid before the indignity of food banks becomes completely normalised.
