Links and reading on the Right to Food

Below, we provide useful links and reading material relevant to the Right to Food.

International agreements relevant to the Right to Food

• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966) – Art 11

• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979) – Art 12
• Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989) – Arts 24 & 27
• Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CERD, 2006) – Art 25 & 28

Our briefings on the Right to Food

• Right to food near you? A guide to taking action in support of the right to food
• The Right to Food: What needs to happen at the local level?
• COVID-19 Briefing: Asylum Seekers and the Right to Food
• Briefing on the Right to Food
• "Sometimes my belly will hurt": No Recourse to Public Funds and the Right to Food.
• Right to Food and Universal Free School Meals
• COVID-19 Briefing: No Recourse to Public Funds and the Right to Food
• Free School Meals and Immigration Policy.
• The "Hostile Environment in the UK" - A barrier to achieving the SDGs

Blogs and articles

• Is there a Right To Food? How To Solve The UK’s Growing Food Poverty Crisis, by Imogen Richmond-Bishop
• Coronavirus in austerity UK: poverty and discrimination compounded, by Dr Sara Bailey and Imogen Richmond-Bishop
• Democratising Data is key for addressing inequalities during COVID-19, by Francesca Feruglio & Maria Silvia Emanuelli & Imogen Richmond-Bishop & Brian Omala
• Litigating for Social Justice with 'one armed tied behind your back': why economic and social rights must be incorporated into UK law, by Dr Sara Bailey and Imogen Richmond-Bishop
• What happened when the UK privitized food aid? Children got scraps, by Imogen Richmond-Bishop
• Food Poverty has no place in 21st Century UK: it's time to end it, by Imogen Richmond-Bishop
• The UK Is Letting Our Children Down on Food Poverty. Here’s What Needs to Happen, by Imogen Richmond-Bishop
• Going Hungry in the fifth richest contry in the world, by Imogen Richmond-Bishop
• Giving indicators and benchmarks a human face in the UK, by Koldo Casla of Just Fair and Imogen Richmond-Bishop of Sustain's Right to Food project
• The Right to Food and a 'Menu to End Hunger', published by Sustain and End Hunger UK
• Gendering Brexit blog series: How will Brexit Impact on Women’s Food Security? by Imogen Richmond-Bishop
• Beyond hunger and the food bank: a new right to food", by Kath Dalmeny of Sustain, Koldo Casla of Just Fair, Elli Kontorravdis of Nourish Scotland and Peter Roderick of the Institute for Health and Society at the University of Newcastle, The Baring Foundation Blog, September 2017

Research and further reading

Readers may be interested in:

• The MSc in Agroecology, Water and Food Sovereignty at Coventry University, which includes consideration of the Right to Food
• The work of Dr Priscilla Claeys, CAWR Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience
• The People's Food Policy, advocating a food sovereignty approach to transforming our food system

 

“The welfare state and NHS were established after World War II to ensure that everyone – no matter what their background or personal circumstances – can feel secure in the knowledge that if they are in trouble, the social safety net will catch them. Now, 70 years later, those who are most vulnerable are tumbling through gaping holes in that safety net that are caused by government policy. Tens of thousands of adults and children in the UK go to bed hungry, which should be a source of shame and sorrow for our nation.

Good-hearted charitable efforts such as food banks have provided emergency food, reminiscent of the soup kitchens appearing at bomb sites in World War II. Yet this is a systemic and growing problem and charitable handouts of food are not enough.

People experiencing hunger and food insecurity need to be able to get to permanent solutions – decent, healthy and affordable food; good wages; affordable rent and utility bills with no ‘poverty premium’; access to credit; and reliable benefit payments for those in need would be an admirable start. Culturally and politically, such measures – and more – must be understood as everyone’s fundamental entitlement, through a new right to food instated in UK law.”

Martin Caraher, professor of food and health policy at Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London