First World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or the Right to Food?

First World Hunger Revisited exposes the hidden functions and limits of food charity and corporately sponsored food banks as primary responses to widespread domestic hunger and income poverty in twelve rich 'food-secure' societies and emerging economies: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the USA. Who wins, who loses when governments violate their Right to Food obligations under international law to ensure the food security of their vulnerable populations? It challenges the effectiveness of food aid and argues for integrated income redistribution, agriculture, food, health and social policies informed by the Right to Food, whilst critiquing the lack of public policy and political will in achieving food security for all.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (2008-2014) 1. Hunger in the Rich World: Food Aid and Right to Food Perspectives; Graham Riches and Tiina Silvasti 2. Food Banks in Australia: Discouraging the Right to Food; Sue Booth 3. A Right to Food Approach: Public Food Banks in Brazil; Cecilia Rocha 4. Canada: Thirty Years of Food Charity and Public Policy Neglect; Graham Riches and Valerie Tarasuk 5. Hunger and Food Aid in Estonia: a Local Authority and Family Obligation; Juri Kore 6. Hunger in a Nordic Welfare State: Finland; Tiina Silvasti and Jouko Karjalainen 7. Poverty Amid Growth: post-1997 Hong Kong Food Banks; Kwong-leung Tang, Yu-hong Zhu and Yan-yan Chen 8. Privatising the Right to Food: Aotearoa/New Zealand; Mike O'Brien 9. Between Markets and Masses: Food Assistance and Food Banks in South Africa; Sheryl Hendriks and Angela McIntyre 10. Erosion of Rights, Uncritical Solidarity and Food Banks in Spain; Karlos Perez de Armino 11. Food Banking in Turkey: Conservative Politics in a Neo-liberal State; Mustafa Koc 12 Food Banks and Food Justice in 'Austerity; Elizabeth Dowler 13. Food Assistance, Hunger and the End of Welfare in the USA; Janet Poppendieck 14. Hunger and Food Charity in Rich Societies: What Hope for the Right to Food?; Tiina Silvasti and Graham Riches References

About the Author :
Graham Riches is Emeritus Professor and former Director of the School of Social Work, University of British Columbia, Canada. Tiina Silvasti is Professor of Social and Public Policy in the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

Review :
'The West continues to offer its food systems, consumption patterns and choice culture as the one and only righteous route to progress. This book reminds us the West has a major problem of food inequalities. We need to take a deep breath, look at the evidence and reconsider where food policies are and are not taking us'. - Tim Lang, City University London, UK 'This comprehensive, powerfully challenging book demonstrates that the basic right to food is denied in rich countries where the needs of bankers and the wealthy are prioritised under the guise of austerity over the hunger of millions of ordinary people. No wonder the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food has cause to visit them.' - Gary Craig, Durham University, UK 'The clue to ending hunger in rich societies begins in these pages, where we'll experience outrage and yet develop the conviction to forge ahead and actualize the right to food. This is required reading for all of us who are working to make a safer, healthier and food secure world'. - Mariana Chilton, Witnesses to Hunger, Drexel University School of Public Health, USA 'This book's sharp point is captured in its subtitle: Food Charity or the Right to Food? Agencies that treat hunger as a call for charity tend to undermine people's human right to adequate food. It is important to reassert the point that all people have the right to be free from hunger'. - George Kent, University of Hawai'I, USA 'It's a tragedy that this classic book needed an update. But if hunger is to be ended, it cannot be done through ignorance. This book contains the information and analysis needed to show both that hunger is global and that in its contours and history, ultimately, its defeat depends on very local forces.' - Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved