Blog 3/26

FOOD MATTERS ARTICLE:

The article cites ‘farmers, ranchers, anti-hunger activists, nutritionists, environmentalists, public health educators, and city planners’ as being the pioneers of the Community Food Security movement. I think creating a social justice framework around food insecurity issues in alliance with both a health/nutritional approach and a legislative/regulatory approach is necessary. Many variables contribute to the lack of food security in some Americans and if we ignore even one we can’t be wholly successful in making positive changes. Speaking from the Social Justice standpoint, I think we need to promote the ideology that Americans who may not be as financially secure as others or live in an area that does not provide an abundance and variety of foods, are still entitled to a certain amount of food security and certain quality food that they may not be getting.  With the Missoula County case study, findings showed that cultural beliefs and level of education greatly affect the community food system.

SNAP/DOUBLE BUCKS READING:

 My first concern is how educated people are about the snap/double bucks program. Do people even know about double bucks? How in-depth is their understanding of the program? Until the class, this is something I’d never heard of, which is a little disconcerting as someone who has grown up in South Carolina. It seems like work needs to be done on making ‘double bucks’ as wide a household term as some other government-assistance programs are. Secondly, to whom does double bucks benefit in South Carolina, and how can we expand this? We talked about how in S.C. it mostly exists farmers markets.  How accessible are those farmers markets? Could this be expanded into supermarkets like in other states?