ABSTRACT
International conferences on food come and go, but the poor and malnourished we seem to have with us always. The Rome 1996 World Food Declaration and Plan of Action, signed by the 190 or so member governments, affirmed ‘the right of all people to have access to safe and nutritious food consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger’, and acknowledged poverty as the major cause of food insecurity throughout the world (World Food Summit 1996). In practice, most countries in the North saw food security and malnutrition as problems for the South; the US and Canada were unusual at the time in even acknowledging the existence of domestic food and nutritional insecurity and in releasing national Action Plans. During the last decade, national governments and regional groupings such as the EU have increasingly recognized growing poverty and exclusion (exacerbated in Europe by regional political and economic instabilities, which upset markets and generate migrants). Reform of public welfare systems and reviews of other challenges to social policy have been high on the policy agenda. Yet few governments, the US and latterly the UK apart, have recognized the
sion of food bank and ‘day centre’ provision to feed hungry people (Dowler 2001; Poppendieck 1997).
