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If you haven’t seen it, please check out CRFS’s 2025 Impact Report!
In my introduction to last quarter's newsletter, I wondered if a comprehensive Right to Food might be the bold approach Michigan needs. As I've spoken with our communities and partners about this over the summer, I keep coming back to the classic questions of What, Who, When, and Why.
Starting with the last, but possibly most important question: “Why?” In my conversations, a number of potential answers have come up, but one sticks out in particular: to ensure that when a Good Food program works, it doesn’t get cut! Looking at some of the work by CRFS and our partners—for instance, evaluation of the benefits of federal and Michigan Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Programs, or evaluation and testimony around the impactful, but still embattled, 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan's Kids and Farms program—it seems to me that a legal, or constitutional commitment to the Right to Food could help flip the script on programs like these. That is, those who want to cut programs that are found to support eaters and producers should be the ones who have to provide a justification. This could free up communities, policymakers, and researchers’ time to work on innovating and deepening, rather than defending, ways to achieve Good Food for everyone.
The nitty-gritty of “What” needs to be saved for another day, but one excellent starting point for details is the example of Brazil’s 2006 Right to Food Law.
Let's go back, though, to “Who?” Who is interested in a legal—or even constitutional—right to food? So far, I have found few people in CRFS’s networks who aren’t interested! This includes allies like food systems luminary Anna Lappé, who pointed us to Michigan Rep. Emily Dievendorf’s introduction of a State House resolution to make July 1 the “Right to Food Day.” Rep. Dievendorf called their resolution one step towards making Michigan the third state recognizing Food as a fundamental human right.
Of course, “Who” and “Why” are often accompanied by “When?” Political scientist John Kingdon began his influential book on how major policy change happens with the question “How does an idea's time come?" There is no one simple answer, of course. But Kingdon found that a major part of the answer is when advocates, researchers, and policymakers start spontaneously and explicitly using the same paradigm. A paradigm, perhaps, like the Right to Food...
Food, as it were, for thought.
Jahi |
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