In his November 11, 2014 article Don’t Ask How to Feed the 9 Billion, Mark Bittman writes: “The difference between you and the hungry is not production levels; it’s money. There are no hungry people with money; there isn’t a shortage of food, nor is there a distribution problem. There is an I-don’t-have-the-land-and-resources-to-produce-my-own-food, nor-can-I-afford-to-buy-food problem.”

I find this a really interesting statement, because of course on some level it is true, and it resonates with my own sensibilities about income and autonomy. That said, it is also true that (a) we have been working on poverty for a long time and are nowhere close to everyone having enough money to afford to eat, or eat well, and (b) if everyone could afford to eat well, we might very well have a production problem (which would be a great thing) to solve next.  So I think there is room for work on both poverty eradication and food systems.

Photo credit: epSos.de, CC License