Ebony Germany: Food for Thought

Eric Mitchell, President of the Alliance to End Hunger, a spokesperson in session three, "Feed The World," noted that food security is not a charity issue but an overlooked investment. I couldn’t agree more. More specifically, I believe it’s a systemic infrastructure failure. Institutionalization of planning has been neglected, missing the opportunity to implement guardrails that protect food sovereignty as a necessity rather than an optional luxury. This gap was felt in the conference, as discussions evolved around the administration actions to make America healthy again, while simultaneously reducing pesticide safeguard regulations, removing federal policies and leaving it up to the state and local level, slashing funding for programs like SNAP and USAID, and literally incentivizing a war that subsequently will also increase the cost of groceries, gas etc, perpetuating the issue of hunger. Considering this, the conference revealed important issues but left me pondering on the vulnerabilities versus intentionalities. Notably, the conversations felt tailored to the industry, given the sponsors and advisory committee, the rhetoric wasn’t surprising. It felt as if the discussion of addressing systematic drivers was glossed over. Sen. Johnson was a great example of this. Quite frankly, I’m not convinced he understood the context of the conference he was attending, as big pharma and COVID-19 being a conspiracy theory didn’t quite resonate with the audience. This synopsis isn’t here to criticize the conference, rather, I’d urge the policymakers, consultants, advocates, researchers, scholars, farmers, and industry to consider a new approach. While the topics discussed are important, there was a notable absence of a clear connection addressing issues such as climate change, food deserts, DEI, and economic drivers. I was surprised by the lack of integration of these conversations, whether this was intentional or not. These are key vulnerabilities that must be addressed. We must remember, a healthy America is economically more viable than a sick one. The voices who spoke publicly about these issues felt few, not discrediting those who were in agreement, but the lack of those conversations was noticed. One of those voices included W. Scott Marlow, who was also a panelist in the concurrent session two, “Coping with Climate Change, and Policy Change,” while I believe this session struck the most meaningful conversation from the sessions I attended, which came as no surprise given the list of panelists, discussing a bit more of the systemic drivers and working solutions. However, the title of this session targets the point I’m calling attention to, but the discussion, while impactful, still did not address climate change or the communities impacted, the focus point of the session, and a very relevant issue of today. Overall, the intimate networking conversation provided reassurance that, despite the larger looming challenges, many are working to address the nuances of it all. Attending the Consumer Federation of America's 49th National Food Policy Conference was a great privilege. Finally, I urge my peers to consider those who are absent from these discussions, the reasons behind it, and the implications of their absence.