Recent government advice has been to stockpile food in the event of disruption to food supply chains either through extreme weather, conflict or ongoing climate change. A large proportion of Micah’s time as a social justice charity is supporting people experiencing food poverty. My first thought in hearing of the government advice was, “there’s already disruption to supply chains”. This has been clear for some time, it started pre-Covid, came to a head during Covid (remember the empty shelves and clambering for toilet rolls) and continues to this day. The unpredictability of particular food items at Micah’s food projects has resulted in many of us adopting a different, more flexible approach to the food we receive. A large proportion of the food we offer at Micah’s community food markets is food that has been classed as ‘surplus’ to the usual food supermarket system and has usually been overproduced, isn’t a popular item in the supermarket or has been mislabelled/wrongly packaged. Redistributing food surplus has become an economy in itself – usually with small charities like ourselves at the end of the chain. We continually try to make the fairest, kindest and most just decision about how we share this food allocation amongst people who may be struggling to buy a week’s shop or experiencing food poverty in a crisis moment. A surplus of fresh produce highlights the seasonal fluidity of the food chain and is crying out to us to go with the seasons, acknowledging when crops fail and when they leave us with an abundance. Just because we can’t eat or cook with something there and then, let’s think about how we can preserve it to help when there’s less food available.
My concerns about the UK’s food system are nothing new. The flaws of overproduction and food waste are well-established. Greenwashing by large profit-making organisations resulting in small grassroots charities taking on dilemmas far bigger than them is more than concerning to me.
As if this wasn’t enough to be wrestling with as a social justice charity, the fundamental issues of persistent and growing inequalities are what fuel my concerns about stockpiling. Whilst I don’t doubt the fragility of the food system, I do doubt the UK’s future approach to distributing food fairly. The people I meet each week at Micah’s foodbanks don’t have money to buy their own food that week. The concept of stockpiling is therefore completely unachievable in the forseeable future for many with no or little income. If as a society, we are judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, we must look at our approach to stockpiling and coping with varying weather conditions otherwise we risk growing inequalities. Let’s stockpile for us all.