Addressing Food Production and Insecurity in America
It’s no surprise that many local humanist groups volunteer at food banks, support community gardens, manage food drives, and maintain food pantries during Secular Week of Action and throughout the year. We know the world is confronting the largest hunger crisis in recent history. According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 report, 783 million people worldwide are facing chronic hunger and almost 600 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030. In America, more than 44 million people are food insecure, including 13 million children and people in every county. “Millions of people in America are just one job loss, missed paycheck, or medical emergency away from hunger,” reports Feeding America. “But hunger doesn’t affect everyone equally—some groups like children, seniors, and people of color face hunger at much higher rates.”
Hunger, malnourishment, and food insecurity are caused and worsened by inequity, poverty, climate change, conflict, disasters, and emergencies such as economic shocks and pandemics. Eliminating hunger will require the government, the private sector, nonprofits, and communities working together to make healthy food affordable and accessible for all. Together we can ensure people are paid living wages and have access to affordable child care, housing, education, transportation, and health care—helping to build financial stability and increasing the ability to meet basic needs. We also can find, expand on, and invest in renewable energy and solutions to environmental challenges—such as drought, extreme heat, wild fires, and flooding—to better nourish people and protect our planet.
To learn more about actions happening and needed, join the American Humanist Association on Tuesday, July 9, 7pm ET for our Zoom Webinar panel of experts on Food Production and Insecurity in America. Our speakers include:
- Eli Moraru, Co-Founder & President of The Community Grocer, a nonprofit community run retailer that is reinventing the corner store and reimagining food systems. “Reducing food waste, providing workforce development, hosting community roundtables, and ensuring access to fresh, culturally relevant, and delicious meal solutions—we are committed to celebrating our rituals of food from soil to supper!” Moraru is the Winner of the 2022 Penn Presidents Sustainability Prize, an Inno Under 25 Honoree, semi-professional soccer player, and coffee snob. He is passionate about building stronger, healthier, and more resilient communities—together.
- Florencia Ramirez, award-winning author of Eat Less Water and founder/director of The Pesticide-Free Soil Project, a program born out of the Encampment for Citizenship’s Environmental Justice Learning and Action Project. The Project teaches young people about environmental justice through workshops, research, field trips, and participating directly in community events like compost tea parties. Ramirez is host to THE KITCHEN ACTIVIST podcast. Her upcoming book, The Kitchen Activist, Four Action Steps to Save the Planet with Your Food, will be out in Spring 2026.
- Stephanie De La Hoz, Director of Programming at Move For Hunger, a non-profit organization focused on reducing food waste by engaging the moving and relocation industry to help transport food from various donation sources to distribution centers. They also rescue food from events like marathons and collect unharvested crops from farms for food banks. De La Hoz started her professional career as a high school teacher, and then served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia for 2.5 years, training public school teachers and organizing youth development programs, before shifting her career to hunger relief.
- Tracie McMillan, award-winning author of The American Way of Eating and The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America. She has covered America’s multiracial working class with publications ranging from the New York Times to Mother Jones, National Geographic to the Village Voice, and has contributed to collections about food such as Local Food Environments: Food Access in America and Best Food Writing 2013. McMillan currently oversees coverage of worker organizing for Capital & Main.
Register for free to join Food Production and Insecurity in America on Tuesday, July 9, at 7pm ET on Zoom and stay tuned for the recording to share with others.