Toward a justice approach to emergency food assistance and food waste

Exploring pantry–urban gardener partnerships in California’s Santa Clara County

Abstract

The 60,000 food pantries in the United States are well known for charity-based emergency food assistance and edible food recovery, serving 53 mil­lion people in 2022 (Feeding America, 2023a). Thousands of urban gardens emphasize vegetable production and food justice, but lack strong con­nections to food pantries. We explore how food pantries and urban gardens could partner to trans­form pantries into distribution sites that also become food justice education and organizing spaces. To assess this potential, we engaged in par­ticipatory action research with a leading social ser­vices provider that offers programs supporting both organized urban gardeners and a large urban food pantry in San Jose, California. We conducted and analyzed 21 interviews with food pantry volun­teers and urban gardeners affiliated with the same agency, and eight interviews with other urban gar­deners and food pantry staff from external organi­zations. We found that while both food pantry vol­unteers and urban gardeners expressed concerns about increasing healthy food access and reducing food waste, pantry volunteers were often unfamil­iar with food justice and uncomfortable talking about race and culturally rooted food preferences. These findings were similar with the informants from external organizations. To support urban gar­dener and food pantry volunteer collaboration, we developed a food justice approach to emergency food assistance and food waste management in which both groups co-create onsite vermicompost­ing infrastructure and partner with a university to design a training program focused on diversity, jus­tice, and systemic change.