Food First

The Basic Idea

Food First was an approach to community development which gained attention a few years ago. Its basic thesis is that the appropriate feeding of the world is not only a prime necessity, it is also a prime on-ramp to the host of other issues which plague our human community.

This priorizing approach reminds me of the way that logjams are broken up on a river. Logjams are created when a snag in the river stops a log which is being transported down it. soon other logs pile up behind it and pretty soon there are a couple of miles of logs all jammed up. Rather than try to pick apart this integrated mess, workers look for the snag which started the backup in the first place. The snag is blown with dynamite, the rest of the logs are then allowed to wash away down the river , and the strays are fetched off the bank. In this case, the snag is seen to be the improper approach to food production and distribution in the world. Deal with that issue, the promoters of this approach claim, and many of the rest of the problems will get dealt with.

One of the primary concerns of this approach is the appropriate distribution of nutritious food, particularly protein. Much of their literature focuses on this aspect. This is a focus on adequate nutrition rather than "food" a such.

Another concern of this group is the over-consumption of protein in the first world and the under-consumption of it in the "third world".

This approach has a great deal to commend it:

Off-Line Resources

Lappe, Frances Moore. and Joseph Collins. Food First - Beyond the Myth of Scarcity. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977.
This sequel to Diet for a Small Planet addresses the issue of scarcity and distribution of food, and the myth of "hunger due to scarcity"

Lappe, Frances Moore. Diet or a Small Planet. New York, Ballantine Books,
This is Frances' first book on the subject of Food First. This book deals primarily with the protein issue of world hunger and how our personal handling of this issue is intimately tied in with the resolution of this larger issue.

Ewald, Ellen Buchman. Recipes for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1973.
This book is a supplement to Diet for a Small Planet and is totally integrated with it. It takes the theory from Diet and makes it practical for those starting out on this journey into development in the larger World Community through the "food First" approach.

On-line Resources