Introduction
Food banks are non-profit organizations that distribute food to those who have difficulty purchasing enough to avoid hunger. The world's first food bank was established in the US in 1967, and since then many thousands have been set up all over the world. In Europe and North America, which until recently had little need for food banks due to extensive welfare systems, their numbers have grown rapidly since the 2006 economic crisis. Rising food and fuel prices and the effects of the economic recession and social welfare reform led to chronic poverty and lack of purchasing power on top of food wastage (Dowler and Lambie-Mumford 2015). As part of this economic recession, food banks challenged by increasing demand have also struggled to raise funds and get community support (Muslim Aid 2010). In Canada in particular, which is the focus of this chapter, food insecurity has become a serious problem during the economic downturn of recent years. It is reported that one in eight households, or 4.5 million people, is food insecure, of which more than 1.2 million are children. In the city of Toronto, 18.5% of the population is food insecure (Tarasuk and Mitchell 2020).1 This is significant given that Canada is the fifth largest agricultural producer in the world and produces and imports more than enough food to feed its population (Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance 2020). Yet, one in seven Canadians is food insecure not because of the non-availability of food, but due to lack of economic access, to food, purchasing power, income, and market infrastructure (Huisken et al. 2017). Thus, as a household's income declines, the risk of food insecurity increases...
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