Food banks and food insecurity: cases of Brazil and Turkey

Abstract

The ascendency of global neoliberal economic policies seriously challenged universalist and right-based welfare policies and promoted the idea of targeted and selective allocations to the poor with private provision for the better of in both high-income and developing countries since the mid-1980s. This article focuses on food banking as an example of targeted social provisioning and provides contrasting observations from food bank programs in Brazil and Turkey. The article traces some different approaches and practices of food banks, and argues that food banks could be part of the progressive social policies that address the root causes of hunger among developing countries within neoliberal economic restructuring.