Derek Lin on Health Equity

What is health equity and how does it relate to food systems?  Derek Lin, a policy analyst at New Mexico Voices for Children, joins Sophia to share his perspective on using an equity lens to think about and address food insecurity. 

Show Notes: 

3:20 The "gut microbiome" or gut flora or gut microbiota are the microorganisms including bacteria, archaea and fungi that live in the digestive tracts of humans and other animals including insects. 

3:50 the “Map the Meal Gap 2019” annual report from Feeding America found that 1 in 4 children experience food insecurity in New Mexico, the highest indices of childhood hunger in the nation. https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/new-mexico

15:50 SNAP aka the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, provides nutrition benefits to food insecure families. 

17:35 TANF aka Temporary Assistance for Needy Families operates differently state by state and supports a variety of programs that are aimed at helping income insecure families achieve more self-sufficiency. 

18:35 Under the Trump administration, the "Public Charge" rule has been interpreted broadly and used widely to  reduce the number of people eligible for green cards and other visas in the United States and has consequently made benefits such as SNAP increasingly inaccessible to immigrant populations. https://www.inquirer.com/news/immigration-trump-hunger-food-stamps-public-charge-20200301.html

19:55 Households do not reach food security through access to maximum amount of benefits. The shortfall of these programs is clearly illustrated through numbers: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/27/912486921/food-insecurity-in-the-u-s-by-the-numbers

23:44 Research has been done on how the working families tax refund would reduce childhood poverty and hunger significantly https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/working-families-tax-relief-act-would-raise-incomes-of-46-million-households#:~:text=The%20credit%20is%20refundable%2C%20meaning,%2C%20property%2C%20and%20other%20taxes.

Expanding low income comprehensive tax rebates and creating a fairer tax system is another policy solution to systemic poverty and food insecurity that NM Voices advocates for. Check out their factsheet: https://www.nmvoices.org/archives/12292

25:10 https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/opinion/2020/10/21/addressing-new-mexicos-food-and-water-insecurity-critical/6002366002/

31:00 Food sovereignty, a term coined in 1996 by members of Via Campesina, an international farmers' organization, asserts that the people who produce, distribute, and consume food should control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution.

Learn more about how the New Mexico Out-of-School Network is fighting hunger through OST at our website NMOST.org. The music for this podcast was made by Rock Violinist, Adam Degraff, you can follow him and check out his music at adamviolin.com.