ANZTSR 2014 Recounting food banking: A paradox of counterproductive growth

The meteoric rise of food bank use in times of prosperity leads us to argue that food banks are institutionalised within New Zealand society with texts reflecting civic, market and domestic discourses. In the current approach to food distribution to those in need, money and resources increasingly go into a food bank system that may increase dependency or co-dependency and do not lead to increased food security for the vulnerable and hungry.Yet we recognise that these responses to inequality are at the same time putting food into homes that regularly go without. We posit that the place for food banks in a socially just Aotearoa must be one of emergency food assistance only.