Beyond food charity to systems change: Pedagogical application of Bertolt Brecht’s poems and songs from plays to the problems of food insecurity and hunger

Background Food security advocates find it difficult to convince Canadians that household food insecurity (HFI) represents a profound public policy crisis that demands action. Much of this is due to the growth of a “Hunger-Industrial Complex” where a vast network of food banks and food diversion schemes give the false impression that these charitable activities are addressing the food insecurity crisis. Attempts to shift Canadians’ understandings through research and advocacy of how these activities do little to reduce HFI and serve to prolong the crisis have been largely ineffective. Purpose We show how the arts and humanities provide means of showing the inadequacies of food charity and direct attention to the systemic issues driving HFI and means of reducing it. In particular we show how poems and songs from plays of German writer Bertolt Brecht that consider the importance of food and the problems associated with charitable food provision can stimulate discussion of how HFI is embedded within existing food production and distribution systems as well as contemporary neoliberal capitalism. Findings These activities may enable more nuanced understandings among food security researchers and advocates and the general public of the true sources of food insecurity, thereby enabling effective actions to reduce it. Conclusion There is a profound need to mobilize the public to have governing authorities place questions of how food is produced and distributed on the public policy agenda. Looking to the arts and humanities for insights into these issues is a promising means of accomplishing this goal.