How to talk about food poverty

How to talk about food poverty was created for Safefood – to help anyone communicating about food poverty on the island of Ireland to frame their communications consistently and effectively.

Research commissioned by Safefood in 2023-24 identified the need for a shared way of talking about food poverty among advocates on the island of Ireland. This guide introduces tools and evidence-based recommendations to help advocates build understanding and support, and avoid triggering unhelpful ways of thinking.

 Recommendations in brief

1. Spell out what ‘food poverty’ really means
   We need to be explicit and clear, whenever we communicate about food poverty, that it is about people not being able to access and afford enough healthy food. This will ensure we are not assuming knowledge or asking people to interpret for themselves.
   
   
2. Make a moral case for action
   When we appeal to deeply held values of compassion and justice, we establish
   a shared reason to care and show why addressing food poverty matters. This combination of compassion and justice is about calling out what is not right, and naming the systemic changes we need to address inequalities. Grounding our case
   in compassion and justice allows us tap into more collective, ‘can do’ thinking.

3. Explain how food poverty happens
   How we explain problems sets up the solutions to them. Explaining the systemic causes of food poverty sets up the case for systemic solutions. While the existence
   of poverty – and food poverty – is widely accepted, we need to build public understanding of how poverty happens, and the shortcomings in our food system that both cause and exacerbate food poverty.

4. Show how food poverty impacts people’s lives
   We need to build understanding that the impact of food poverty goes beyond hunger and show how it impacts people’s physical and mental health, and other aspects of life. Instead of just ‘telling’ people that food poverty impacts people’s lives in these ways, we need to use explanation to ‘show’ people how. When we explain in this way, it leaves no space for food poverty to be minimised.

5. Embed solutions into communications
   For people to get behind change, they need to believe that it is possible as well as necessary. To achieve this, we need to spell out the solutions to food poverty that we are advocating for – from upstream measures and changes in policy that would prevent it from happening in the first place, to support in our communities that can alleviate food poverty now. We need to share examples of what works, and name who has the power to make these changes. We need to do this upfront and often.

This guide draws on insights from FrameWorks UK’s research on framing poverty, children’s health and food, and the wider determinants of health. The research was conducted in the UK, including participants from Northern Ireland. We have observed comparable communications challenges in Ireland – and similar framing strategies to those found to be helpful in the UK are likely to be helpful here. Further research in Ireland would be helpful to further develop our recommendations for application in Ireland.