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The Food Chain

Factual: Food & Drink

Examining what it takes to put food on your plate

The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.

The growth of food banks in Africa

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The Food Chain: The growth of food banks in Africa

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16/02/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, The growth of food banks in Africa

Food banks have arrived in Africa – can they tackle food poverty?

Food banks have operated for decades in North America and Europe. They are generally operated as non profits, connecting food businesses that have waste with individuals, families and charities that need food.  

In 2006 there was just one African food bank in Egypt. A second opened in South Africa in 2009. Today there are around twenty five across the continent. 

In this programme we look at how African countries have adapted food banks to their needs, and hear how they address criticisms that the food bank model itself is flawed when it comes to addressing food poverty.  

We ask Nairobi based reporter Michael Kaloki to spend a day with Food Banking Kenya, and its founder and CEO John Gathungu. Michael visits their warehouse storage, meets small holder farmers donating surplus food, and speaks to women living in some of Nairobi’s informal settlements that rely on food donations. 

Ruth Alexander speaks to Elijah Addo, who founded one of Africa’s first food banks in 2015, Food for All Africa in Ghana. Gaby Kafarhire at The Global FoodBanking Network, based in Chicago in the United States, talks about the particular challenges African food banks face. And researcher Gareth Haysom at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town shares his concerns about the current system. 

Presented by Ruth Alexander. 

Produced by Beatrice Pickup. 

Additional reporting by Michael Kaloki in Nairobi. 

(Image: a food bank worker lifting a crate of vegetables onto a truck. Credit: BBC)

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