Everyone has the right to FOOD
Food is a universal human right. It is one of the foundations people need to live well. By protecting it, we can build fairer systems, reduce inequalities, and ensure everyone has access to the food they need to live with dignity.
What is the right to food?
No one should have to worry about whether they can afford to eat, skip meals to make ends meet, or rely on emergency food aid. But right now, millions of people across the UK face exactly these challenges.
Everyone has the right to food – and the support to achieve it .
It doesn’t have to be this way. These experiences are not inevitable. They are shaped by choices about how our systems are designed, funded and implemented.
The right to food is guaranteed in international law. It’s part of article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – the right to an adequate standard of living. The UK Government ratified ICESCR in 1976 and in doing so agreed to abide by the rights in it.
Like all economic, social and cultural rights, the right to food helps set the standards people should be able to rely on. It turns access to food from something left to chance, charity or circumstance into a responsibility that decision-makers must take seriously.
Everyone has the right to adequate food and the means to access it. The right to food is not simply about preventing hunger. It is about ensuring everyone can access food that is affordable, nutritious, culturally appropriate and sustainable.
Food is one of the foundations of a strong society. Like housing, healthcare, education and decent work, it helps create the conditions people need to live healthy, secure and fulfilling lives.
In practice, the right to food means:
- Everyone can access enough food to live a healthy and dignified life
- Food is available, accessible, adequate and sustainable for everyone, no matter who they are or where they live
- Governments and those in charge create the conditions that make food security possible, including adequate incomes, fair working conditions, social security and affordable housing
- Food systems respect people’s health, dignity, culture and the environment, for current and future generations
- People can hold decision-makers accountable when systems fail to provide the foundations they need to live well.
When these foundations are strong, people can thrive. When they are not, people experience food insecurity, poorer health and reduced quality of life, and this harm is avoidable avoidable.
Why stronger protections are needed now?
Across the UK, millions of people are struggling to access adequate food.
- Parents are skipping meals so their children can eat.
- Food bank use remains at record levels.
- Families are forced to choose between heating and eating.
- Fresh fruit, vegetables and other nutritious foods are increasingly unaffordable for many households.
- Disabled people, single-parent families and people on low incomes face disproportionate barriers to accessing food.
- Many people cannot access food that meets their cultural, religious or dietary needs.
These are not isolated experiences. People’s everyday experiences show where systems are failing and where change is needed.
Food insecurity is not the result of individual choices or personal failure. It reflects decisions about wages, social security, housing costs, public services and how our food system operates.
Protecting the right to food would help shift the focus from emergency responses towards prevention, accountability and dignity. A legal right to food would create clear standards, strengthen accountability, and help ensure decision-makers take action when systems are failing.
Change happens when we act together. By protecting the right to food, we can build systems grounded in human rights, dignity and equality, so everyone can rely on the foundations they need to live well.
Our work in the community
We believe that everyone should be able to access food in ways that respect their dignity, health and independence, and that the people most affected by rights violations should be at the centre of creating solutions. Through our Human Rights in the Community programme, we work with charities and grassroots organisations to support them to develop and embed human rights-based approaches that help make this a reality.
One example of this is our partnership with Quaker Social Action’s Cook Up project, which provides free access to kitchen spaces for those who need them. We are proud to have co-developed a human rights-based toolkit that shares practical learning from the project around developing dignified responses to food insecurity. The toolkit aims to help other organisations develop community food projects that not only meet immediate needs but also promote people’s rights and challenge the systems that drive food insecurity.
What does a right to food look like in practice?
The right to food is requires governments and authorities to create the conditions in which everyone can access adequate, nutritious, culturally appropriate and affordable food with dignity.
In practice, this means ensuring that people have sufficient income to afford food through an adequate social security system, decent wages and secure employment. It means reducing the need for emergency food aid by addressing the underlying causes of food insecurity, including poverty, inadequate housing costs and insecure work. A rights-based approach also requires action to ensure food is physically accessible, including through planning decisions, transport links and local food infrastructure.
The right to food also requires particular attention to groups at greater risk of food insecurity. This includes ensuring that all children can access nutritious food at school, expanding free school meal provision, and guaranteeing that food provided in schools, hospitals, prisons and care settings is nutritious, culturally appropriate and responsive to dietary requirements. It also means ensuring that disabled people, older people and those living in temporary accommodation have the facilities and support necessary to prepare and access food independently.
To realise the right to food, the UK should set measurable targets to reduce food insecurity, establish clear lines of accountability across government, and address the interconnected issues that affect people’s ability to access food, including social security, housing, public health, agriculture, planning and environmental sustainability.
right to Food Resources
Read submissions to the Right to Food UK Commission from Just Fair, the Lived Experience Advisory Group and the UK ESCR Network
Read our recent blogs on the right to food here.
Download the United Nations Fact Sheet on the Right to Adequate Food