Dignity in Food Aid Logistics Is Also a Knowledge Management and Digital Matter: Three Inspiring Initiatives in France

Abstract

Throughout the world, including in developed countries, the COVID-19 crisis has revealed and accentuated food insecurity. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations clearly defines food security as a situation of not only availability and accessibility but also social acceptability (i.e., adequacy and sustainability). In developed countries, food security remains non-achieved at all. Notably, the so-called “little deprivation” leads the working poor to rely on food aid. We argue that even doing so, they remain food insecure: food aid is socially unacceptable because, despite their work, they are kept away from classical food access paths. In this article, we present the specificities of food aid in France and state some of its limits, namely those associated with the supply chain of donated foodstuffs. We propose a monographic study relying on a mix of firsthand material (six years of fieldwork from students with associations) and secondhand material (analysis of specialized, legal, and activity reports). We describe inspiring initiatives from three French associations and mobilize the recently published analysis of dignity construction in food aid in the United States of America to argue that dignity in food aid logistics is also a knowledge management and digital matter. Indeed, the initiatives of the three considered associations show concretely how knowledge management and digital systems can enhance dignity in food aid logistics.