Food for Thought

Food security allows a society to flourish

Leah Paley
CEO, Anne Arundel Food Bank

A few weeks ago, as I flipped through the channels to wind down late in the evening, I landed on a National Geographic episode about the Mayan Empire. Honestly, I thought this would help me go right to sleep, but instead it kept me up well into the night.

The narrator explained that the Mayans had the ideal environment to support the growth of plentiful amounts of maize, and it was these conditions that allowed the Mayan civilization to expand and prosper. Then he said something that woke me right up and left me to imagine an array of what-ifs: “With food security comes the ability for culture to flourish.”

Currently, there are an estimated 61,000 people in Anne Arundel County who are experiencing food insecurity. That is 10.5% of our county’s population, up from 8% a year ago. I could not help but wonder, what if every one of our neighbors had consistent access to nourishing food? What if each child growing up in Anne Arundel County went to bed at night well-nourished and arrived at school able to concentrate, absorb new knowledge, and think critically? What could have been accomplished over the years and what future opportunities have they and we as a community lost?

Creativity, problem solving, and invention – the foundations of culture – are all intrinsically linked to food security. And yet, in a community with an abundance of food, one tenth of our county population is burdened with food insecurity resulting in untold lost opportunities for them and for us all.

For a host of reasons, food security for the Mayan people went into decline causing a breakdown in society and ultimately the demise of a once extraordinary civilization and culture. We are certainly far from such a fate in Anne Arundel County. In fact, we hold the collective ability to enact systemic change that reverses our current upward trend in county food insecurity; and I believe with creative thinking, collaborative effort, and informed advocacy, we can eventually put an end to it altogether. Prioritizing food security for all and ensuring individual opportunity, ingenuity, and achievement will serve as an important safeguard far into the future for the flourishing of all our neighbors and this local culture that we all know and love.