Editing Food First (section)

==Programs and guiding philosophy==
The organization has three programs that it implements in order to achieve this aim:
# Tackling class and racial inequalities in the agri-foods industry. There is a form of structural racism in the United States, as one study found "there were 30% fewer supermarkets in low-income areas than in higher-income areas, and these low-income areas had 55% less grocery store square footage than their wealthier income counterparts. The study also found that the levels of unmet food demand in these communities were as high as 70%".<ref>{{cite book|last=Holt-Gimenez|first=Eric|title=Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice|year=2009|publisher=Pambazuka Print|location=Cape Town|pages=160}}</ref>  Without an accessible availability of cheap, healthy foods, low-income communities show high levels of diabetes and heart problems. Food First attempts to counter this structural racism by providing information and analysis, helping spread awareness and debate, and by helping create a national coalition of urban communities of color for food security. By studying international economic development and U.S. inequalities and development, Food First is taking a holistic approach that aims to change the way that we view the relationship between access to food and economic development.
# Helping farmers form food sovereignty by creating projects such as The Campesino in Mexico and Central America, and by working with Via Campesina. These groups focus on farmer alternatives to the corporate agrifoods industry, helping farmers educate each other on strategies for alternatives. Food First's strategy emphasizes the farmer's sovereignty and acknowledges their [[self-determination]]. They believe a main flaw of the Green Revolution of the past and of the new Green Revolution is that the transnational institutions that implemented it failed to consult the people that would be affected by it the most, small farmers.<ref>{{cite news|last=Kanyabwoya|first=Damas|title=Tanzania: New Agriculture Plan Ignores Small Farmers|url=http://allafrica.com/stories/201103170045.html|accessdate=6 July 2011|newspaper=The Citizen|date=16 March 2011|via=allAfrica |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Placing power and sovereignty in the hands of the disenfranchised is crucial for development. 
# Empowering farmers by giving them a voice. This program focuses on the structural causes of hunger and poverty, supporting advocacy groups that are against the agrifoods industry and are in support of consumer-led alternatives that allow for "justice, equity and ecological sustainability". Food First helps through projects such as No Full Tanks with Empty Bellies: The Food and Fuel Sovereignty Campaign. This project aims to inform the public about the negative impacts caused by bio-fuels. The spread of advocacy is Food First's key role, providing information that is essential for awareness, debate, and change. Lack of food sovereignty, poverty, and hunger, are all interrelated structural problems that take a collective effort to change; Food First aims to bring this collective together to spark this change.

Food First believes that world hunger is not an inevitable phenomenon that occurs simply because there is not enough food produced worldwide. Instead, it argues that there is an enormous surplus of food produced by corporate agri-businesses based in wealthy developed nations, and this enormous surplus of food is a reflection on broader global inequalities that deeply impact and harm marginalized third-world countries worldwide. While challenging the idea that world hunger exists because there is simply not enough food produced or available, Holz-Gimenez and Patel explain that, "...according to the FAO, with record grain harvests in 2007, there was more than enough food in the world to feed everyone—at least 1.5 times current demand".<ref>{{cite book|last=Holt-Gimenez|first=Eric|title=Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice|year=2009|publisher=Pambazuka Print|location=Cape Town|pages=7}}</ref> Food First argues that world hunger is not caused by food production shortages, and in fact points the blame to systemic causes such as speculation on the market, investments in large-scale GMO farms that have higher input-costs, and the bio-fuels market.<ref>{{cite web|last=Holt-Gimenez|first=Eric|series=Policy Brief No. 16|url=http://www.foodfirst.org/sites/www.foodfirst.org/files/pdf/PB%2016%20World%20Food%20Crisis.pdf|title=The World Food Crisis: What's behind it and what can we do about it|publisher=Foodfirst.org|accessdate=6 July 2011|format=PDF|archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20120905181451/http://www.foodfirst.org/sites/www.foodfirst.org/files/pdf/PB%2016%20World%20Food%20Crisis.pdf|archive-date=5 September 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> By illustrating these ideas, Food First tries to bring to the table a new approach to global hunger that they believe has been largely ignored.

Food First supports a "bottom-up" approach to solving world hunger, asserting the ability of all countries to feed their own people if they focus on agriculture for [[Subsistence agriculture|subsistence]] rather than for export.

Food First strongly opposes the policies of what they deem to be [[free market]] institutions such as the [[World Trade Organization]], [[World Bank]], and [[International Monetary Fund]]. {{As of|2004}}, it is active in the campaign against the proposed [[Free Trade Area of the Americas]].