A community group has called for free school meals for all children and a legislated right to food in its latest campaign.

Bermuda Is Love will run its ZeroHunger drive throughout December in partnership with feeding programmes, charities, farmers and human-rights activists.

The organisations are campaigning for the right to food and the elimination of hunger on the island.

Aaron Crichlow, a cofounder of Bermuda Is Love, said: “We are also urging the Government to help end food poverty by delivering on four key aims:

• Universal free school meals — no child should go to school hungry in Bermuda. We call for free school meals for every child

• Support feeding programmes — feeding programmes provide a workable solution to food poverty. Government should help fund and expand such services that already provide meals to those most in need

• Boost agriculture — the Government must protect and sustain Bermuda’s food security by enabling a robust agricultural and food sector to flourish in Bermuda

• Legislate the right to food — the human right to food must be written into Bermuda law and it must be accompanied by a new food authority that has the legal responsibility for protecting all people in Bermuda from hunger.

He added: “Ultimately, safe, nutritious food is essential for life. It helps us stay strong and healthy, and helps to prevent illness and death.

“Lack of adequate food, on the other hand, leads to health and life expectancy inequality, malnutrition, obesity, and a host of other related problems, including long-term epigenetic changes, and can affect children’s educational attainment and life chances.

“While there is more than enough food in the world to feed every human being, food distribution and access is not always equal or equitable.

“The result is that not everyone has access to enough food to sustain themselves.

“In Bermuda, food insecurity is a product of socio-economic inequality, where people may not have enough money to purchase the healthy foods that they need.

“Food insecurity is also a product of an unsustainable global food system that treats food as a commodity and not as a human right.”

Mr Crichlow said: “Bermuda Is Love believes that hunger can be eliminated and that the right to food and to be free of hunger must be enshrined in law, so that everyone is legally protected from hunger, as we all need food to survive.

“The right to food is not about charity; it is about solidarity and equality.

“It is about ensuring that we are all equally free to live in dignity, free from hunger, insecurity and want. And it is about all people working together as a community to ensure that all persons are able to feed themselves in dignity.

“The full realisation of food as a human right requires a cultural shift in the way that food is produced, valued, regulated, distributed and sold in Bermuda.

“It requires a change of mindset that recognises that food should not be produced solely for profit but that it should be produced primarily for feeding society, so that no one has to worry about where their next meal is going to come from.”

The ZeroHunger campaign will include a series of events at feeding programmes across the island as well as a food drive, school assembly presentation, free school breakfast, free food giveaway and an informational farming tour.