The need for more proactive public action
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2025 7:10 am
French public schemes designed to reduce food insecurity exclude targeted cash transfers [3] . However, abroad, various and mature examples demonstrate the effectiveness of this type of scheme in the fight against food insecurity and poverty in general. In the United States, for example, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), created in 1964, enabled 41 million people to benefit from monthly budgetary support of $210 per person on average in 2023, for an annual budget of $8.6 billion (or €8.1 billion) [4] .
In France, the idea of a food voucher has attracted considerable political interest since it was proposed by the Citizens' Climate Convention in 2020. Presented as a new instrument likely to combat food insecurity while strengthening access to quality food, the food voucher aimed to provide monthly assistance of 20 to 30 euros per person to the 7 to 8 million French people in a situation of food insecurity. The idea was finally switzerland phone number list abandoned in early 2024 given its high cost to public finances (between 1.5 billion and 3.5 billion euros per year) by a joint IGF-IGAS mission.
Faced with the urgent need to find solutions to food insecurity, the report puts forward the idea of a food voucher with renewed terms , based on adjusted parameters to be budget-neutral while responding more effectively to identified social needs. Worth 30 euros per month per person, usable in all food outlets, it would be specifically targeted at the purchase of fruits, vegetables and legumes.
This budgetary support would allow the 4 million beneficiaries of food aid to finance the purchase of three portions of fruit and vegetables per day - a significant effort, although limited compared to the five daily portions recommended by the National Nutrition and Health Program (PNNS). [5] The cost of the system is estimated at 1.4 billion euros [6] per year. To finance it, a sugar tax targeting six categories of products with low nutritional value and popular with children [7] is proposed, for revenues estimated at between 560 million euros and 1.2 billion euros, depending on the tax approach chosen [8] . This financing model is based on a virtuous principle: it taxes the consumption of products that are harmful to health while reinvesting the revenues in solidarity food policies.
In France, the idea of a food voucher has attracted considerable political interest since it was proposed by the Citizens' Climate Convention in 2020. Presented as a new instrument likely to combat food insecurity while strengthening access to quality food, the food voucher aimed to provide monthly assistance of 20 to 30 euros per person to the 7 to 8 million French people in a situation of food insecurity. The idea was finally switzerland phone number list abandoned in early 2024 given its high cost to public finances (between 1.5 billion and 3.5 billion euros per year) by a joint IGF-IGAS mission.
Faced with the urgent need to find solutions to food insecurity, the report puts forward the idea of a food voucher with renewed terms , based on adjusted parameters to be budget-neutral while responding more effectively to identified social needs. Worth 30 euros per month per person, usable in all food outlets, it would be specifically targeted at the purchase of fruits, vegetables and legumes.
This budgetary support would allow the 4 million beneficiaries of food aid to finance the purchase of three portions of fruit and vegetables per day - a significant effort, although limited compared to the five daily portions recommended by the National Nutrition and Health Program (PNNS). [5] The cost of the system is estimated at 1.4 billion euros [6] per year. To finance it, a sugar tax targeting six categories of products with low nutritional value and popular with children [7] is proposed, for revenues estimated at between 560 million euros and 1.2 billion euros, depending on the tax approach chosen [8] . This financing model is based on a virtuous principle: it taxes the consumption of products that are harmful to health while reinvesting the revenues in solidarity food policies.