Europe
The first European food bank was founded in France during 1984. Similar to the UK, they have become much more common within continental Europe since the crisis that began in 2007, and especially since austerity began to take effect from late 2010. In Spain, demand for food has been such that some have resorted to extra-legal methods to acquire it; in August 2012 the "Robin Hood" mayor Sánchez Gordillo led raids where food was forcibly removed from supermarkets, and later given to food banks. The number of food banks has increased rapidly even in Germany, a country that has weathered the crisis relatively well, and has not needed to implement severe austerity. In 2012, professor Sabine Pfeiffer of Munich University of Applied Sciences said there has been an "explosion" of food bank usage.
Read more about this topic: Food Bank
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors. It’s astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn’t stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“riding flatcars to Fresno,
Across the whole country
Steep towns, flat towns, even New York,
And oceans and Europe & libraries & galleries
And the factories they make rubbers in”
—Gary Snyder (b. 1930)