Food First, also known as the Institute for Food and Development Policy, is an Oakland-based, member-supported, nonprofit, self-described as a "'peoples' think tank and education-for-action center," founded in 1975 by Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins. Aerial view looking west over downtown Oakland, Lake Merritt and the Port of Oakland. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...

Food First supports a bottom-up approach to solving world hunger, asserting the ability of all countries to feed their own people if they would focus on agriculture for subsistence rather than for export. Hunger is applied literally to the need or craving for food; it can also be applied metaphorically to cravings of other sorts. ...

Food First strongly opposes the policies of such "free market" institutions as the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF). As of 2004, Food First is active in the campaign against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). A free market is an idealized market, where all economic decisions and actions by individuals regarding transfer of money, goods, and services are voluntary, and are therefore devoid of coercion and theft (some definitions of coercion are inclusive of theft). Colloquially and loosely, a free market economy is an economy... WTO Logo The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international organization which oversees a large number of agreements defining the rules of trade between its member states (WTO, 2004a). ... Logo of the World Bank The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, in Romance languages: BIRD), better known as the World Bank, is an international organization whose original mission was to finance the reconstruction of nations devastated by WWII. Now, its mission has expanded to fight poverty by means... The flag of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the international organization entrusted with overseeing the global financial system by monitoring foreign exchange rates and balance of payments, as well as offering technical and financial assistance when asked. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Free Trade Area of the Americas or FTAA (in Spanish: Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas, ALCA; in French: Zone de libre-échange des Amériques, ZLEA; in Portuguese: Área de Livre Comércio das Américas, ALCA) is a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce trade barriers among all States...

Food first is also strongly active in opposing US trade rules with the African nation of Nigeria. It claims the current state of trade is crippling the Nigerian economy and that the trade rules "legalise the explotation of Nigeria's natural resources"

• Food First official site