In our modern industrial food system, many, if not most American consumers are completely disconnected from where they get their food. Produce and fresh food simply appear in the grocery store year-round, usually regardless of the season or how many miles it traveled to end up there. I, like most of us, have become very used to this system and I have learned not to question it. Yet, we all know that food does not grow itself and when we think more critically about why we can eat fresh bananas in December or juicy red tomatoes in January, the perfect picture of a well-stocked grocery store becomes a little blurred. Anyone who has ever tried to grow any kind of edible plant can probably tell you that it is not easy and that there is a significant amount of time and effort invested in keeping it alive and healthy. And yet, although we all logically know that producing food takes an immense amount of work, especially at an industrial scale, we rarely talk about or acknowledge those who do it. So, who does it?
Well, it is an open secret that the vast majority of farmworkers are undocumented immigrants and leaders in the agriculture industry estimate that close to 75 percent of all farmworkers in the United States are undocumented. Their undocumented status allows for rampant exploitation because workers are in constant fear of deportation. So, the lives of farmworkers tend to go unregulated and unnoticed as they grow food for the country. The town of Immokalee, Florida is a microcosm of this dynamic because the overwhelming majority of residents are farmworkers who work in the nearby tomato fields. However, something that sets Immokalee apart is the story of how its farmworker population came together to combat the exploitation they were facing and advocate for their rights and safety. In the face of so many obstacles, they have seen great success. You can hear the rest of this story now by listening to my podcast on the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.
This podcast covers important conversations related to supermarket redlining, food apartheids, and food deserts, with a specific focus on the effects of these. We discuss how systematic racism drives disproportionate access to food which can culminate into situations like the death of David McAtee in Louisville last June. We bring in a combination of news sources, interviews, statistics, and scholarly work to effectively communicate the history of these three terms, how we see them today, and how they can negatively impact the health of the environment, public, and community as whole. We segue from discussing just what these terms are, their origins, and their critiques into more of a discussion of McAtee’s death and community. There is also heavy emphasis on the role of race in food injustices and supermarket redlining, by discussing how the predominantly black Louisville is a food apartheid with overall poorer economic and health indicators compared to the predominantly white Jefferson County just twenty minutes away. After establishing this background and analysis, the station will introduce guest speaker Lauren Phillips-Jackson, the Pepper Prize finalist whose research examines Food Access and Activism in Racialized Communities in Chicago. This allowed us to draw comparisons between Louisville and Chicago in efforts to show the scope of the issue. The conversation, from there, transitions into these similarities and the effects of the issue, as well as what Isaiah and Charlotte see as potential solutions to this issue, one of which was bringing in the story of Garden Girls, a restaurant also in Louisville to address the food apartheid and how incentivizing small, community-rooted businesses is potentially an effective option. We discuss these points, among many others, on Eaters with Ethics – tune in now for more.
Farm-to-School (F2S) programs are supported by a variety of organizations including the USDA and the National Farm to School Network. F2S is broadly defined as program initiatives that enrich the connection communities have with fresh, healthy food and local food producers by changing food purchasing and educational practices at schools. Some common examples of F2S programming include school gardens, local food options in the cafeteria, and field trips to a local farm. The nature of these programs and the flexibility given to schools in implementing them makes it difficult to accurately assess their effectiveness; the first systematic review of F2S related activities was recently published in 2019. In 2015, the USDA ran a census in which participating schools were assessed for their involvement in F2S programming, and the magnitude in which they were implementing these programs. In this census report, schools were able to decide what they considered to be “local.” School districts in more rural areas may consider local foods to be grown within the region, while urban areas may consider local foods to be within 50-100 miles since they do not have access to large-scale farmland. While F2S is beneficial at all grade levels, it is arguably most important at a young age, especially grades K-5. During this developmental period, it is important for children to be exposed to healthy eating habits and prevent risk of obesity and other health issues once they are older. However, it is important that obesity is not the main motivation behind F2S programs. Overall, the purpose of F2S is to provide pathways for people to support local farms and make healthy decisions for generations to come.
Karen Washington was born in 1956 in New York city. Growing up in the projects, her family did not have that much money during her childhood. She attended Hunter College and graduated with a degree in physical therapy. She then went to graduate school at New York University, where she graduated with a masters degree in applied biodynamics and ergonomics in 1981. From there, she took up a career in physical therapy, and in 1985, moved from Manhattan to the Bronx. In 1988, she started her first community garden with her neighbor at the time, making good use of the empty land across from her apartment. Over the next 10 years, she created a coalition of community gardens called “La Familia Verde community coalition” and started a weekly farmers market. Washington was always interested in more than just food, and in an interview stated, “What urban gardening and farming is, what it does, is more than just growing food. There’s a culture behind it, there’s a story behind it.”(Altamirano 2016). To her, it was about the experience as well as the product, as she became deeply involved in the urban gardening experience. Through this, she became more involved in the topics of food apartheid as a whole. She ended up founding her own farm in upstate New York called Rise and Root farm, where she grows her own vegetables, but still continues to care for her garden in New York. In more recent years, she has quit her job as a physical therapist to focus on urban farming, activism, and working through issues like food apartheid. She has shown throughout the years that she cares deeply about her community and providing them with the food that they need to live healthy lives.
Food hubs are a centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of regionally produced food products. By coordinating these activities, small and mid-sized producers gain entry into new and additional markets that would be difficult or impossible to access on their own. Plus, food hubs simplify the farmer’s distribution process as they are selling to a single entity, rather than individual people or locations, so they can spend more time farming and less time on managerial tasks.
There are a number of key features in successful food hubs. First, food hubs must be financially viable. It is important that food hubs do not buy more space or produce than they are able to sell and that they are able to meet their financial goals in a timely fashion. Second, food hubs must prioritize the well-being of the farmers they are partnering with. There is no food hub without a supply of food, so the farmers needs must be met for the food hub to be successful. Third, while food hubs are a relatively new innovation, there are many sprinkled across the United States, so successful food hubs should utilize the community of alternative food strategies as a resource. This allows them to learn from others’ successes and not repeat their mistakes. While CSAs, farmers markets, and food hubs all work to connect consumers with locally sourced food, food hubs allow for resources and responsibilities to be shared. Food hubs are not necessarily replacing community gardens and farmers markets but are instead supplementing their initiatives and providing an often mutually beneficial strategy for both farmers and larger scale consumers. Recently, the concept of a food hub is being altered and applied to other areas of the food industry. Ghost kitchen food hubs are popping up around the country and are providing chefs a communal space to start and expand their businesses with less capital requirements. Food hubs are not always the right strategy in every community but are a promising tool in the portfolio of alternative food strategies challenging industrial agriculture.
Our primary goal when writing this podcast was to try and give a brief overview of who Vandana Shiva is and what she has done. Neither of us knew too much about her to begin with, so an important thing to keep in mind is there is much more to learn about her and her endeavors than we have discussed in this particular episode. In a nutshell, she is a successful activist in bioethics, biodiversity, and food sovereignty (among other things, though those are where her primary efforts lie). We begin first with a bit on her background and growing up in India. Continuing onto her accomplishments, books, and successes as an activist, we talk mostly about her work towards food sovereignty. We also thought it was worth mentioning the challenges to her credibility that have been brought up in the past, and while we by no means discredit her or her work it’s of note to talk about.
Finally, we interviewed Lisa Miskelly for her opinion, as a small farmer with an abundance of knowledge on the topic of farming, GMOs, and food. We discuss Shiva’s influence, patenting GMOs, and GMOs themselves, especially in relation to Shiva’s hard anti-GMO stance which she has made abundantly clear over the years at various talks, interviews, and in her books. While this episode was mainly aimed at educating and informing rather than persuading, we concluded somewhat ambiguously that food sovereignty is an extremely difficult topic to ‘solve,’ albeit no one solution is one hundred percent perfect or correct.
This profile is about the Easton Urban Farm, located on the South Side of Easton, PA. The farm is a part of the Easton Area Neighborhood Center, a non-profit that helps to combat hunger and poverty. Through an interview with the farm manager, Mark Reid, and a reflective conversation after, we learn about the function of the farm within the Easton community, how the community is involved with the farm, and the farm’s connection to the neighboring food pantry.
We discuss the difficulty of funding for urban farm and community garden programs, and Mark offers some future visions for where he might see the farm heading in the coming years. Mark also shares how coronavirus impacted both the farm and the pantry. We found this part of the discussion to be especially important in understanding how our current food system perpetuates unequal food access through fragile distribution systems.
Through the stories of some Easton residents and their cultural roots we also highlight some of the inconsistencies in the power of the community to decide how the urban farm functions for them, and Mark offers some exciting ideas for future programs aimed at increasing direct community involvement.
We end the episode by talking about the potential political power that Food Banks have in terms of addressing poverty, and by proxy, hunger. We hope that this profile shows a community program that is unique and successful in its farm to pantry model that fights hunger, food waste, and engages the community. We also hope this profile informs other communities as a model for urban farming and also inspires political action with these programs. To learn more please visit the Easton Urban Farm’s website and or Instagram page and consider volunteering your time to provide fresh vegetables for the community.
In this podcast we look at how Rowen White of the Mohawk community of Akwesasne is a leader in the seed sovereignty movement. As a farmer, seedkeeper, garden mentor, published author, creative intuitive, and more, White uses seed saving (where one saves the seeds from food grown for later planting) as an act of radical decolonization, or as she frames itre-indigenizing of the food system. We delve into the importance of seed saving as described by White herself, which focuses on the role seed keeping plays in storytelling and cultural preservation, as well as being a way to increase access to food. As we discuss the ideals that define seed keeping- storytelling, cultural preservation, abundance, and increasing access and autonomy around food- we explain how the act is inherently anti-capitalist and is working against the dominant system. In all her activism, White works to shift the conversation towards positive change, using terminology like re-indigenizing and rematriation to center conversations and set clear goals for how we can return land to its original stewards and inherent femininity. Rowen White lives her work, and she enacts it in many organizations and programs, a few to mention are Sierra Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange, the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network, and Permaculture Programs for Women Farmers. In this podcast you will also hear about some of the other organizations out there working towards seed sovereignty; such as True-Love seeds in Philadelphia; the work of Vandana Shiva, whose words have spread across the globe; or on a smaller local scale, Monocacy Farm. All of this culminates to show how seed saving is being practiced as an act of radical re-indigenizing, highlighting Rowen White as a leader in the movement.
Raj Patel is a food systems activist and academic who has challenged conventional ways of thinking about food systems, capitalism, and democracy. He was born and raised in London and spent much of his childhood in the corner store that his parents ran. His mother is from Kenya and his father is from Fiji, and his ancestors come from India. He has worked in many academic fields including sociology, politics, and economics all of which have helped him shape his unique perspective on the world. He can be found giving interviews on the news, giving lectures in class at the University of Texas, featured in as well as co-directing documentaries, he frequently writes articles for The Guardian and The Atlantic, and he has published several novels on the perils of the food system. He is an excellent speaker, equal parts academic and quick with a joke, he makes the heavy topic of world hunger and poverty feel hopeful, with reform in sight. He has worked for organizations such as the UN, the World Bank, and the International Trade Organization, and now protests all three. His political alignments have anarchist tendencies in the sense that he believes there must be a complete overhaul of our current “free market” economy, which has been moving more and more towards a monopoly, according to Patel. His work is always centered around social justice, and recognizes this as key to addressing root causes of inequality. He does not believe in temporary band-aid solutions, and to him, capitalism is simply a band aid solution: a way of organizing society and valuing things that cannot last forever. Patel uses his platform to travel the world and highlight those who are already moving away from our current global food system, and towards a more local, sustainable, and equitable food system.
The podcast I recorded is about Marion Nestle and how she has struck change in the food industry of the United States. Marion is an academic who has dedicated her life to extensive research on how food relates to health, and how the food industry is acting in its own best interest, rather than that of its consumers. She is passionate about getting education to the public on how the food industry really works, and what a healthy lifestyle should look like. Nestle implemented a food studies program at New York University, and inspired many other institutions to do the same. This podcast touches on her influence in the food industry, and includes clips of Marion talking on a podcast episode with Jack Stafford. She explains to Jack where the issues in our current food system have developed from, and what she thinks people don’t truly understand about the deceit involved when companies are marketing and selling products. Nestle also talks about the obesity problem in the current United States. Food is much more prominent and available in our lives today than it ever was before, and many people don’t have the knowledge to make healthy choices for themselves. This podcast provides an insight into the truth behind what is marketed to the public in regards to food, and gives a baseline of information to inspire people to do more research on healthy choices. Propaganda can be powerful, but with the right tools and knowledge, people can become aware of what is actually true, and see through the marketing gimmicks of companies and officials. After listening to this podcast, you will find yourself inspired to put more thought into your food choices.
Climate change and global warming continue to be at the forefront as population growth and energy consumption continues to increase globally. A large majority of energy is still sourced from non renewable fossil fuels which emit greenhouse gases, an extremely non sustainable practice. Although many solutions have been enacted to reduce fossil fuels, such as renewable energies, society needs to adopt ways to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well.
The 2020 documentary, Kiss the Ground, introduced ways of using soil and regenerative agriculture to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Regenerative agriculture keeps soil healthy, and healthy soil holds carbon. Industrial farming, the dominant way that the United States grows crops, practices monocropping, pesticides, tilling, and other practices that dry out the soil. Dry and unhealthy soil can’t hold carbon but rather releases it, further contributing to climate change. Therefore, the film worked to educate on how to use regenerative practices to fix this. The film was a success, winning several awards and praise from The New York Times’ which says that the film “Inspires a rare feeling of hope.” It included ecologists such as Allen Savory and Paul Hawkens and well known American performers such as Woody Harrelson, Ian Somerhalder and Jason Mraz. It was educational, hopeful, and inspiring.
Then why has it faced so much criticism? Isn’t science science? It is important to think about who is presenting these discoveries and getting credit for them. Kiss the Ground, as well as many climate and holistic farming scientists, claim their own innovation in this field. However, it is important to wonder where these ideas actually came from. By answering this question, can the solutions to global warming and problems facing society be more effectively solved through expanding one’s worldview? Does society need more than Savory and Hawkens to save it?
This podcast is about the San Francisco Chronicle food critic, Soleil Ho, who has previous experience in restaurants, food writing, and podcasts to bring progressive ideas to her reviews. As the grandchild of Vietnamese immigrants, Soleil had a variety of traditionally cooked Vietnamese food growing up while also being influenced by American food ways. With one step between both doors, Soleil is able to shed light on the racism and misogyny within the food industry through her written and spoken work. She encourages people to think critically about the food they choose to consume; not just what it tastes like, but also who is cooking it? Where are you eating? What is happening behind the scenes that led up to what you have on your plate? As she, herself, navigates new places and meets new people, she works to pull back the curtain for us to easily see. Soleil Ho is a master at starting conversation and creating new ways of thinking in people who care to see evolution and change.
As you listen, try to think back to your experiences in restaurants and see how Soleil’s connections and ideas are evident in everyday encounters. Part of understanding the complicated intersectionality of food and race, gender, and class, is to realize that we are not so far removed from directly impacting the future of these connections. I also wanted to acknowledge some of the other voices involved in this movement, not just Soleil Ho. There are so many other people of color within the food industry who are using their platforms to bring ideas of race, gender, and class justice into mainstream media, making these important conversations more commonplace. Awareness and education are the first steps to creating change and shifts in cultural ideals and, despite some resistance, I think we are definitely headed in the right direction with strong individuals constantly pushing the bar. The only thing we need now is one giant collective effort
In this podcast, I discuss Asian American food media personality and chef, David Chang, and his impact on the food world. Chef Chang is not a traditional chef by any means; his voice in the food world has been well documented, especially in ensuring Asian food is not whitewashed for an American market. He had many jobs before becoming a chef, but always loved food and its meaning to him; his food is his life and he takes pride in everything he does. Chang has seen a great amount of success with his Momofuku restaurants and has been featured in shows like Ugly Delicious, where he voices his raw opinions. However, his anger has been well documented to the point where Chang called it his calling card; in recent years, Chang has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. Chang’s anger has also been a point of concern for how he’s treated his employees in the past; former employees have come out criticizing Chang for the toxic work environment he contributed to. I intend the reader to understand a complicated figure within the food world, but understand that his career isn’t over; Chef Chang has committed to change his behaviors and keeps an open conversation about the toxicity in the restaurant business. I believe that he shouldn’t be shut down because of his past actions, especially if he truly regrets his behavior and if we are now considering his mental illnesses. Chang represents a change in food culture as he promotes the idea that food has stories and brings freedom, which has been a part of our class this semester. Chang uses food as a language to converse about different cultures and hear more stories from people; this allows us to find freedom with food and bond with more people. David Chang has used his platform for more productive discussions on bringing more variety and people in the types of food we eat every day. Ultimately, Chang’s role in the food world is one full of passion and desire to include more voices in America’s food preferences and media.
This profile is about the international Movement and what they stand for and represent. The important social issues regarding gender, race, and social class as well as the basic Campesino lifestyle issues such as land and water rights. I think it’s important to show that the organization aims to highlight and make these issues heard but there are also other significant things that I hope the audience can get out of this.
I think an important and fascinating thing to take away from the profile is the collective agency and unity shown by the diverse and expansive peasants of the world. The fact that groups from 81 different countries and backgrounds are able to unify and attack this one issue that oppresses them is fascinating and inspiring. To me, this kind of broke my limit of what I thought could be possible and realistic. It shows that challenging these oppressive and harmful structures/institutions are realistic even for the countryside peasant who has never owned an iPhone or had access to running water.
Another thing I hope that the audience can get out of the profile is the comprehension that not everyone needs or wants to live this modernized twenty-first century lifestyle. The harmful idea that People of the land are these poor lower-class individuals and need modernity to save and elevate their lifestyles when this far from reality. I want the audience to see that organizations like La Via Campesina aim to celebrate and promote the peasant lifestyle. The only thing that they desire is to live La Via Campesina without exploitation or struggle caused by the hegemonic nature of Neoliberalism.
This podcast discusses The Seed Farm located in Emmaus, PA that works to provide incoming farmers with a proper education about farming and especially how to run a business. By leasing them land, technology, and guidance, The Seed Farm is able to create the next generation of farmers all of whom are prepared with the necessary qualifications and resources to buy their own land and be successful once graduating. The Seed Farm was “initially developed by Lehigh County and Penn State Cooperative Extension with the support of a three-year USDA grant,” having the primary goal of supporting farmland preservation through guiding the next generation of farmers (The Seed Farm, n.d.). The organization believes that this is what the future of farming will entail. Discussing different perspectives, like administrators, graduates, and current incubators, and the different benefits produced by The Seed Farm, this podcast dives deeply into how this path can lead us to a future food system focused on inclusivity, locality, and especially environmental preservation in and around the Lehigh Valley. To get to this future food system, one must consider a variety of factors besides just the food. The Seed Farm does this and more through focusing on the business side of farming where farmers are able to build up “capital, credit history, … and to have a customer base” for when they are able to become successful independent farmers (Torres, 2020). By ensuring access to the necessary resources to start a farm, The Seed Farm is leading the way in alleviating any barriers that can prevent people from creating their own business. As the structure of farming impacts our present-day food system, we are left to wonder if this is the start of a better food system nation-wide.
Ron Finley, the self-proclaimed gangsta gardener, refers to Genesis of the Bible, emphasizing that we all come from gardens. In this way, Finley practices an evangelical way of life, preaching urban gardening and curbside beautification to all. While it was no small feat to capture Finley’s contagious personality, I worked to carefully craft a narrative that both informed and inspired listeners to get their shovels and plant some sh*t.
After a snippet of Finley’s multi-million view TED Talk, I start by talking about his leadership style and what it represents for his community. Partially inspired by the Ella Baker quote “strong people don’t need strong leaders”, I highlight Finley’s commitment to community empowerment and providing the resources he can to encourage collective resiliency. After Finley’s TED Talk rose to such acclaim, he found himself in a precarious position needing to balance a national platform and maintaining his community-oriented work, a fine line he walks well.
As I turn to discuss Finley’s mission, I bring in another voice to the conversation. Chris Good and I discuss Finley’s commitment to action and how his constant doing provides a sense of urgency for the rest of his community to grab their shovels. We also transition into exploring the accessibility of Finley’s message as he argues that anyone—regardless of socioeconomic status or material possessions—can play a role in their own food system. There is a caveat, however, to this inclusivity. Finley uses the term “food prison” in lieu of “food desert”, yet this still seems to go along with Karen Washington’s thoughts that these terms limit the ability for potential when in reality they are often urban centers ripe with possibilities. Before wrapping up the podcast and encouraging my listeners to go plant some sh*t, I explore how his work has transitioned since the onset of the pandemic, garnering a new set of subscribers to Finley’s infectious and effective message. And despite many considering his ideas to be “radical”, which would suggest that are overly progressive or potentially unattainable, I argue that the idea of growing one’s own food and having that sense of autonomy over one’s consumption patterns should be normalized, not radicalized. Finley doesn’t see himself as an underdog, and his “diabolical [but secret] plans to save the world” might just be enough to help us re-envision our food systems.
Final Project – Leah Penniman & Soul Fire Farm Profile
This one page document will serve as an abstract overview of my profile of Leah Penniman and Soul Fire Farm. Leah Penniman is a Co – Founder, and the Co – Director and Farm Manager at Soul Fire Farm in Albany, New York. She has a wide range of leadership roles at the farm, including international solidarity work, speaking, and writing, as well as farmer training, perennial care, farm labor, and soil quality (Soul Fire Farm, Penniman, 2021). Penniman has worked as a food sovereignty activist and soil steward for over 20 years. She has worked on a number of farms and projects, including the Food Project, Farm School, Youth Grow, and Many Hands Organic Farm, as well as internationally in Mexico, Ghana, and Haiti (Soul Fire Farm, Penniman, 2021). Penniman is also an author. Her book, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation of the Land, was published in 2018. The book’s purpose is to serve as a guide to sustainable food and farming, and to “find, buy, and make productive, sustainable use of land in accordance with traditions and in a manner that prioritizes healing and dignity.” (Bierend, 2018). It describes the nuts and bolts of sustainable agriculture, such as preserving food, crop rotation, and using raised terraces and beds, combined with Penniman’s research into the origins of common sustainable practices. She was inspired by conversations with Karen Washington (who later became a mentor) and by her own realization that farming techniques that are considered sustainable, modern, and of European origins in current times, such as permaculture and agroforestry, often actually have roots in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) agricultural practices that can be traced back to multiple continents and hundreds of years (Bierend, 2018).
Penniman identities as a Black Kreyol person. She experienced racist and ruthless bullying as one of the few Black students in her schools (Boscamp, 2019). One of her coping mechanisms was to spend time in the forest in order to feel peace and connection to the land (Boscamp, 2019). In addition, Leah identifies as a genderqueer/multigender person. Penniman’s experiences with racism, marginalization, systemic oppression, and other forms of discrimination have informed and shaped her outlook on life, morals, her goals for SFF, and her activism.
Soul Fire Farm was founded in 2010 by Leah Penniman and her husband Jonah Vitale – Wolff with the goal of “reclaim(ing) our inherent right to belong to the earth and have agency in the food system as Black and Brown people (Soul Fire Farm, Penniman, 2021) SFF has multiple primary categories of action – farming, training, education, and activism. The farm employs a wide range of BIPOC and ancient farming techniques, including Afro-indigenous agroforestry, wildcrafting, polyculture, silvopasture and spiritual farming practices, as well as more common techniques such as no-till, cover crops, and a compost/manure system, and raised beds (Soul Fire Farm, 2012). They also work to protect and incorporate native and “African heritage” crops through planting and seed keeping. The farm focuses on the health of the land and soil while producing livestock (pasture – raised), honey, mushrooms, vegetables, fruits, plant medicines, and preserves. Nearly all of SFF’s food is distributed to the local community using a CSA model that uses a sliding scale payment system and is delivered directly to farm share members weekly (Boscamp, 2019). They are very proud of the results of their trainings and programs, which include at least 3 farms located throughout the country founded by graduates of SFF and 85% of SFF graduates maintaining food justice and/or farm related work following the program.
Soul Fire Farm and its work exists as a powerful rebuke of the status quo. Due to slavery, the Jim Crow era, the Great Migration, systematic and systemic racism, environmental racism, food injustice, redlining, and countless other discriminatory local, state, and federal anti – Black policies aimed at disadvantaging or harming Black people economically, socially, culturally, politically, and environmentally, Black people have faced a wide range of food and farm related issues and struggles. This is evidenced by decades of discrimination against Black farmers, the disproportionately small percentage of Black farmers, and the frequent lack of healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food in Black communities.
Gilbert, J. C., Sharp, G., & Felin, M. S. (2001). The decline (and revival?) of black farmers and rural landowners: A review of the research literature [Working paper]. Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/21927
Hinson, W. R., & Robinson, E. (2008). “We Didn’t Get Nothing:” The Plight of Black Farmers. Journal of African American Studies, 12(3), 283–302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-008-9046-5
Reynolds, B. J. (2003). Black Farmers in America, 1865-2000: The Pursuit of Independent Farming and the Role of Cooperatives (No. 1502-2016–130760). AgEcon Search.
White People Own 98 Percent of Rural Land. Young Farmers Are Asking for It Back. By Bite on PRX. (n.d.). Retrieved May 4, 2021, from https://beta.prx.org/stories/326852
Cesar Chavez was a first-generation American who rose from farm worker to union leader, civil rights activist, and inspiration to many. Chavez was born on his family’s farm in Yuma, Arizona in 1927 (Cesar Chavez Foundation, 2021). His parents were Mexican immigrants who worked as migrant farm laborers in order to provide for Cesar and his siblings. Following drought-induced crop failures and financial discrimination against his community, the Chavez family lost their farm and their home, and Cesar began to work on farms at the age of 10 (Murphy, 2009). He went to dozens of elementary schools as his family migrated throughout the American Southwest looking for employment. Inspired by his experiences and by his mother, who fought against discriminatory farm contractors in California throughout his youth (Pawel, 2014), Chavez continued his own education by studying at public libraries at night. As a young adult, he served in the Navy for two years, returning to farm labor following his honorable discharge (CCF, 2021). His involvement in organized activism began in 1952 when he started working with Fred Ross, with whom he spent the next decade training as a community organizer, establishing the Community Service Organization (CSO) in San Jose, helping form other CSO chapters, promoting voter registration and participation among Latinos, and fighting against anti-Latino discrimination. (CCF, 2021). Following his work with the CSO, Chavez formed the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962 in his family’s home in Delano, California (CCF). The first members of the NFWA, which later became United Farm Workers of America, were Chavez, his wife, their eight children, and Dolores Huerta (CCF, 2021).
In the following decades, Chavez focused on UFWA with a passion, and pursued goals such as improved working conditions, access and rights to food, water, and sanitation in the fields, higher wages, dignity, and decreased discrimination towards the Latino community (Murphy, 2009). Many work days saw temperatures over 100 degrees and the average life expectancy for a farm worker at the time was just 49 years old (Murphy, 2009). Chavez used a few primary methods for advancing his goals – marches, boycotts, and fasts. Notably, Chavez was the first organizer to use boycotts as a way to win labor/management disagreements (Levy, 1993). UFWA completed a 110 mile march to raise awareness of their boycott against Gallo wines. UFWA and Chavez organized boycotts, most notably against Gallo, over labor issues (NYT, 1975). The Gallo boycott lasted five years and was incredibly successful, with millions of Americans boycotting the products, the growers finally agreeing with union demands, and CA Governor Jerry Brown signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975. This law protects the rights of farmworkers to organize, to make decisions in their union leadership, and to negotiate with employers (Levy, 1993; CCF, 2021). Chavez undertook three major fasts – in 1968 he fasted in honor of nonviolence, in 1972 he fasted in protest of a California law that made it illegal for farmworkers to organize, and in 1988 he fasted to raise public awareness of the negative impacts of pesticide use, especially for farmworkers and their children (CCF, 2021). His work, particularly his organizing against Gallo, was endorsed and praised by a number of powerful figures, including the president of the SCLC, CA Rep. Phillip Burton, and Senator Robert Kennedy.
Chavez stood strongly in his beliefs. In addition to labor and discrimination activism, he took a lifelong vow of poverty, helped build affordable housing for farm workers, worked with other unions (AFL-CIO, UAW) spoke out against the Vietnam War, supported favor of gay rights, immigration reform, and advocated for nonviolence (Maya, 2019; CCF, 2021). He also worked towards voter registration, civil rights education, citizenship for the Latino community, helped tens of thousands register to vote, participate in politics, understand their rights, and gain citizenship (Murphy, 2009). Following a life of activism and organizing, Cesar Chavez passed in 1993 at 66 years old. His work is widely celebrated, having been honored with the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Mexican Aguila Azteca, and is credited with bettering healthcare, retirement programs, living conditions, increased wages, political knowledge and participation for farmworkers as well as increasing awareness over working conditions, corporate labor tactics, and pesticide use.
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