race, gender & environment

I had to put this behind a cut because it’s way long for Tumblr, but I really hope you’ll read it because I think it’s a very important post.

I started discussing this a little bit here, but I wanted to expand on the idea of how shopping on a very tight budget works, because obviously some people have no idea. I will add the caveat that this is how shopping was done in my family, by which I mean shopping with food stamps for a family with no dietary restrictions, with access to a car, and in a rural area of the U.S. Obviously each family’s needs are different and that is why food prescriptivism - which, remember, is a form of body policing - is fucked up.

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From the Applied Research Center’s new report, “The Color of Food”:

• People of color typically make less than whites working in the food chain. Half of white food workers earn $25,024 a year, while workers of color make $5,675 less than that. This wage gap plays out in all four sectors of the food system, with largest income divides occurring in the food processing and distribution sectors. Women working in the food chain draw further penalties in wages, especially women of color. For every dollar a white male worker earns, women of color earn almost half of that.

• Few people of color hold management positions in the food system. Whites dominate high-wage professional and management occupations; three out of every four managers in the food system are white. Almost half of white men working in the food chain were employed as managers, while less than 10 percent of workers of color held comparable positions.

• People of color are concentrated in low-wage jobs in the food chain. According to the 2008 Census, people of color make up 34.6 percent of the population (that percentage is expected to rise as 2010 Census data becomes available). But workers of color are represented at a level almost one and a half times that in sectors of the food chain. For instance, 50 percent of food production workers are people of color. This includes farm workers, 65 percent of whom are Latino.

“Anuradha Mittal: People are dying from violent land invasions, their lands taken away for cattle ranching, cattle, which then turns into beef, which comes into United States. Yes, people are being killed.”

“Nate Halverson:

In January, a group of armed cattle ranchers attacked an Indigenous community in Nicaragua, burning homes and killing four men.

[…]

As beef exports have increased to the U.S., so have attacks on these small Indigenous communities, resulting in whole villages being decimated and abandoned.

[…]

The Nicaraguan government is legally obligated to protect the Indigenous people from land invasions. But Cunningham and others say that, instead, President Daniel Ortega's government is cutting ribbons for new slaughterhouses, which buy cattle raised on the stolen lands and sell the beef to their biggest customer, the United States.

The Nicaraguan ambassador, who I spoke to multiple times on the phone, declined to sit down for an interview or address the deadly attacks by cattle ranchers.

But Senator Mike Rounds, who has been looking into imported beef, told me in a socially distanced interview that most Americans don't even realize they're eating Nicaraguan beef.”

original article found here. Posted on February 24, 2011

Written by Tanea Lunsford.

Growing up, I can remember taking trips to the corner store much more vividly and frequently than trips to the grocery store. While we had to drive ten to fifteen minutes across the city to get to the closest grocery store, the corner store was always two blocks in any direction. We were seemingly forgotten by the supermarket and grocery stores that were distributed generously in other parts of the city. I remember listening to the complaints and discussions about the lack of different resources and businesses within my neighborhood.

As a child however, I was easily appeased by the presence of sugary drinks and salty, hydrogenated snacks. I had no idea that I was living in the middle of a food desert.

I enjoyed trips with my mother to the grocery store as a kid, she would tell us to pick fruit we wanted. She would compromise with me on a pack of frozen vegetables other than broccoli, for which I had a well-known disgust. While I learned about the importance of eating healthy in school and at home, the resources needed for this were limited in my community. Even today the layout of my community is so that the fast food restaurants and corner stores are more than a 30 to 1 ratio to grocery stores. After some reading about food deserts, I realized that much of the lack of resources is due to redlining. Redlining is a process performed by lenders, companies, and other potential resources to discriminate against and divest funds and services from a neighborhood based on their supposed risks and foreseen inability to yield successful returns when given the support. I started to understand that the businesses of corner stores and fast food restaurants in my community were able to thrive because they have been placed in a community that lacks healthy, affordable alternatives. These unhealthy businesses are able to succeed in our community because they attempt to (and often succeed) replace grocery stores and supermarkets by selling things at these venues (i.e. fruit, meat, paper towels, toilet tissue, vegetables, etc.) at hiked prices and poor quality (in the case of the fruits and vegetables) because of longer shelf-life in an environment that was not designed considering the preservation and maintenance of perishable items.

However, the presence of these unhealthy sources is not a band-aid solution for lack of healthy resources, it is an unfit replacement and hindrance for growing families who have to choose between price and quality—often without healthy produce being an option.

The presence of healthy food in all communities is necessary for everyone to have the opportunity to embrace a healthy lifestyle as a reality and not something that is characterized as only belonging to people who can “afford” it or who live in more affluent communities. The denial of accessible healthy food for some has created a view of healthy resources as a privilege enjoyed by those with grocery stores and supermarkets nearby rather than a right for all to enjoy equally. The denial of grocery stores and healthy food businesses in certain neighborhoods creates a hierarchy of classes, those that are “deserving” or “worthy” of healthy resources and those who are not.

I would like to pose the question to the few companies who make the decision of where healthy foods are made available, “Who IS worthy of eating nutritious healthy foods?” My hope is that actions in the future will point towards a just answer, which is “everyone”.

Tanea Lunsford is a sophomore at Columbia, studying Anthropology and Human Rights. She grew up in the Oceanview and Hunter’s Point/Bayview communities of San Francisco. She worked as a summer intern at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute. Email: [email protected]

For more on food deserts and what you can do to bring fresh food into your community, I suggest picking up Mark Winne’s Closing the Food Gap.

Also, if you live in New York City, the Brooklyn Food Coalition is putting together a map to determine food access in low income and underserved neighborhoods. It’s still got a ways to go before it covers many of the city’s worst food deserts, but it’s a great project that came from the community. I strongly suggest you volunteer if you live in the area.

These are some of the commonly used acronyms that will appear throughout this blog. Feel free to utilize this post if you are exposed to any acronyms not spelled out, or if you need some brushing up.

(S)OM = (Soil) Organic Matter

BIPOC = Black, Indigenous, People of Color

CSA = Community Supported Agriculture

FS = Food Sovereignty

FJ = Food Justice

GHG = Greenhouse Gas 

HOPE Collaborative

HOPE Collaborative stands for Health for Oakland’s People and Environment, and is a California-based food justice collaborative of Oakland residents, community organizations, and public agencies. They identified the needs of their community to construct a Community Action Plan that focuses on 3 realms: Food Systems, the Built Environment, and Economic, Civic, and Community ownership. These action plans alone speak to the activism around food justice and community self-determination of which the HOPE Collaborative pursues in their practice. 

Figure: Youth Action Board of HOPE Collaborative.

HOPE Collaborative has implemented a number of projects including the Healthy Corner Store Project, which attempts to expand and enhance the ability of small grocers like corner stores and liquor stores to supply more healthy, affordable foods. This project involves the HOPE team connecting corner and liquor stores with financing, technical assistance, and partnerships and community support. The project supports 7 stores in East and West Oakland, and has successfully supported stores like One Stop and Three Amigos Market. The organization has also worked with the City of Oakland to develop the Oakland Food Policy Council, which has since passed a number of progressive agricultural policies, making it easier for Oakland residents to grow and sell their own food. HOPE Collaborative has created a Food Justice Curriculum, which teaches its participants about food access, labor, and environmental impacts in Oakland’s food system. Additionally, their Last Mile Foods is a model developed to bring healthy, locally made foods to community sites.

HOPE Collaborative’s efforts and influences are many, and needed. The organization had a Food Meta-Analysis prepared for them by Public Health Law & Policy, to synthesize a city-wide understanding of Oakland’s food system and food needs. It was found that models need to be created in order to link urban markets to local food production to maximize accessibility for lower income customers without compromising the livable wages of farmers. Processing and Distribution are important contributors to Oakland’s overall economy, and thus the authors recommend that a food sector that creates speciality and ethnic products for the city’s diverse population be built. However, there is more information needed on the role of Processing and Distribution in building a more sustainable local food system. 

Oakland residents face significant barriers when it comes to accessing fresh, healthy, local food that is also affordable. The meta-analysis authors write, “…when food competes with rent, medical bills, and other necessities, food is often the first place residents cut back” (p. 26). Additionally, California’s strict eligibility criteria and enrollment process for food stamps prevents many low income seniors and families from participating. Using this meta-analysis that HOPE Collaborative had produced, the organization can and has worked with community stakeholders to attempt to construct a just, healthy, affordable, and sustainable food system for Oakland residents. This organization is a champion for its community in the realm of food justice and community self-reliance.

Links

Want to donate? http://www.hopecollaborative.net/get-involved/donate/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/HOPE-Collaborative/179566762088480

Instagram: http://instagram.com/hopecollabo