Food Justice
Food justice revolves around people exercising their innate right to grow, sell, distribute, and eat healthy food; and in doing so, also exposing (and addressing) structural barriers to that right. The impetus behind the food justice movement is to transform our relationship with food systems—how food is grown, processed, distributed, consumed, and recycled (or wasted)—and with food itself.
Food justice is a connector to other racial and social issues such as systemic inequalities, unfair treatment, and denied access to resources based on race, class, gender, ethnicity, means, religion, or any other discretionary measures.
Food Justice and BIPOC Communities
Indigenous Land
Indigenous people in the United States have lost nearly 99% of their historical lands. This massive land dispossession and forced migration has led to current conditions of tribes being located on land with less valuable resources. Not only did this (and still does) impact their ability to hunt and grow their own traditional food and share their biocultural heritage, but modern indigenous lands are at higher risk from climate change issues, especially extreme heat and drought. Food justice efforts in Indigenous communities center around food sovereignty and reclaiming lands taken from them.
Black Farmers
The long history of government-sanctioned discrimination against black farmers within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), or the “last plantation,” is well documented. The seminal Civil Rights Action Team (CRAT) report outlined the pervasive, ongoing systemic discriminatory practices within the USDA and the Farm Service Agency (FSA) involving denial of farm loans and USDA programs to Black and minority farmers, rejection of debt forgiveness for small farmers, lack of technical assistance provided to Black and minority farmers, and the grossly inept complaint system used by FSA to investigate and process discrimination cases. This discriminatory behavior prevented Black farmers (and other minority farmers) access to land, capital and financial resources, and just compensation when discrimination occurred.
The effects of systemic discriminatory behavior remain today as Black farmers still fight to receive debt cancellation, just compensation, land access and ownership, and regeneration of the Black agricultural land base.
Women in Agriculture
There’s a saying: "If you teach a man to farm, his family will eat. If you teach a woman to farm, the whole community will eat." This quote stresses the importance of closing the gender gap in agriculture, as this would not only produce more food but also provide long-term benefits for farming families and their communities.
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) delivered a clear and urgent message: agriculture underperforms because half of all farmers—women—lack equal access to agricultural resources like land, livestock, training, education, marketing & financial services, and opportunities to be more productive. Providing women with the same access as men to agricultural resources could increase production on women-owned/-led farms in developing countries by 20 to 30 percent.
Eliminating—and enforcing—discrimination under the law is one major step toward achieving gender equality. Another is empowering women to know their rights and how to claim them. Gender equality is an important component of the food justice movement and critical for agricultural development and food security.
Food and Social Justice Movements
The conversation—and movement—related to Food Justice is intrinsically linked to Social Justice. We cannot achieve equal access to healthy food without equal access to land, housing, fair-paying jobs, education, transportation, and health care. The historical context that has led to present-day conditions must be part of the holistic discussion and approach to achieving justice. Advancing equitable, community-based solutions to entrenched food-access problems will help rebuild a localized, regenerative food system that restores food sovereignty and food security.