Tag Archives: food system

No System is Immune: Structural Racism in the American Food System

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This past quarter I had the opportunity to work with a Washington organization fighting to empower the youth of the state to fight for bold, equitable, and science-based climate policies. Through my work with Our Climate, coupled with my politics of the world food system course, I became more educated about the concentrations of power in wealth that dominate and dictate the processes and practices of the world food system.

The richest fifth of the population control 90 percent of the world’s wealth and emit 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.[i] This block of people is mostly white. This fact does not exist without substantial consequences for the rest of the population. For example, 10 percent of white households experience hunger in the United States, Black households experience hunger at rates of 20-25 percent.[ii]

Source: https://alliancetoendhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hill-advocacy-fact-sheet__HUNGER-IS-A-RACIAL-EQUITY-ISSUE_Alliance-to-End-Hunger.pdf

Food insecurity, as we know can and does lead to inability to attend school or jobs, decreased health and health outcomes, disease, shortened life expectancy, and more. Systemic racism does not solely exist in our legal and governmental institutions. It shows up in the global food system, especially in the American food system. Systemic racism is not isolated to a few systems or institutions, food insecurity is not the only manifestation of systemic racism. Private agricultural land ownership is dominated by white people.[iii] Only 1.3 percent of farmers in America are Black.[iv] Black farmers receive less assistance from the government than white farmers.[v] The list goes on and on.

Source: https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DRnumber2_VF.pdf

Systems are inherently interconnected and organized to achieve a function. Yet, our national food system fails Black Americans. Change in systems is inevitable and we must leverage this inherent change to ensure that food systems serve Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color just the same as they serve white people. We must call upon our politicians and listen to Black activists to address these issues.

Lastly, I want to share some important resources, activists, educators, and organizers to turn to during this time.

END NOTES:

[i] Political Ecology of the World Food System Lecture, April 16, 2020

[ii] https://alliancetoendhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hill-advocacy-fact-sheet__HUNGER-IS-A-RACIAL-EQUITY-ISSUE_Alliance-to-End-Hunger.pdf

[iii] https://foodfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DRnumber2_VF.pdf

[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/why-have-americas-black-farmers-disappeared

[v] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/why-have-americas-black-farmers-disappeared

– Sophie Stein

The food system is not failing people, it is working how it was invented  

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Before I took Political Science 385, the relationship between the food system and racism was not an explicit connection I made. I was in a bubble of ignorance, clouded by my own privilege of being considered white passing, socioeconomically privileged, and cis-male. I asked myself, “how could the [United States] food system possibly be racist? – it’s food, right? It was not until I stepped back, flipped through a couple of history books, and put myself in a different vantage point that I connected the dots: the United States is built on oppression and systemic racism, the food system is just one of the many layers that it lurks.

Systemic racism can be traced back to the very creation of the United States. The brutal colonization of the indigenous population for their land, forced slave labor and unjust laws stripping people of color from land ownership are just the beginning of injustice that minorities have faced in our food system. The very backbone of our modern-day food system has been created by the very populations that are left behind.

Not only has the entire system been built on oppression, the very laws that are meant to protect people from harm has had a long history of dismantling Black and Brown empowerment. Before Jim Crow laws were enacted in the United States, African American’s owned 13 million acres of land in 1902, by the end of 1997 years of Jim Crow, they only owned 2 million acres. White land owners now pass on their externalities to people of color, while they reap the benefits of their new found land. Many working longer hours for lower wages than their white counter parts.

There is so much more happening behind the scenes than the average consumer might think. Buying something as simple as an avocado, a banana, or chocolate, it is easy to forget about the hundreds of miles, hours, and workers it took to get where it is now. The food system is not a farm to table concept like people may think, it is much more complex and inner connected.

One thing that I will always hold close to me from this class is that you cannot look at one part of the system and generalize about the whole. The history of oppression in agriculture cannot survive on its own, it is interdependent on a long and brutal history of colonization, institutionally racist laws, biased social norms, and labor.

The food system is not failing people, it is working how it was intended.

Work Cited:

Food Justice & Racism in the Food System

New Research Explores the Ongoing Impact of Racism on the U.S. Farming Landscape

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-15686731/cocoa-farms-in-ivory-coast-still-using-child-labour

Alien Land Laws in California (1913 & 1920)

Photos: https://communityfoodfunders.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/History-of-Racism-and-Resistance-in-the-Food-System-Visual-Timeline.pdf

Racism in the Food System

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Systematic racism is the basis of every aspect of the USA and the food system has no exception. In the 1600s, the first enslaved people were brought from Africa to America and were forced into labor. This included working on sugar, cotton, rice, and tobacco plantations. This brought on a sense of superiority to the white Americans, seeing anyone who is different from them as less than. The exploitation of many people of color were used to keep the social hierarchy going and it kept money in the white man’s pocket. This past of the United States has helped create the racist laws, actions, and institutions that are here today.

Now that forced labor is seen as immoral, even though it is still happening in the present, people have found a more covert way of keeping people of color oppressed. This is shown through wage gaps, the job market, the housing market, and so much more. A majority of minorities cannot find good-paying jobs with the only reason being simply that they are not white. Because of that, they find themselves working in factories, farms, and other jobs seen as undesirable and underpaying. This means that all the food being put on people’s tables are most likely being harvested or packed by people of color. While they are doing all of the hard labor, it is usually the white people that are in charge, gaining massive amounts of wealth.

Because of the unjust treatment of minorities, it makes it more difficult for them to support their families. It is harder to buy basic necessities, which can lead to a multitude of problems. This cycle continues on through generations because nothing is there to pass on to their children. However, most white people have the privilege and wealth to live healthy and have opportunities to pass onto generations of their families.

These disparities have magnified during the pandemic. For example, the wealthy have enough money to stop working while the poor continue to work in factories, farms or other underpaid jobs to keep food on America’s table and to keep their families afloat. Along with that, the systematic racism in the health care system keeps a lot of people of color from getting access to testing for COVID or getting treatment. 

Racism and oppression are at the very base of what America was built upon. With that, the food system cannot be ignored in this equation. It is often looked upon as a basic process of the way it gets to your fridges and pantries, but it is not that simple.

What does it mean to change the system?

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I’ve spent the last 10 days and nights at protests across Seattle on police brutality in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. But the demands of protesters go well beyond policing and criminal justice and stretch into areas of education, jobs, and voting rights.

Demonstrators are constantly speaking in ways similar to how we talk in this class.

“This isn’t about one thing, it’s about changing the entire system,” is a common theme I’ve heard from protesters I’ve talked to in my role as a reporter.

And this idea made me think about how this class is structured not about food in a vacuum, but instead of food as a system that is part of an even larger system. You can change one part of the system, but the change won’t truly be visible and rightful until the system is entirely overhauled.

For example, on the protest side, people are calling for Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan to resign, but demonstrators note they will only replace her with someone similar and nothing will change for Black people in this city. This is not systemic change.

Mapping of the food and agriculture system showing its complexity. (Source: https://medium.com/@agwelker1/fixing-our-food-agriculture-system-with-systems-thinking-892893805df9)

And on the food side, one person can stop eating meat or consume more responsibly, but that won’t make a lasting dent in emissions from cattle. This is not systemic change.

Outlawing chokeholds and cutting police funding in half won’t make so much meaningful change for the Black community in changing outcomes. What is needed is economic assistance, educational opportunities, and justice for 400 years of wrongdoing that would start to make up for this country’s wrongs.

And similarly going vegetarian won’t get us substantively closer to a sustainable food system. What is needed is accountability, strict regulation of consumers, and likely a wholesale change in how people around the world consume food to get to the point where our antiquated structures are no longer harming our world.

The point is that true change isn’t as easy as one might think and that’s why it takes so damn long.

Response to: Boxed in a Paradox

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Response to: Boxed in a Paradox by ash_marie

Since the start of the pandemic, I have been scared to go out to get groceries or other essentials for fear of contracting the virus and/or bringing it home to my loved ones. Because of this, I have chosen to seldom go to the store, going only every few weeks to buy in bulk. But on occasion I still need something that I have run out of or forgot to purchase. Rather than risk the trip to the grocery store, I chose to order the product online, often kicking myself as I use amazon. While deliveries are not risk free, they have reduced risk compared to in person sopping. I took my ability to do this for granted until I read ‘Boxed in a Paradox’ by ash_marie.

‘Boxed in a Paradox’ explains the reality of a lack of access to online orders for many Americans as well as the immense amount of wealth that online ordering has been generating for companies like Amazon and Walmart while their workers suffer. In the blog post, ash_marie discusses the need to reform the system to make it more equitable for workers and consumers.

Food System Map. Source: https://kumu.io/monicapc/food-system-vision-2050-oct2019

To make reforms, it is important to fully understand the system to begin with. As we have touched on in class, mapping out a system is an effective way to achieve this. Monica Price Cohen develops system maps, such as the food system map, which allows the viewer to gain an in depth understanding of the system that they are investigating by demonstrating connections that the viewer may never have thought of before. Developing a system map of the online ordering system, which would fit within the larger food system map, is a great place to start to understand the next steps to take to make effective change.

-Nathan Mock

Local Food System and Education

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Response to: Globalization to Sustainable Development by Rachel

Rachel discusses globalization of the food system in reference to the chocolate contemplative practice. This made me think about where the other foods I eat come from, and I had no idea. The image to the left demonstrates the idea that foods come from all over the world, you can see that many crops Americans eat regularly are not even grown in our country.

The idea of switching from a globalized food system to a localized agricultural system to decrease climate change was brought up in Rachel’s Article. I wanted to further explore this topic and the benefits of buying from local farmers/businesses. According to Lori Starling from One Green Planet, if you buy foods from local markets you’ll gain access to fresher food that have less packaging and took less transport time, therefore having a much lower carbon footprint than buying from the supermarket. In addition, it allows you to connect with the people involved in your foods development so you can ask all the necessary questions and have an expert there to help you make your decision.

But how do we get people to start buying local foods and shopping at farmers markets rather than the grocery store? Environmental education is the answer. Environmental education is important because it builds a basis of knowledge, understanding, appreciation, and sensitivity towards the environment. These perspectives are important in allowing individuals to develop a deeper understanding of environmental issues. Though, it’s not just explaining environmental mechanisms; it’s building a relationship with nature so that informed personal decisions can be made to protect the planet (EPA).

 

So in conclusion, a localized food system can be very beneficial for the environment, but to get to a point where people are willingly buying local foods, environmental education needs to be improved.

 

Post-Contemplation Considerations of the Food System

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This post is a response to “What Contemplative Practices Have Taught Me about Problem Solving” by, Sydney

In “What Contemplative Practices Have Taught Me about Problem Solving,” Sydney reflects on feelings of restlessness, not knowing how to make a meaningful difference as a consumer in a food system that simultaneously benefits some (in particular, us) and negatively impacts others. I agree with Sydney, we must examine our own relationship to the existing system prior to effective systems analysis. We know, at this point in the course that a system is an interconnected set of aspects that is organized in a way that achieves a function or purpose. We are evidently a part of the world food system. However, I want to extend past this and begin to incorporate and deliberate options for  next steps following effective contemplation.

I offer a consideration of another article “How Consumers and Farmers Can Transform Food Systems” by Tania Strauss and Maria Elena Varas. This article discusses both a farmer in Vietnam who has little access to beneficial food systems information as well as a consumer, Meaghan, in the United States who navigates the food system with consistent flows of contrasting information from social media and mainstream news. Meaghan is an individual that resonates with most of us, when shopping we consider all of the information that has arrived with us through our education, our social media usage, and our familial teachings. Strauss and Varas argue that consumers should be at the heart of any solution that is considered to make the world food system more effective for everyone. We, as consumers, hold the power and ability to change demand and ensure that food systems operate in a more sustainable manner for producers and consumers. This would suggest that you and I are at the center of this “food systems crisis,” that it is up to us to reconfigure this system to work for us, as well as the people that produce our food.

This graphic places consumers at the center of the image, much like Authors Strauss and Varas do. (https://www.foodshedinvestors.com/faq/what-is-a-foodshed-ecosystem)

When we turn to the World Economic Forum’s Food Systems Initiative Report on the role of incentives to enable food systems to transform, there is only one suggestion for the general population to engage in, simply changing consumer behavior. The other three pathways for developing incentives to transform food systems are repurposing public investment and policies, business model innovation, and institutional investments. Therefore, I posit a question; to what extent is individual responsibility integral to the alteration of the food system to become more conducive to all actors involved? Furthermore, is the concept of individualism infiltrating the discussion on the improvement of the world food system in a prohibitive manner?

This is a graphic that captures the WEF’s food systems initiative on the role of incentives to enable food systems to transform recommendations of how to achieve food system aspirations. (https://weforum.ent.box.com/s/35vs54zp4mqfnlg17lb6yli5rsc9bg2x)

I do not mean to end this discussion with further questions, however, it feels inevitable to continue to prod at the questions at the hear of these issues, we must converse and engage with one another to develop the most effective practices and responses.

Finally, with consideration of the concept of individualism, I suggest the following articles in an effort to further contemplate our roles in this world food system.

Best,

Sophie Stein

 

 

Beyond Meditating

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It’s become kind of a cliche for people to talk about the benefits of meditating. The contemplative practices are a good way to practice meditating on a subject, rather than meditating with the sole purpose of relaxation, which have the potential to leave you wondering the whole time if it’s working. The practices are a different approach to learning about a subject that give you space to ruminate, rather than tackling the subject head on. It’s like the daytime equivalent of “sleeping on it”.

I got the most out of the practice where we contemplated hunger, which I had been putting off for several days because every time I got hungry I just didn’t feel like waiting another 20 minutes to eat. Normally I get a little frustrated by the amount of thoughts that come into my head but with this practice I found that my thoughts were focused almost only on hunger. A physical need dictating where my mind went made it easier for me to focus on the practice.

The most compelling section of this practice was when we stopped breathing for ten seconds. It’s an awful feeling, which is probably the point of the exercise because with my hunger I feel like I can wait to eat and I’ll be fine, whereas by depriving myself of air I can feel that want turn into need very quickly. It was similar to the practice where we watched videos about cocoa farmers, talked about commodity chains, then ate pieces of chocolate. Adding a physical component makes learning about anything a more memorable, more impactful experience.

Below is a link to Miriam Jordan’s article that I referenced in my last post about farmworkers during the pandemic. If you take the time to read it, I recommend eating a piece of fruit afterward and considering who helped it get to you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/coronavirus-undocumented-immigrant-farmworkers-agriculture.html?searchResultPosition=1

From Harvest to Consumption: A Bittersweet Tale

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I recently spent some time in Cape Town, South Africa. There I had two professors, a husband and wife, both from the area. I quickly noticed that they did not have conventional wedding bands. Rather, they had outlines of wedding bands tattooed on their fingers. Toward the end of the academic quarter I discovered why this was. The mining history in South Africa is a horribly devastating one; black South Africans had been forced into mining jobs, paid little to nothing, and lived in treacherous conditions. The legacy of the mining industry impacts individuals and families to this day. So, my professors abstained from the traditional gold or diamond bands in protest and demonstrated their loving connection with tattooed wedding bands instead.

Two men eating their rations in a shanty town created for miners to live in for most of the year (https://showme.co.za/facts-about-south-africa/history-of-south-africa/the-history-of-south-africa/)

Although this anecdote might seem random or even irrelevant, it is what came up in my mind when engaging with the chocolate contemplative practice. Why? The bitter sweetness of the chocolate, both in taste and through its commodity chain is shared with the wedding band. Both are a sort of celebration, a dessert and a union of love. Both have seen, and still see terrible injustices and human rights abuses in their commodity chains. Both require an immense amount of water and fossil fuels. In both cases, the harvesters and primary suppliers, the “beginning” of these global commodity chains, often never have the opportunity to see the final result of their grueling work—chocolate or wedding bands. Just as the food we consume embodies water, so does our consumption of other goods.

A child rakes cocoa beans on a drying rack, demonstrating the child labor frequently used in chocolate’s commodity chain (https://www.ethical.org.au/get-informed/issues/animal-testing/young-boy-rakes-cocoa-beans-on-a-drying-rack/)

This contemplative practice prodded me to think about our own responsibility in the commodity chain. Should we model ourselves after my professors? Should I stop my father from consuming his ritual post-dinner chocolate bar each night? The contemplative practice did not lead me to a final and perfect answer, but it did allow me to consider one family’s response to the injustices of a different commodity chain, offering me insight into what I believe is the right thing to do. Ultimately, this is the starting point. This is the headspace from which we can begin to consider how to alter our personal behavior to support what is right for the environment and for other human beings.

– Sophie Stein

Far-away treats

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Studying the complexities of the world food system from my home is humbling at times. How am I connected to it and how can I, an individual, make a difference in the grand scheme of things? The contemplative practices from this class have both amplified this feeling of smallness and helped me gain insight to my reactions to the things I am learning. One practice, on contemplating chocolate, particularly stuck with me. Prior to the practice, two videos were assigned; one documenting child labor on cacao farms on the Ivory Coast, and another on cocoa farmers tasting chocolate for the first time.

I find previewing content like this to be insightful and to provide context that is larger than myself. I admired the hard work of these farmers, and how they were so grateful to be tasting the product from the cacao beans they so tirelessly produce. For a second, I felt so greedy that I can have all the chocolate I desire, yet the people who produce this taken-for-granted treat are mostly unaware of it, and are totally fine without it. I am reminded of the entrenched inequities in our food systems, global hunger, and the fight for food sovereignty as I think of the commodity chain of this chocolate I eat.

It makes me wonder what I truly need in my life, and what American capitalist society tells me I need. I certainly do not need chocolate, or many other products that begin in different hemispheres from me. Yet, I still continue to buy such foods, like chocolate, oranges, coffee, and many more delights that are the result of exploited labor. But in reality, I do not believe me changing my consumption habits makes much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, yet I can try. I wonder, however, why am I so privileged to be the beneficiary of the commodities of the world food system?

Map of global chocolate production and consumption. The top consumers live so far away from the treats they enjoy!

 

Cacao fruit with harvest tool.

Image sources:

https://medium.com/@jerrytoth/whats-wrong-with-cacao-farming-d33ec4a949b2

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-euHLRk7EPJ4/UQgwseW_v4I/AAAAAAAAB1c/ejkQArr_hgY/s1600/chocolate.jpg