HEAL Food Alliance Webinar: Sowing the Seeds of Liberation

US agriculture’s roots in colonization and enslavement mean that Black and Indigenous and communities of color still have limited access to capital, financial support, and markets—this is changing, slowly but surely, thanks to the work of food and farm organizations, leaders and communities that are dismantling racism and white supremacy, and imagining alternate ways to be in relationship with land, nature and each other. Hear from some of these leaders and HEAL members in this webinar!

Dismantling Racism Works Web Workbook

This website is a web-based version of a workbook designed originally to support the Dismantling Racism workshop offered by Dismantling Racism Works, a training collaborative that is not offering workshops or consulting support at this time. The workshop was one step in a longer process developed initially by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun over three decades ago. It builds on the work of many people, including (but not limited to) Andrea Ayvazian, Cynthia Brown, Bree Carlson, Beverly Daniel Tatum, Eli Dueker, Nancy Emond, Jonathan Henderson, Vivette Jeffries-Logan, Michelle Johnson, Jonn Lunsford, Jes Kelley, Sharon Martinas, jona olsson, Suzanne Plihcik, Christina Rivera-Chapman, David Rogers, James Williams, Sally Yee, as well as the work of the Peace Development Fund, Grassroots Leadership, Equity Institute Inc, the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, the Challenging White Supremacy workshop, the Lillie Allen Institute, the Western States Center, and the contributions of the many participants in the DR workshops over so many years. Many people’s thinking and experience have contributed to the resources you will find here.

Leveling the Fields: Creating Farming Opportunities for Black People, Indigenous People, and Other People of Color

Farming offers a powerful path to build community wealth and resilience to challenges such as water pollution, droughts and floods, and lack of access to healthy food. However, US agriculture—particularly the pursuit of sustainable agriculture—is rife with obstacles for Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color (BIPOC), including immigrants, migrants, and refugees. These obstacles include difficulty securing capital, credit, land, infrastructure, and information. For these groups, such challenges are compounded by longstanding structural and institutional racism. We review opportunities for governments, the private sector, philanthropies, and others to contribute to simultaneously building socioeconomic equity and sustainability in US food systems. To begin overcoming the history of racist policies and exclusion, it is our primary recommendation that solutions be developed by and with—rather than for—Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color.

Tent Talk Podcast: Farmers Market Pros speak up

On this week’s episode, Tent Talk co-hosts have an important conversation about the civil unrest taking place in many parts of the country and what that means for farmers markets.

“Farmers market people are people who do things. Let’s band together. Let’s work for change.”

– Catt Fields White, founder of Farmers Market Pros

Black Lives Matter.

Racial Equity Tools

Racial Equity Tools is designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. This site offers tools, research, tips, curricula and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities and the culture at large.

An Annotated Bibliography on Structural Racism Present in the U.S. Food System (Seventh Edition)

The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to provide current research and outreach on structural racism in the U.S. food system for the food system practitioner, researcher, and educator.

Our intention was to look at literature and videos that broadly cover structural racism across the entire food supply chain as well as to examine specific sectors.

A RACIAL EQUITY IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE FOR FOOD HUBS: A framework for translating value into organizational action

We have to stop pretending that our food system is not broken. It is broken, and it isn’t just broken because of the threat of GMOs or people not knowing their farmers or where their food comes from. That is, indeed, part of it. But it is also broken because it has always reflected back to us the inequalities that exist in our society. To really reckon with that means that we have to consider how race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. are not just individual experiences or identities. They are structures, often oppressive structures, that we cannot ignore. To treat them intersectionally is to consider how food is not separate from race, not separate from gender, not separate from ability, etc. and that where a person or community stands at these intersections means that they have radically different life chances and access to food.

– Ashanté Reese, Assistant Professor, Sociology
and Anthropology, Spelman College

Talking About Race: Being Antiracist

To create an equal society, we must commit to making unbiased choices and being antiracist in all aspects of our lives.

“Implicit Bias and Structural Racialization,” By Kathleen Osta & Hugh Vasquez, National Equity Project.

MSU Center for Regional Food Systems – The Local Food Movement: Setting the Stage for Good Food

The local food movement in the United States has evolved over the past 25 years, including a more recent convergence with movements supporting food access and health, food justice, environment, food sovereignty, and racial equity. Many people who are active in these movements have come to understand local food through its connection and use of the term “good food,” coined less than a decade ago by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) and its strategic partners. The term “good food” has been used to describe food that has four key elements: Healthy, Green, Fair, Affordable.

Center for Social Inclusion: Building the Case for Racial Equity in the Food System

The food system works for some, but fails too many of us. Yet, we already have a glimpse of the possibility of a just and healthy food system. To get there, we must use a critical race lens to diagnose what is wrong with our current system, assess entry points for change, and determine ways that we can work together to build a better system for all of us. This report shares an analysis of what it means to build a racially equitable food system – from field to farm to fork – and lays out steps toward achieving that goal.