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Food Activism Today

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Donald Nonini discusses new approaches food activists are taking as they formulate alternatives to the current unsustainable agro-industrial food system.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 18, 2024

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This video video is a detailed discussion on the issues of food security and sustainable food production in the context of neoliberalism and market fundamentalism. The author reflects on their previous work with coauthor Dorothy Holland, who has passed away, and outlines their research findings related to how neoliberalism fails to provide adequate food for those in need while also neglecting ecological sustainability, especially in the face of climate change.

The concept of food activism is introduced as a response to these shortcomings, emphasizing the importance of making food systems more inclusive and sustainable. The author discusses the disparities in food security, particularly affecting low-income and marginalized communities, detailing both urban and rural contexts in North Carolina. Four specific settings are examined: Charlotte and Durham (urban) and two rural areas, Watauga County and Edgecombe County.

In Charlotte, a considerable demand for fresh, local food exists, but challenges ensue due to unsustainable farming conditions and the high costs of land. Initiatives such as Slow Food Charlotte are highlighted as examples of community-driven efforts to make fresh food accessible. Durham's food activism is exemplified by a cooperative known as Cornucopia Landscaping, which promotes edible landscapes while attempting to bridge gaps across racial divides.

This video video also addresses the rural context of food activism, discussing the Farm Café in Watauga County, which operates under a model promoting dignity and choice for food insecure populations. The Clarkton Community Garden in Edgecombe County highlights efforts to empower local youth by teaching them to garden and produce food, alongside addressing community food needs.

Throughout, the author underscores the detrimental impact of the industrial food system, which prioritizes profit over nutrition and sustainability, and calls for increased government support for food activism. Ultimately, the text highlights the urgent need for systemic change in food production and distribution to ensure access to healthy food for all, particularly those facing economic challenges.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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I and my coauthor Dorothy Holland, unfortunately,

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she's passed, were, worked together on a previous,

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book, which was published in 2007, about

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what is called neoliberalism or market fundamentalism.

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And in that, we found out,

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or through our war, research findings, we found out

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that neoliberalism leaves, both people

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who need, food, adequate food

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and food that's culturally appropriate out of their,

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of the market equation.

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It also leaves, the sustainable,

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foods that we need to have a livable planet on,

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and to protect our ecology, particularly in the face

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of climate change to go on.

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So we found that neoliberalism lacked both of those.

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And for that reason, we turned to

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what we call food activism.

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Food activism is basically the idea that we're,

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wherever we have our food system, people have much at stake.

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And some people see that there's a, a,

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a problem in the United States especially,

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but it's a, a problem throughout the global north

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around food security.

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That is to say, do, people, particularly people

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of low means working class, if you will.

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Why do not, why don't they have the, food adequate,

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for the nutrition and to meet their cultural needs?

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Why do they not have a degree of food security?

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So we, and we also know that other people

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are deeply concerned about the sustainability

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of our food systems and will,

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they should be our food system.

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Right now, if we take it globally, accounts for somewhere

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between 25%

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and 33% of global greenhouse gas emissions, depending upon

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how you count them, right?

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And that's huge. Most people think of, you know, automobile,

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emissions, airline,

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emissions as being important.

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No doubt they are. But few, relatively few people understand

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how consequential for the livability of this planet,

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our current industrial corporate food system, is.

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And so we saw both of these groups, if you will,

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beginning to undertake, to transform the food systems

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in the United States, the local food systems.

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That's all we can work at, for many of us

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into something more sustainable and something that

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provided, support for food adequacy

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for food security.

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So, I would say the, the, if you think of

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what matters, we see two problems that have just outlined.

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And how can they be dealt with what they're both,

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the food system is consequential for both central to both.

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And if that's the case in a time of climate change,

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environmental destruction, which is very severe,

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we're having an enormous loss of, of,

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biological diversity, for example.

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And that directly impacts agriculture.

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Try pollinating, your food crops without, honeybees

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and see what happens in the United States

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and most of the rest of the world, right?

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So, we've got to consider how people,

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not just, trans, you know, transnational food,

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corporate managers, not just, food charities

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try to solve these problems.

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What can people do in, you know, if you will,

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ordinary people to transform our food system towards being

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both more sustainable for purposes of the planet

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and our environment on one hand,

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and, to, provide the security, for food access

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that a large proportion of,

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our population needs in the United States?

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Uh, the food insecure population

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by the U-S-D-A-A estimates varies somewhere

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between 12% in good times and 14%,

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or one out of seven people in times, like,

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even like now.

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So it's a big concern from that point of view.

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Dorothy or I preferred Dottie, Dottie Holland,

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and I had previously collaborated in a book at

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that I mentioned right at the beginning.

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And we found the wonderful,

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wonderfully productive and also enjoyable,

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but highly unusual activity within cultural anthropology of

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a collaborative effort.

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Cultural anthropology is known for its lone writers, for,

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you know, that there's a whole idea

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of people going off alone all by themselves,

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the great individual model of doing ethnography.

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We looked at it differently.

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We said, how are we going to find out more about,

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food activism

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and the challenges it faces in what we know are,

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deeply, different and pro

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and profoundly, contrasted

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settings right here in our home state of North Carolina.

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We have people who are, you know, who work in, one

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of the largest banks in the world called the Bank

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of America, whose world headquarters

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is in Charlotte on one hand.

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And we have dirt, poor people of color

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and whites working in our rural areas who are, who we know

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are at, food insecure,

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or at even worse, they're, starving.

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And we know co-exist in a, a vast variety

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of different environments.

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How does food activism work in each

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of these different environments?

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Well, obviously, we can't do them all. So we chose four.

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We chose two urban environments, one being Charlotte,

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North Carolina, which happens to be the US' largest,

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third largest financial center.

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And in Durham, North Carolina, where I happened to, live

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as our two urban sites, we then chose two rural sites.

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One, in, Watauga County, near Boone,

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or, where Boone is located, which is a,

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a place up in the high country, as they call it.

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It's where, Appalachian State University is.

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But huge number of people, are there as retirement.

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Uh, you know, relocators, they're there as,

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if they're local, if they were growing up, grew up there

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and grew up on the mountain, as they say, they are

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often poor, but they try to make a,

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hard scrabble living from food production, apple orchard,

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many other kinds of food production.

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And so there's a market for,

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and both the possibilities for a kind of local agriculture

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that is, harder to find in other areas.

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And so that was our se first rural site.

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Our second one was in the, one of the poorest areas

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of North Carolina.

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And if you look at what is called historically, the,

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Northeastern Carolina, there's something called the, the,

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it was the, plantation

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or, zone, if you wish, of North Carolina,

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where the plantations, tobacco plantations, cotton,

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plantations and so forth were located historically where

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the poorest of African Americans

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and poor whites lived then in during,

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before the Civil War and up through

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to the present where they lived.

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And so, we chose two counties, Edgecomb County,

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and Nash County to focus our intention on in

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that poorest area of, of Northeastern North Carolina.

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So what did we do? What did we do?

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We went and interviewed anybody we could think of

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who might know something about, food activism in any

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of these two aspects, either food security

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or sustainable food in farming.

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And so that meant we were interviewed chefs.

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We interviewed, sc school,

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school cafeteria, workers.

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We interviewed, farmers.

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We, small, small farmers.

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We interviewed what are called commodity farmers people,

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or people who grow, large scale crops commercially.

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We interviewed people in,

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the agricultural extension agencies in each

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of our four settings, people who work

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for the federal government, but are there

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to promote agriculture in the county

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or in the dis area where they, work.

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Uh, we interviewed people who were at,

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at the Edge food system, if you will, people who were the,

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poorest, in the food, system

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above all when it came to food insecurity.

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Uh, we were interested in meeting the people

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who were the frontline workers who,

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were engaged in food activism.

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So this is a study, four different settings of,

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food activists, both engaged in trying to promote,

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sustainable, agriculture and food organic foods,

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or agroecology and yeah, agroecological methods on one hand,

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and it's an interview of people who were the, workers,

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frontline workers and staff members

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of these food, charities.

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Um, the largest is America's Harvest.

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Um, but, people on the ground in food pantries

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and, food banks, in our,

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four settings were people who knew about

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these problems facing, food insecure people,

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in that county, and the problems they faced.

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And we, but we wanted to see how we could be,

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the focus was on our food activists again, so

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that we could see what the, what the possibilities were

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for people who were not food charity recipients on one hand,

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or, farmers on the other,

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but people who could fit in that vital empty slot,

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if you will, where, so much needs to be done.

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And we find out, found out, one of the things just to,

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mention, an important finding is that

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food security activists

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and sustainable, farming activists both did

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what they did largely for free.

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In other words, it was a huge amount of free labor.

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And that's another story,

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but you'll have to read the book to find out about it.

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When we looked at our four settings, we,

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first thing we found out, as I said, they were,

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a little bit, they were vastly different from one another,

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but that meant that their capacities, their endowments

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for the kind of food activisms, plural,

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because there were two that we found, were different,

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quite different, okay?

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So if we look for, let me, let's start

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with Charlotte, North Carolina.

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We found, that the question, there seemed to be

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that the whole, the crowd of consumers needed

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to support small scale agricultural production was there,

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there was what is called a demand crowd.

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And these were, because local food by then,

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and organic food, food coming out

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of small scale artisanal productions,

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and so forth, had become very chic in the preceding period

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of the early two thousands

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before we started field our field work for this book.

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And so there was a demand crowd.

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So, pose the question, well, where's the food coming from?

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Well, Charlotte's a huge metropolis

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of about 2 million people.

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If you add on its, surrounding county Mecklenburg,

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and it draws its hinterland for drawing on food,

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small scale farms is, is enormous.

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But the question is, we couldn't really find that nearby.

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We, in other words, if you can't find it nearby,

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that means it's coming from far away.

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And one of the, and that means it's really not local.

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Now, a large metropolis is going to have that problem.

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But our key point was

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that when we looked in the surrounding counties, we found

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that the conditions, for small scale farmers

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were, unsustainable.

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Why farmland was expensive.

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The age of farmers was in their sixties,

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and nobody is going to be doing much,

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energetic innovation,

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around small scale farming in their sixties.

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It's just, it's physically hard work.

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There's nothing harder working in,

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in the United States than the small farmer, right?

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So we found that the conditions for small scale agricultural

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in, in one of our sites, Charlotte,

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were really problematic.

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We also found that there were large numbers of four

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and people of color

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and highly insecure in the Charlotte region.

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That led to some possibilities.

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W we started looking at one particular group in Parti,

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particular called, slow Food Charlotte.

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Now, slow Food Charlotte, as it sounds, is, a, a chapter

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or convivium of the slow food inter, movement,

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which is the international movement centered in Italy.

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Um, and so, we found that they were,

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that slow food Charlotte, which is, was very active then,

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might be not so much now,

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but was, engaged in a major project to,

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support, community scale gardening.

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So there were church gardens, there were church,

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there were gardens on people's in per people's backyards.

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There were gardens for, for people in wanting

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therapy through gardening.

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There were gardens in the,

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Mecklenburg County Jail, for goodness sake.

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So people were engaged in a small scale food production

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and soul food.

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Charlotte brought these gardens together,

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garden their gardeners together, helped them link up to,

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the Meal on Wheels program of Charlotte,

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which meant consequence meant that every day, hundreds

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of Charlotte residents who were housebound, disabled,

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often unable to go out, were able to receive

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freshly cooked, organically grown, food, veggies,

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and fruit and so forth.

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And that this was really,

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a quite an interesting experiment.

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So we looked at this,

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and found out, how important this kind of capacity

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to build up what we call that food commons,

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was now turning to Durham much smaller.

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It's a much smaller city,

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and it's much smaller than Charlotte.

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So I'll, and I'll have to be brief, we found, that

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a group called Cornucopia Landscaping.

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Most of the groups in this book are, have pseudonyms.

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But Cornucopia Landscaping was in, in,

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extremely interesting

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because it was, a cooperative, which are highly rare.

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It's very rare to have, small scale,

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farming or, cooperative.

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But this one was extremely interesting

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because they were in, committed to promoting

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what are called edible landscapes.

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These are, long, long-term food,

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cropping systems, which involve planting trees,

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various nut trees, berries

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and so forth that take the perennials

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that take a long time to yield.

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But once they yield, it's like an, an abundance.

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If you have an old pecan tree,

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or well, not, a pecan, yielding pecan tree, it's one

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of nature's riches.

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It will just shower these pecans down on you.

16:07.085 --> 16:09.865
So the key point was that there was this cooperative

16:10.815 --> 16:14.065
that was committed, not only to,

16:14.575 --> 16:17.425
servicing upscale clients where,

16:17.565 --> 16:19.825
for whom they received con considerable income,

16:20.045 --> 16:24.945
but diverting that towards pro bono work with people,

16:25.125 --> 16:29.185
in, our communities of color here in north in

16:29.845 --> 16:34.185
Durham, with African Americans, with, other groups,

16:34.725 --> 16:37.905
with poor, re residents in Durham.

16:38.445 --> 16:43.065
Uh, and, helping them shape their food systems by

16:43.865 --> 16:48.545
planting these, sustain these edible gardens,

16:48.545 --> 16:51.705
that were, would, would flourish over many years.

16:51.805 --> 16:53.065
We found that really interesting

16:53.065 --> 16:56.425
because they were, cornucopia Landscaping was also committed

16:56.565 --> 17:00.465
to teaching the cooperative Model Prelude to saying that

17:00.465 --> 17:01.905
what we looked at was

17:02.405 --> 17:05.265
how does this pass across racial boundaries?

17:06.045 --> 17:08.065
The food system in the United States,

17:08.125 --> 17:10.345
the food system in North Carolina, Durham,

17:10.345 --> 17:13.785
and elsewhere, is always shaped by class

17:14.285 --> 17:18.465
and by race, relationships and inequalities.

17:18.805 --> 17:22.225
And what we found was that,

17:22.515 --> 17:26.865
cornucopia Landscaping was doing its utmost to assist,

17:27.995 --> 17:31.575
African American, gardeners

17:31.575 --> 17:35.495
and so forth in Durham was having a difficult time doing it.

17:35.495 --> 17:39.175
And, our account there has much to do with

17:39.805 --> 17:41.375
what those difficulties were about.

17:41.485 --> 17:45.815
They were about differences, of white privilege,

17:46.515 --> 17:51.245
acting against black activists who were seeking to

17:51.895 --> 17:54.245
build more sustainable food systems,

17:54.465 --> 17:58.085
but not, were more interested, committed, for instance,

17:58.105 --> 18:00.485
to making sure that their neighbors received

18:01.165 --> 18:02.245
adequate food stuffs they needed,

18:02.845 --> 18:05.265
rather than the more commercial market of,

18:05.565 --> 18:09.665
of a long-term food garden system, which would take,

18:10.155 --> 18:11.985
which would build employment and so forth.

18:12.085 --> 18:14.075
Now, it's, it's complicated,

18:14.455 --> 18:18.075
but the, whole question around food opportunity

18:18.135 --> 18:20.835
to get access to food,

18:20.835 --> 18:24.595
in a highly food insecure population is,

18:25.165 --> 18:28.035
often far more compelling than the long-term prospects

18:28.255 --> 18:30.115
for commercial development of even small,

18:30.125 --> 18:32.115
small scale urban farms.

18:32.375 --> 18:34.915
So there's a lot, there was a lot riding on that.

18:35.135 --> 18:38.715
So, that was our lesson, if you will,

18:38.825 --> 18:40.675
what we drew on from Durham.

18:41.135 --> 18:45.115
Um, so if I could just, turning to the,

18:45.655 --> 18:48.875
the two rural areas extremely interesting as well.

18:49.565 --> 18:53.515
Otago County, up in the high country, of Appalachians

18:55.165 --> 18:58.665
was an ex, is an example of where there's a lot

18:58.665 --> 19:00.745
of rural poverty, because those local folks

19:00.745 --> 19:03.385
that I talked about, earlier

19:03.925 --> 19:06.065
are often have seasonal employment.

19:06.325 --> 19:07.785
The farms aren't yielding enough.

19:07.975 --> 19:10.825
They have to go down the mountain, as they say, to find,

19:11.025 --> 19:13.265
increasingly scarce industrial employment

19:13.265 --> 19:15.305
because of globalization

19:15.365 --> 19:18.145
and de-industrialization in the, in North Carolina.

19:18.645 --> 19:23.025
So there's a lot of rural poverty in that area,

19:23.245 --> 19:26.545
and yet it is an area of relative prosperity due

19:26.545 --> 19:29.305
to the retirement economy, the tourist economy

19:29.375 --> 19:31.465
that I mentioned, and the university.

19:32.125 --> 19:36.225
So the whole problem there really has to do with how,

19:36.325 --> 19:40.765
the challenge is how to bring people from these poor,

19:41.085 --> 19:45.925
outlying rural, areas into the city of,

19:46.175 --> 19:48.765
Boone County capital of Watauga,

19:49.225 --> 19:51.285
and to a situation that they felt

19:51.885 --> 19:55.255
that they were being treated with dignity if they were being

19:55.865 --> 19:57.535
given charitable food.

19:57.675 --> 20:00.855
And that's a, a, a major accomplishment

20:00.855 --> 20:02.895
that a particular group called Farm Cafe,

20:03.935 --> 20:06.215
a nonprofit organization called Farm Cafe,

20:07.055 --> 20:09.535
actually we think accomplished really amazingly well.

20:10.595 --> 20:15.415
Uh, and it did that, as part of the, of a broader,

20:16.375 --> 20:19.775
movement called One World Everyone Eats, which was started

20:20.305 --> 20:23.575
about, 15 years ago, in Utah,

20:24.035 --> 20:28.055
and has this model in which, people can,

20:28.325 --> 20:31.095
come in order from a, what appears

20:31.095 --> 20:33.055
to be a restaurant menu, but then they can dictate

20:33.055 --> 20:34.335
how much they can pay for it,

20:34.395 --> 20:36.295
or they want to pay for it, right?

20:36.595 --> 20:37.895
So it evens out.

20:37.995 --> 20:41.655
It can even out the class, disparities that are

20:41.715 --> 20:45.455
so obviously clear when you have, you know,

20:45.605 --> 20:46.975
so-called Gourmet Dining.

20:47.000 --> 20:49.165
Dining, which can be in, you know, a,

20:49.485 --> 20:51.005
a single person can pay 50

20:51.025 --> 20:54.125
or a hundred dollars nowadays on one hand, plus

20:54.125 --> 20:56.885
what you get at the, the convenience stores,

20:57.025 --> 21:00.565
and even worse, the fast food outlets that,

21:00.755 --> 21:02.285
poor people can typically afford.

21:02.705 --> 21:05.245
But by offering what Optional pricing, pricing

21:06.305 --> 21:09.085
and putting in other mechanisms to make it possible

21:09.145 --> 21:10.845
for people who wanted to,

21:10.845 --> 21:13.725
to even volunteer in the restaurant instead of paying

21:13.725 --> 21:17.605
for a meal, what you do is even out the income disparities.

21:17.985 --> 21:21.525
Uh, and if you treat everybody otherwise with equal dignity

21:21.665 --> 21:26.325
and so forth, then poor food, people who are,

21:26.625 --> 21:30.685
food insecure feel that they can come in,

21:30.745 --> 21:35.575
and without sort of showing their need, right?

21:35.585 --> 21:38.285
Their need, their hunger,

21:38.585 --> 21:41.565
and, they can actually take advantage of this,

21:41.715 --> 21:45.925
this matters in a state in which, which is part

21:45.925 --> 21:48.445
of the US South where to go hungry

21:48.705 --> 21:52.485
and to ask for food is seen as debasing or humiliating.

21:52.745 --> 21:53.805
And so we caught through that.

21:54.385 --> 21:58.205
Uh, I think they did an amazing, you know, a farm cafe

21:58.235 --> 22:00.085
that is to say, and,

22:00.085 --> 22:04.245
and its lead activist did an amazing job of trying to,

22:04.825 --> 22:07.445
deal with that particular challenge.

22:08.415 --> 22:11.155
And so we gave it a lot of attention in the book.

22:11.705 --> 22:14.515
Finally, let me turn to the poorest area of North Carolina.

22:15.135 --> 22:17.635
One I mentioned earlier, Edgecombe County,

22:17.635 --> 22:21.355
where we worked with a group called, the Clarkton,

22:21.355 --> 22:23.235
community Garden Group.

22:23.375 --> 22:28.075
And they were part of a, of a, Baptist fellowship,

22:28.655 --> 22:32.115
almost completely African Americans

22:32.135 --> 22:34.675
and some, some of the poorest residents in the state,

22:34.675 --> 22:35.715
as I said,

22:36.175 --> 22:40.555
before, with few job prospects locally, many of them,

22:41.015 --> 22:45.715
caught up in, in the incarcerate in, in,

22:45.815 --> 22:48.955
in the incarceration system from an early age

22:49.345 --> 22:52.435
with relatives, older relatives, bro, older brothers

22:52.435 --> 22:53.795
and so forth, fathers and so forth

22:53.865 --> 22:55.155
that had already been in prison.

22:56.055 --> 22:59.555
You get this almost sense of a, of a kindergarten

22:59.575 --> 23:03.875
to pipeline, a kind kindergarten

23:04.255 --> 23:08.995
to jail pipeline, for so many of these residents

23:09.385 --> 23:12.835
with a white, commercial elite, local

23:13.135 --> 23:18.075
and regional com elite, cutting them off from,

23:18.085 --> 23:22.595
large scale, from profitable, employment,

23:23.215 --> 23:25.755
all, relegating them to the fast food industry.

23:26.295 --> 23:27.995
Uh, and so the prospects

23:27.995 --> 23:30.755
for many young African Americans in this region

23:30.815 --> 23:34.875
of North Carolina, were, are, were, and are dire.

23:35.105 --> 23:36.355
They're very difficult.

23:36.735 --> 23:41.315
People get, get caught up in the, incarceration system.

23:41.895 --> 23:44.715
Uh, they work in the fast food system, or they get

23:44.735 --> 23:45.735
Out. That's

23:45.735 --> 23:49.645
what happens in, edgecomb

23:49.665 --> 23:52.445
and other counties in the northeast of North Carolina.

23:52.825 --> 23:56.005
So what we found was this absolutely astounding

23:56.685 --> 24:00.245
Clarkton community garden experiment led

24:00.265 --> 24:05.165
by a Reverend David Hemmings who taught, who was,

24:05.425 --> 24:09.005
committed to teaching,

24:10.275 --> 24:12.665
young, young adults

24:12.805 --> 24:15.985
and adolescents in the community, how

24:15.985 --> 24:18.665
to garden their own food, how to grow their own food, how to

24:19.535 --> 24:22.865
benefit from it commercially, how to, how to sell it in ways

24:22.865 --> 24:26.465
that were, would be, would provide them

24:26.465 --> 24:27.705
with some source of income.

24:28.285 --> 24:32.255
Uh, but also it would, the community garden had many more

24:33.305 --> 24:35.815
calls on, its on, on its produce, if you will.

24:35.885 --> 24:37.775
Kids themselves needed to be fed,

24:38.305 --> 24:40.655
their relatives needed to be fed.

24:41.155 --> 24:45.895
Um, elders in the community who were, unable to,

24:46.195 --> 24:49.335
you know, grow their own food,

24:49.335 --> 24:54.095
living on very limited incomes, all these folks, they also

24:55.245 --> 25:00.145
had, were there were calls on them to, for these kids,

25:00.325 --> 25:04.065
to produce for the Reverend David Hemmings

25:05.535 --> 25:08.505
distilled, all of these, if you will, communi,

25:08.505 --> 25:13.265
community needs, the, the need for these kids

25:13.325 --> 25:18.185
to raise some money, learn some form of income as a, as a,

25:18.545 --> 25:22.985
a way, an alternative, an exit from those dire,

25:23.885 --> 25:26.265
alternatives I mentioned earlier.

25:26.965 --> 25:30.465
And part of that was a vision of,

25:30.465 --> 25:32.265
community self-reliance,

25:33.195 --> 25:37.215
but one which completely situated within a broader

25:38.365 --> 25:41.535
anti-racist perspective, driven by long

25:41.555 --> 25:45.575
and hard experience of the racism in the region.

25:46.395 --> 25:48.015
Now, let me be clear. We found racism

25:48.595 --> 25:50.175
in all our settings, right?

25:50.595 --> 25:55.205
So this is not, yeah, I'm not saying

25:55.205 --> 25:57.205
that this was the only reason with that problem,

25:57.585 --> 26:00.525
but it was, extremely obvious

26:00.525 --> 26:05.125
because of the pr past, animosities between whites

26:05.125 --> 26:07.725
and blacks, in particular during the Civil Rights movement

26:07.745 --> 26:09.125
and afterward, and

26:09.125 --> 26:11.885
because of the dire, poverty of,

26:12.585 --> 26:14.365
of the community.

26:14.825 --> 26:19.445
So food activism, there was initiated through, the,

26:19.705 --> 26:23.525
the church leadership of that community by Dr

26:23.745 --> 26:26.045
or reverend, Hemmings,

26:26.465 --> 26:30.565
and the people he could, mobilize,

26:30.905 --> 26:33.965
but mobilize through a kind of spirituality, a sense

26:34.185 --> 26:38.645
of the mutuality that God intended, if you wish,

26:39.105 --> 26:42.925
between people instead of as he said, yeah, this image.

26:43.695 --> 26:48.485
Don't, don't uproot the plant, take the fruit

26:48.545 --> 26:51.405
of the plant and let the plant survive so

26:51.405 --> 26:54.685
that others may take from it and return,

26:55.515 --> 26:57.095
and, again and again.

26:57.435 --> 26:59.255
And so he had this image,

26:59.255 --> 27:02.815
that was very much situated within,

27:02.815 --> 27:06.455
African American, spirituality

27:07.005 --> 27:11.215
that we found really extremely mo moving, so, and important.

27:11.635 --> 27:15.015
Um, and so those are, to pull it all together

27:15.835 --> 27:18.375
in these very diverse landscapes,

27:18.675 --> 27:22.735
for different settings, we found that each

27:22.735 --> 27:27.395
of the experiments I'm talking about seem to tr worked

27:28.135 --> 27:32.025
or tried to achieve the, to reconcile

27:33.085 --> 27:36.995
this fundamental predicament that the books looks at.

27:38.295 --> 27:42.475
How do you produce quality, healthy,

27:43.425 --> 27:46.435
sustainable, delicious food

27:48.675 --> 27:52.305
for people who can afford it?

27:53.135 --> 27:57.125
Especially, how do you do that in a situation where

27:57.625 --> 28:02.525
so many people are increasingly precarious, going,

28:02.585 --> 28:05.245
have downwardly mobile lives

28:05.985 --> 28:08.925
or are, are, are at, if you will, at the bottom

28:09.485 --> 28:12.165
economically already, they're poor, they're disabled,

28:12.555 --> 28:13.565
they're,

28:13.565 --> 28:16.085
racially discriminated against, et cetera, et cetera.

28:16.085 --> 28:18.765
They're elderly and some cases,

28:19.065 --> 28:22.125
and so the key question is how do you bring,

28:23.265 --> 28:24.565
how do you solve that problem?

28:24.865 --> 28:27.405
And the value of our

28:28.405 --> 28:32.325
ethnography came from asking that question, not being able

28:32.325 --> 28:34.685
to solve that question that we find, think we find

28:35.455 --> 28:38.485
found point could be called for least bad solutions

28:39.325 --> 28:40.625
to this predicament.

28:41.005 --> 28:43.545
How do you feed, feed great

28:44.125 --> 28:47.385
and healthy food to people no matter what their wealth,

28:47.645 --> 28:50.865
no matter what their color is in the US and,

28:51.005 --> 28:52.865
and elsewhere, right?

28:53.205 --> 28:57.585
How can you do that and how you can you reconcile this,

28:57.735 --> 29:01.665
this problem of, of too much wealth,

29:04.075 --> 29:07.975
to, insufficiently allocated

29:08.435 --> 29:11.655
or unequally allocated so that there are huge numbers

29:11.655 --> 29:13.695
of people that can't afford food,

29:13.995 --> 29:18.295
and yet there's a wealthy group of people who are able to su

29:19.165 --> 29:23.235
sustain some farmers in some places, small, small,

29:23.245 --> 29:26.605
small scale farmers, with a niche market.

29:27.145 --> 29:30.055
But if you go to a typical farmer's market in any

29:30.055 --> 29:33.115
of these counties, any of these three, four settings,

29:34.215 --> 29:37.475
the only people who can afford the food are people

29:37.535 --> 29:40.675
who are upper middle class, who are relatively well to do.

29:41.865 --> 29:44.445
And that doesn't mean everybody else starts.

29:44.555 --> 29:48.125
What it means is that the industrial food system

29:48.765 --> 29:52.405
provides the lowest common denominator of mass scale,

29:53.215 --> 29:56.125
relatively non-nutritious food

29:56.485 --> 29:58.925
provided to the masses of people in the United States at

29:59.225 --> 30:01.325
low, what appears to be low cost.

30:02.035 --> 30:04.885
It's low cost for the consumer, it's low cost for the eater,

30:04.885 --> 30:06.805
but it's not the low cost for society,

30:07.225 --> 30:09.005
and it's not the low cost for the planet.

30:09.465 --> 30:12.325
And that's what we're trying to, that's why the,

30:12.455 --> 30:15.325
these attempted four solutions in our four different

30:15.325 --> 30:17.365
settings we think are so important

30:17.715 --> 30:21.565
because we have to, we have to be able to meet this problem.

30:22.065 --> 30:26.645
How is the large, moderate and moderate income

30:26.705 --> 30:30.965
and less and lower income population able to meet

30:31.585 --> 30:35.445
and take advantage of, you know, their needs

30:36.385 --> 30:40.405
to, have, sustainable food, food

30:40.405 --> 30:44.285
that is not produced by industrial means that are a toxic,

30:44.615 --> 30:46.885
toxic, toxic to the environment

30:47.465 --> 30:49.645
and, heating up our planet

30:49.675 --> 30:52.205
because of the massive use of

30:52.735 --> 30:57.195
fossil fuels in agricultural production, transport,

30:57.725 --> 31:01.715
processing, manufacturing, distribution, retailing.

31:02.185 --> 31:04.115
It's a huge glutton.

31:05.475 --> 31:07.745
These, all of these parts of the food system,

31:07.915 --> 31:11.625
industrial food system are a glutton for fossil fuels.

31:12.335 --> 31:15.465
They demand, they consume an enormous amount

31:15.845 --> 31:17.865
of the world's available fossil fuels.

31:18.775 --> 31:21.375
I think we have to ask some very serious questions

31:21.955 --> 31:24.175
around our food economy.

31:24.355 --> 31:27.295
The one, the main one we depend on, unfortunately,

31:27.295 --> 31:30.655
which is the industrial corporate organized food economy.

31:31.835 --> 31:35.615
And only when we understand that, can we understand where

31:36.325 --> 31:39.175
food activism can go and will go.

31:40.155 --> 31:42.055
Um, and that has to do with the fact

31:42.725 --> 31:46.375
that right now all there are massive subsidies

31:46.715 --> 31:48.215
to the industrial food economy.

31:48.895 --> 31:52.135
Billions of dollars that go from the US government

31:52.155 --> 31:53.895
and governments of,

31:54.025 --> 31:58.215
state governments throughout the US certainly, yeah,

31:58.435 --> 32:03.015
in the, the US south that go towards the profit lines,

32:03.115 --> 32:06.895
the bottom lines of re corporations, something like

32:08.225 --> 32:12.405
owe $20 billion has been spent annually at,

32:12.545 --> 32:15.525
in certain times through the American Farm bill,

32:15.705 --> 32:19.565
US Farm Bill, to subsidize what are called commodity crops.

32:20.025 --> 32:24.285
But what are these? Are these, for nutritious

32:24.905 --> 32:26.005
of, crops?

32:26.465 --> 32:30.245
No, they're for corn that goes into ethanol.

32:30.245 --> 32:33.085
Therefore, corn that goes into high fructose corn syrup,

32:33.375 --> 32:37.085
which has been, identified as one of the sources

32:37.905 --> 32:40.605
of the increased obesity epidemic

32:40.825 --> 32:43.365
as it's being called throughout the country in the way

32:43.365 --> 32:45.925
of fast foods,

32:46.795 --> 32:48.405
soft drinks, and much, much more.

32:49.065 --> 32:51.645
Uh, and so these massive subsidies

32:52.295 --> 32:54.405
underwrite the food system.

32:54.455 --> 32:57.285
We've got the dominant food system, the industrial one,

32:58.225 --> 33:02.165
and as I mentioned, earlier, they,

33:02.745 --> 33:06.745
the industrial food system works trans internationally,

33:06.745 --> 33:08.665
internationally, and it works by setting

33:08.665 --> 33:09.985
what is called a world prize.

33:10.555 --> 33:14.345
Think of the world as your, your little ball that you can,

33:14.835 --> 33:18.145
where you can say, if I export

33:18.775 --> 33:20.105
food from Guatemala

33:20.445 --> 33:24.865
or food from, Mexico to the us, I can do

33:24.865 --> 33:26.625
so at absolutely minimal costs.

33:27.475 --> 33:29.305
We've driven off the small scale farmers,

33:29.405 --> 33:32.225
and we hired them back as laborers to work in our,

33:32.445 --> 33:33.465
our plantations.

33:33.565 --> 33:34.825
So we'll grow tomatoes

33:35.405 --> 33:37.585
and we'll export them to the United States.

33:38.055 --> 33:39.585
Well, that doesn't happen without a lot

33:39.585 --> 33:42.545
of pol politics in which we turn to in our book

33:42.975 --> 33:45.305
with all this going on in the industrial food economy.

33:45.665 --> 33:48.385
W what does food activism have is its potential food

33:48.625 --> 33:52.785
activism does not have, as it, used

33:52.785 --> 33:56.465
to much more in, with the us

33:57.125 --> 34:01.585
and, it doesn't have support, through,

34:01.755 --> 34:04.175
government, funding.

34:04.355 --> 34:08.215
It doesn't have support even, in many instances through

34:08.645 --> 34:12.975
what I mentioned earlier, our agricultural extension system

34:13.515 --> 34:16.295
of the US Department of Agriculture, which tends

34:16.315 --> 34:17.935
to focus on supporting the needs

34:17.955 --> 34:21.175
of large scale commodity farmers that produce the corn,

34:21.285 --> 34:26.255
they produce, wheat, they produce,

34:26.465 --> 34:30.855
sugar, but they don't support the production

34:31.415 --> 34:35.495
Domestically are freshest vegetables or any vegetables.

34:36.315 --> 34:41.295
Uh, fruits, are, you know, many

34:41.295 --> 34:44.695
of our livestock, the livestock we consume hate

34:44.695 --> 34:46.375
to tell people, but it's, I imported.

34:46.765 --> 34:48.135
It's important for Brazil.

34:48.245 --> 34:50.695
It's imported from Mexico, it's imported from,

34:51.285 --> 34:53.015
from Canada and elsewhere.

34:53.355 --> 34:55.935
And I'm not, we're not being a protectionist by saying this

34:55.935 --> 34:59.975
because we do have people who actually know how to grow

35:01.235 --> 35:05.445
healthy, grown or raised, livestock.

35:05.835 --> 35:06.885
Just as we know people,

35:07.435 --> 35:10.285
that there are many farmers here in the US

35:10.625 --> 35:14.365
and certainly in North Carolina who know how to grow,

35:14.535 --> 35:17.285
nutritious, fruit

35:17.385 --> 35:19.325
and vegetables, in ways

35:19.325 --> 35:22.645
that do not consume huge amounts of fossil fuel.

35:22.965 --> 35:26.965
Fertilizers do not depend upon massive transport systems

35:27.035 --> 35:28.405
that go thousands of miles.

35:28.985 --> 35:33.525
Uh, you know, my classic example is the, you know,

35:33.525 --> 35:36.885
in the industrial food system is that here in North Carolina

35:37.065 --> 35:41.565
during the off season, we get imported, to may,

35:41.665 --> 35:45.245
no imported, apples, and where do they come from?

35:45.385 --> 35:49.045
New Zealand, we get imported, blueberries off season

35:49.795 --> 35:52.565
from Chile and Argentina,

35:53.185 --> 35:57.205
and that's hugely costly to not just

35:58.495 --> 36:01.475
the consumer, but it's also, to the food system

36:01.815 --> 36:05.755
and to the planet, because, that's massive in terms

36:05.755 --> 36:09.515
of just fossil fuel expenditures for transport, for example.

36:10.055 --> 36:14.495
So where's, local food going, local food activism, going

36:15.065 --> 36:18.295
local food activism going, is going, has

36:18.295 --> 36:20.775
to go towards getting more government support,

36:21.045 --> 36:25.055
towards making it matter to many more people

36:25.625 --> 36:27.735
about the state of our local food systems,

36:28.425 --> 36:31.695
where our food comes from, who it goes to,

36:32.545 --> 36:35.455
where our food comes from, has to turn

36:35.965 --> 36:38.015
away from the industrial food system

36:38.925 --> 36:43.305
toward local production, towards regional production, right?

36:44.165 --> 36:47.385
It has to turn towards more sustainable forms of production

36:47.385 --> 36:50.225
that are not so dependent on the fossil fuel economy.

36:50.645 --> 36:53.625
It has to go, who does it go? Who does is the food?

36:53.965 --> 36:55.065
Who does the food go to?

36:55.405 --> 36:58.705
It has to go, to people who are not,

36:58.885 --> 37:03.425
who could not only afford, the upscale of,

37:04.045 --> 37:06.825
food stuffs, if you will, that are now being produced

37:07.365 --> 37:10.025
in farmer's markets and wholesale foods and so forth.

37:10.085 --> 37:14.425
It has to go to the rest of the population that is,

37:16.025 --> 37:19.805
you could call them nutritionally lowballed in the

37:19.805 --> 37:20.885
global food colony.

37:21.705 --> 37:24.525
And by that I mean that they are the ones that have

37:24.525 --> 37:28.445
to depend upon a global prices, which are always set

37:28.825 --> 37:32.285
to undercut the local small scale farmer,

37:32.985 --> 37:34.285
grower.

37:35.185 --> 37:36.365
And to,

37:36.465 --> 37:38.965
and if, if you will make it impossible

37:39.305 --> 37:43.885
for our small scale farmers to be sustained, you can change

37:43.885 --> 37:47.285
that if small scale, if, sorry,

37:47.385 --> 37:50.485
if the large scale industrial food system of, you know,

37:50.485 --> 37:53.645
massive, corn

37:54.065 --> 37:58.405
and soybean, corporate farming with tens

37:58.405 --> 38:01.405
of thousands of acres under corn, soybeans, if

38:01.405 --> 38:04.445
that system can be, supported by billions of dollars

38:05.105 --> 38:09.645
per year as happens now, why not support the small scale,

38:10.265 --> 38:13.565
farmer using organic or,

38:13.705 --> 38:17.045
or agro, ecological methods

38:18.145 --> 38:22.365
who lives nearby, who, can produce a product

38:22.465 --> 38:23.525
but cannot be under,

38:23.625 --> 38:25.965
cannot sustain themselves if they're undercut

38:26.305 --> 38:27.925
by the massive food imports

38:28.145 --> 38:30.085
of the industrial food, economy.

38:30.545 --> 38:34.845
And that's the predicament that we discovered by asking

38:35.515 --> 38:39.135
the small scale what's happening around the small scale,

38:39.285 --> 38:43.975
sustainable food economy, and why can't farmers flourish.

38:44.235 --> 38:48.455
And then asking also what's happening around the lives

38:48.955 --> 38:52.895
and the, of food insecure people who are unable to have,

38:53.155 --> 38:57.145
the food they need, to prosper.

38:57.365 --> 38:59.665
And they certainly can't, afford them.

39:00.045 --> 39:03.225
And in fact, you, find themselves as part

39:03.225 --> 39:04.265
of this punitive economy.

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You can't even get food stamps, what used

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to be called food stamps,

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or supplemental, nutritional assistance program, v

39:12.145 --> 39:16.505
vouchers or snap vouchers,

39:16.795 --> 39:19.825
today without being, you know,

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for a so-called able-bodied adult,

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anybody other than a pregnant, woman

39:25.005 --> 39:28.265
or somebody, racing a child under age six.

39:29.085 --> 39:32.935
But the rest, the rest of the adults,

39:33.155 --> 39:37.495
in the United States who need to have food, are not able

39:37.495 --> 39:40.735
to have access to snap benefits without

39:41.705 --> 39:44.095
being required to hold down a job

39:44.275 --> 39:48.895
and just a job, not a way of, not sustainably for them,

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economically sustainable, just a job.

39:52.715 --> 39:54.615
But that means that anybody

39:54.755 --> 39:59.135
who might have talents in some other areas as a poor person,

39:59.645 --> 40:03.935
then simply flipping burgers at whole food at McDonald's,

40:04.475 --> 40:06.815
you know, has to go

40:07.235 --> 40:11.815
and work in the lowest paying jobs in our, precarious,

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service economy in order to get the food stamps

40:16.445 --> 40:19.095
that will feed her and her family.

40:20.265 --> 40:23.325
If you don't do the work, the job, the job,

40:23.735 --> 40:25.845
which everyone hates if you're in the local,

40:25.865 --> 40:29.765
in the fast food system, doesn't pay enough to live off of

40:30.615 --> 40:32.645
hours, are durable and so forth.

40:33.345 --> 40:35.765
But you do it if you have to so

40:35.765 --> 40:38.925
that your kids can be adequately fed, not

40:38.925 --> 40:39.965
by the fast food system,

40:40.385 --> 40:44.845
but by the US taxpayer through, SNAP benefits.

40:45.105 --> 40:48.565
That's what we've got now, that's a punitive system driven

40:48.985 --> 40:51.005
by racism, by classism,

40:51.505 --> 40:55.365
and by a total neglect of what the food needs

40:55.665 --> 40:58.485
of a large proportion of the people in this country.

40:59.265 --> 41:02.885
So those problems, when you identify the unsustainability

41:03.345 --> 41:05.485
of, small scale farming

41:06.145 --> 41:10.925
and the unsustainability for working, for working people

41:11.785 --> 41:14.445
of the food charity system,

41:14.445 --> 41:16.965
because it doesn't adequately meet their needs either,

41:17.105 --> 41:19.085
and the, SNAP benefits

41:19.085 --> 41:21.405
and other federal transfer payments don't meet their needs.

41:22.515 --> 41:25.175
This is the, what we have now.

41:25.885 --> 41:28.695
What we need is more government support

41:28.915 --> 41:32.255
for food activism right now, food activists, whether in,

41:32.605 --> 41:37.405
whichever, kind you are involved in,

41:37.425 --> 41:40.485
if you're, working at a food charity, if you're working,

41:40.945 --> 41:45.365
to, promote a, a farmer's market, either one, they,

41:45.365 --> 41:49.405
they, the labor they give is largely, free.

41:49.835 --> 41:52.885
It's free to, it's free to the corporations, basically.

41:53.315 --> 41:57.325
It's free to, you know, to, for,

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for corporations to take advantage of even.

42:00.785 --> 42:02.165
Uh, and I won't go into that,

42:02.185 --> 42:06.365
but the key point is, food activism right now is not,

42:06.395 --> 42:09.005
it's self-sustainable as a, as a practice

42:09.635 --> 42:14.125
without the support that it really needs from,

42:14.265 --> 42:15.485
the government, given

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that the industrial foods economy isn't going

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to do it isn't going to meet either of these two problems.

42:20.825 --> 42:23.885
In fact, one can make a good case that the industrial

42:24.395 --> 42:27.805
food economy now globalized, is the source of both

42:27.805 --> 42:29.805
of the problems I've been discussing here.

Neoliberalism's Impact on Food Security & Activism

00:00:00 - I and my coauthor Dorothy Holland, unfortunately, she's passed, were, worked together on a previous, book, which was published in 2007, about what is called neoliberalism or market fundamentalism. And in that, we found out, or through our war, research findings, we found out that neoliberalism leaves, both people who need, food, adequate food and food that's culturally appropriate out of their,
00:00:33 - It also leaves, the sustainable, foods that we need to have a livable planet on, and to protect our ecology, particularly in the face of climate change to go on. So we found that neoliberalism lacked both of those. And for that reason, we turned to what we call food activism. Food activism is basically the idea that we're, wherever we have our food system, people have much at stake.
00:01:09 - a problem in the United States especially, but it's a, a problem throughout the global north around food security. That is to say, do, people, particularly people of low means working class, if you will. Why do not, why don't they have the, food adequate, for the nutrition and to meet their cultural needs? Why do they not have a degree of food security? So we, and we also know that other people
00:01:42 - of our food systems and will, they should be our food system. Right now, if we take it globally, accounts for somewhere between 25% and 33% of global greenhouse gas emissions, depending upon how you count them, right? And that's huge. Most people think of, you know, automobile, emissions, airline, emissions as being important. No doubt they are. But few, relatively few people understand
00:02:17 - our current industrial corporate food system, is. And so we saw both of these groups, if you will, beginning to undertake, to transform the food systems in the United States, the local food systems. That's all we can work at, for many of us into something more sustainable and something that provided, support for food adequacy
00:02:47 - So, I would say the, the, if you think of what matters, we see two problems that have just outlined. And how can they be dealt with what they're both, the food system is consequential for both central to both. And if that's the case in a time of climate change, environmental destruction, which is very severe, we're having an enormous loss of, of, biological diversity, for example.

Food Activism: Challenges and Solutions in North Carolina

00:03:19 - Try pollinating, your food crops without, honeybees and see what happens in the United States and most of the rest of the world, right? So, we've got to consider how people, not just, trans, you know, transnational food, corporate managers, not just, food charities try to solve these problems. What can people do in, you know, if you will,
00:03:52 - both more sustainable for purposes of the planet and our environment on one hand, and, to, provide the security, for food access that a large proportion of, our population needs in the United States? the food insecure population by the U-S-D-A-A estimates varies somewhere between 12% in good times and 14%, or one out of seven people in times, like,
00:04:22 - So it's a big concern from that point of view. Dorothy or I preferred Dottie, Dottie Holland, and I had previously collaborated in a book at that I mentioned right at the beginning. And we found the wonderful, wonderfully productive and also enjoyable, but highly unusual activity within cultural anthropology of a collaborative effort. Cultural anthropology is known for its lone writers, for,
00:04:53 - of people going off alone all by themselves, the great individual model of doing ethnography. We looked at it differently. We said, how are we going to find out more about, food activism and the challenges it faces in what we know are, deeply, different and pro and profoundly, contrasted settings right here in our home state of North Carolina.
00:05:27 - of the largest banks in the world called the Bank of America, whose world headquarters is in Charlotte on one hand. And we have dirt, poor people of color and whites working in our rural areas who are, who we know are at, food insecure, or at even worse, they're, starving. And we know co-exist in a, a vast variety of different environments. How does food activism work in each
00:05:57 - Well, obviously, we can't do them all. So we chose four. We chose two urban environments, one being Charlotte, North Carolina, which happens to be the US' largest, third largest financial center. And in Durham, North Carolina, where I happened to, live as our two urban sites, we then chose two rural sites. One, in, Watauga County, near Boone, or, where Boone is located, which is a, a place up in the high country, as they call it.

Exploring Local Agriculture and Food Activism

00:06:29 - But huge number of people, are there as retirement. you know, relocators, they're there as, if they're local, if they were growing up, grew up there and grew up on the mountain, as they say, they are often poor, but they try to make a, hard scrabble living from food production, apple orchard, many other kinds of food production. And so there's a market for, and both the possibilities for a kind of local agriculture
00:07:04 - And so that was our se first rural site. Our second one was in the, one of the poorest areas of North Carolina. And if you look at what is called historically, the, Northeastern Carolina, there's something called the, the, it was the, plantation or, zone, if you wish, of North Carolina, where the plantations, tobacco plantations, cotton,
00:07:35 - the poorest of African Americans and poor whites lived then in during, before the Civil War and up through to the present where they lived. And so, we chose two counties, Edgecomb County, and Nash County to focus our intention on in that poorest area of, of Northeastern North Carolina. So what did we do? What did we do? We went and interviewed anybody we could think of who might know something about, food activism in any
00:08:07 - or sustainable food in farming. And so that meant we were interviewed chefs. We interviewed, sc school, school cafeteria, workers. We interviewed, farmers. We, small, small farmers. We interviewed what are called commodity farmers people, or people who grow, large scale crops commercially. We interviewed people in, the agricultural extension agencies in each
00:08:39 - for the federal government, but are there to promote agriculture in the county or in the dis area where they, work. we interviewed people who were at, at the Edge food system, if you will, people who were the, poorest, in the food, system above all when it came to food insecurity. we were interested in meeting the people who were the frontline workers who, were engaged in food activism.
00:09:13 - food activists, both engaged in trying to promote, sustainable, agriculture and food organic foods, or agroecology and yeah, agroecological methods on one hand, and it's an interview of people who were the, workers, frontline workers and staff members of these food, charities. the largest is America's Harvest.

Exploring Food Activism and Local Farming Challenges

00:09:45 - and, food banks, in our, four settings were people who knew about these problems facing, food insecure people, in that county, and the problems they faced. And we, but we wanted to see how we could be, the focus was on our food activists again, so that we could see what the, what the possibilities were
00:10:17 - or, farmers on the other, but people who could fit in that vital empty slot, if you will, where, so much needs to be done. And we find out, found out, one of the things just to, mention, an important finding is that food security activists and sustainable, farming activists both did what they did largely for free.
00:10:46 - And that's another story, but you'll have to read the book to find out about it. When we looked at our four settings, we, first thing we found out, as I said, they were, a little bit, they were vastly different from one another, but that meant that their capacities, their endowments for the kind of food activisms, plural, because there were two that we found, were different, quite different, okay? So if we look for, let me, let's start with Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:11:19 - that the whole, the crowd of consumers needed to support small scale agricultural production was there, there was what is called a demand crowd. And these were, because local food by then, and organic food, food coming out of small scale artisanal productions, and so forth, had become very chic in the preceding period
00:11:45 - before we started field our field work for this book. And so there was a demand crowd. So, pose the question, well, where's the food coming from? Well, Charlotte's a huge metropolis of about 2 million people. If you add on its, surrounding county Mecklenburg, and it draws its hinterland for drawing on food, small scale farms is, is enormous. But the question is, we couldn't really find that nearby. We, in other words, if you can't find it nearby,
00:12:20 - And one of the, and that means it's really not local. Now, a large metropolis is going to have that problem. But our key point was that when we looked in the surrounding counties, we found that the conditions, for small scale farmers were, unsustainable. Why farmland was expensive. The age of farmers was in their sixties, and nobody is going to be doing much, energetic innovation, around small scale farming in their sixties.

Challenges and Innovations in Local Food Systems

00:12:50 - There's nothing harder working in, in the United States than the small farmer, right? So we found that the conditions for small scale agricultural in, in one of our sites, Charlotte, were really problematic. We also found that there were large numbers of four and people of color and highly insecure in the Charlotte region. That led to some possibilities. W we started looking at one particular group in Parti,
00:13:23 - Now, slow Food Charlotte, as it sounds, is, a, a chapter or convivium of the slow food inter, movement, which is the international movement centered in Italy. and so, we found that they were, that slow food Charlotte, which is, was very active then, might be not so much now, but was, engaged in a major project to, support, community scale gardening.
00:13:53 - there were gardens on people's in per people's backyards. There were gardens for, for people in wanting therapy through gardening. There were gardens in the, Mecklenburg County Jail, for goodness sake. So people were engaged in a small scale food production and soul food. Charlotte brought these gardens together, garden their gardeners together, helped them link up to, the Meal on Wheels program of Charlotte,
00:14:26 - of Charlotte residents who were housebound, disabled, often unable to go out, were able to receive freshly cooked, organically grown, food, veggies, and fruit and so forth. And that this was really, a quite an interesting experiment. So we looked at this, and found out, how important this kind of capacity
00:14:56 - was now turning to Durham much smaller. It's a much smaller city, and it's much smaller than Charlotte. So I'll, and I'll have to be brief, we found, that a group called Cornucopia Landscaping. Most of the groups in this book are, have pseudonyms. But Cornucopia Landscaping was in, in, extremely interesting because it was, a cooperative, which are highly rare. It's very rare to have, small scale,
00:15:30 - But this one was extremely interesting because they were in, committed to promoting what are called edible landscapes. These are, long, long-term food, cropping systems, which involve planting trees, various nut trees, berries and so forth that take the perennials that take a long time to yield. But once they yield, it's like an, an abundance. If you have an old pecan tree,

Empowering Communities Through Sustainable Gardening

00:16:02 - of nature's riches. It will just shower these pecans down on you. So the key point was that there was this cooperative that was committed, not only to, servicing upscale clients where, for whom they received con considerable income, but diverting that towards pro bono work with people, in, our communities of color here in north in
00:16:34 - with poor, re residents in Durham. and, helping them shape their food systems by planting these, sustain these edible gardens, that were, would, would flourish over many years. We found that really interesting because they were, cornucopia Landscaping was also committed to teaching the cooperative Model Prelude to saying that
00:17:02 - how does this pass across racial boundaries? The food system in the United States, the food system in North Carolina, Durham, and elsewhere, is always shaped by class and by race, relationships and inequalities. And what we found was that, cornucopia Landscaping was doing its utmost to assist, African American, gardeners
00:17:35 - And, our account there has much to do with what those difficulties were about. They were about differences, of white privilege, acting against black activists who were seeking to build more sustainable food systems, but not, were more interested, committed, for instance, to making sure that their neighbors received adequate food stuffs they needed,
00:18:05 - of a long-term food garden system, which would take, which would build employment and so forth. Now, it's, it's complicated, but the, whole question around food opportunity to get access to food, in a highly food insecure population is, often far more compelling than the long-term prospects for commercial development of even small, small scale urban farms. So there's a lot, there was a lot riding on that.
00:18:38 - what we drew on from Durham. so if I could just, turning to the, the two rural areas extremely interesting as well. Otago County, up in the high country, of Appalachians was an ex, is an example of where there's a lot of rural poverty, because those local folks that I talked about, earlier are often have seasonal employment.

Rural Poverty and Food Equity Solutions

00:19:07 - They have to go down the mountain, as they say, to find, increasingly scarce industrial employment because of globalization and de-industrialization in the, in North Carolina. So there's a lot of rural poverty in that area, and yet it is an area of relative prosperity due to the retirement economy, the tourist economy that I mentioned, and the university. So the whole problem there really has to do with how,
00:19:41 - outlying rural, areas into the city of, Boone County capital of Watauga, and to a situation that they felt that they were being treated with dignity if they were being given charitable food. And that's a, a, a major accomplishment that a particular group called Farm Cafe, a nonprofit organization called Farm Cafe,
00:20:10 - and it did that, as part of the, of a broader, movement called One World Everyone Eats, which was started about, 15 years ago, in Utah, and has this model in which, people can, come in order from a, what appears to be a restaurant menu, but then they can dictate how much they can pay for it, or they want to pay for it, right? So it evens out.
00:20:41 - so obviously clear when you have, you know, so-called Gourmet Dining. Dining, which can be in, you know, a, a single person can pay 50 or a hundred dollars nowadays on one hand, plus what you get at the, the convenience stores, and even worse, the fast food outlets that, poor people can typically afford. But by offering what Optional pricing, pricing and putting in other mechanisms to make it possible
00:21:10 - to even volunteer in the restaurant instead of paying for a meal, what you do is even out the income disparities. and if you treat everybody otherwise with equal dignity and so forth, then poor food, people who are, food insecure feel that they can come in, and without sort of showing their need, right? Their need, their hunger, and, they can actually take advantage of this,
00:21:45 - of the US South where to go hungry and to ask for food is seen as debasing or humiliating. And so we caught through that. I think they did an amazing, you know, a farm cafe that is to say, and, and its lead activist did an amazing job of trying to, deal with that particular challenge. And so we gave it a lot of attention in the book. Finally, let me turn to the poorest area of North Carolina.

Clarkton Community Garden: Resilience and Hope

00:22:17 - where we worked with a group called, the Clarkton, community Garden Group. And they were part of a, of a, Baptist fellowship, almost completely African Americans and some, some of the poorest residents in the state, as I said, before, with few job prospects locally, many of them, caught up in, in the incarcerate in, in,
00:22:49 - with relatives, older relatives, bro, older brothers and so forth, fathers and so forth that had already been in prison. You get this almost sense of a, of a kindergarten to pipeline, a kind kindergarten to jail pipeline, for so many of these residents with a white, commercial elite, local and regional com elite, cutting them off from,
00:23:23 - all, relegating them to the fast food industry. and so the prospects for many young African Americans in this region of North Carolina, were, are, were, and are dire. They're very difficult. People get, get caught up in the, incarceration system. they work in the fast food system, or they get Out. That's what happens in, edgecomb
00:23:52 - So what we found was this absolutely astounding Clarkton community garden experiment led by a Reverend David Hemmings who taught, who was, committed to teaching, young, young adults and adolescents in the community, how to garden their own food, how to grow their own food, how to benefit from it commercially, how to, how to sell it in ways
00:24:26 - with some source of income. but also it would, the community garden had many more calls on, its on, on its produce, if you will. Kids themselves needed to be fed, their relatives needed to be fed. elders in the community who were, unable to, you know, grow their own food, living on very limited incomes, all these folks, they also
00:25:00 - to produce for the Reverend David Hemmings distilled, all of these, if you will, communi, community needs, the, the need for these kids to raise some money, learn some form of income as a, as a, a way, an alternative, an exit from those dire, alternatives I mentioned earlier.

Food Activism and Community Resilience

00:25:30 - community self-reliance, but one which completely situated within a broader anti-racist perspective, driven by long and hard experience of the racism in the region. Now, let me be clear. We found racism in all our settings, right? So this is not, yeah, I'm not saying that this was the only reason with that problem,
00:26:00 - because of the pr past, animosities between whites and blacks, in particular during the Civil Rights movement and afterward, and because of the dire, poverty of, of the community. So food activism, there was initiated through, the, the church leadership of that community by Dr or reverend, Hemmings, and the people he could, mobilize,
00:26:34 - of the mutuality that God intended, if you wish, between people instead of as he said, yeah, this image. Don't, don't uproot the plant, take the fruit of the plant and let the plant survive so that others may take from it and return, and, again and again. And so he had this image, that was very much situated within,
00:27:07 - that we found really extremely mo moving, so, and important. and so those are, to pull it all together in these very diverse landscapes, for different settings, we found that each of the experiments I'm talking about seem to tr worked or tried to achieve the, to reconcile
00:27:38 - How do you produce quality, healthy, sustainable, delicious food for people who can afford it? Especially, how do you do that in a situation where so many people are increasingly precarious, going, have downwardly mobile lives
00:28:09 - economically already, they're poor, they're disabled, they're, racially discriminated against, et cetera, et cetera. They're elderly and some cases, and so the key question is how do you bring, how do you solve that problem? And the value of our ethnography came from asking that question, not being able to solve that question that we find, think we find found point could be called for least bad solutions

Addressing Food Inequality and Sustainability Challenges

00:28:41 - How do you feed, feed great and healthy food to people no matter what their wealth, no matter what their color is in the US and, and elsewhere, right? How can you do that and how you can you reconcile this, this problem of, of too much wealth, to, insufficiently allocated or unequally allocated so that there are huge numbers
00:29:13 - and yet there's a wealthy group of people who are able to su sustain some farmers in some places, small, small, small scale farmers, with a niche market. But if you go to a typical farmer's market in any of these counties, any of these three, four settings, the only people who can afford the food are people who are upper middle class, who are relatively well to do.
00:29:44 - What it means is that the industrial food system provides the lowest common denominator of mass scale, relatively non-nutritious food provided to the masses of people in the United States at low, what appears to be low cost. It's low cost for the consumer, it's low cost for the eater, but it's not the low cost for society, and it's not the low cost for the planet. And that's what we're trying to, that's why the,
00:30:15 - settings we think are so important because we have to, we have to be able to meet this problem. How is the large, moderate and moderate income and less and lower income population able to meet and take advantage of, you know, their needs to, have, sustainable food, food that is not produced by industrial means that are a toxic,
00:30:47 - and, heating up our planet because of the massive use of fossil fuels in agricultural production, transport, processing, manufacturing, distribution, retailing. It's a huge glutton. These, all of these parts of the food system, industrial food system are a glutton for fossil fuels. They demand, they consume an enormous amount
00:31:18 - I think we have to ask some very serious questions around our food economy. The one, the main one we depend on, unfortunately, which is the industrial corporate organized food economy. And only when we understand that, can we understand where food activism can go and will go. and that has to do with the fact that right now all there are massive subsidies

Subsidies Fuel Industrial Food System Issues

00:31:48 - Billions of dollars that go from the US government and governments of, state governments throughout the US certainly, yeah, in the, the US south that go towards the profit lines, the bottom lines of re corporations, something like owe $20 billion has been spent annually at, in certain times through the American Farm bill, US Farm Bill, to subsidize what are called commodity crops.
00:32:24 - of, crops? No, they're for corn that goes into ethanol. Therefore, corn that goes into high fructose corn syrup, which has been, identified as one of the sources of the increased obesity epidemic as it's being called throughout the country in the way of fast foods, soft drinks, and much, much more. and so these massive subsidies
00:32:54 - We've got the dominant food system, the industrial one, and as I mentioned, earlier, they, the industrial food system works trans internationally, internationally, and it works by setting what is called a world prize. Think of the world as your, your little ball that you can, where you can say, if I export food from Guatemala or food from, Mexico to the us, I can do
00:33:27 - We've driven off the small scale farmers, and we hired them back as laborers to work in our, our plantations. So we'll grow tomatoes and we'll export them to the United States. Well, that doesn't happen without a lot of pol politics in which we turn to in our book with all this going on in the industrial food economy. W what does food activism have is its potential food activism does not have, as it, used to much more in, with the us
00:34:01 - government, funding. It doesn't have support even, in many instances through what I mentioned earlier, our agricultural extension system of the US Department of Agriculture, which tends to focus on supporting the needs of large scale commodity farmers that produce the corn, they produce, wheat, they produce, sugar, but they don't support the production
00:34:36 - fruits, are, you know, many of our livestock, the livestock we consume hate to tell people, but it's, I imported. It's important for Brazil. It's imported from Mexico, it's imported from, from Canada and elsewhere. And I'm not, we're not being a protectionist by saying this because we do have people who actually know how to grow healthy, grown or raised, livestock.

Supporting Local Food Systems Over Corporations

00:35:07 - that there are many farmers here in the US and certainly in North Carolina who know how to grow, nutritious, fruit and vegetables, in ways that do not consume huge amounts of fossil fuel. Fertilizers do not depend upon massive transport systems that go thousands of miles. you know, my classic example is the, you know, in the industrial food system is that here in North Carolina
00:35:41 - no imported, apples, and where do they come from? New Zealand, we get imported, blueberries off season from Chile and Argentina, and that's hugely costly to not just the consumer, but it's also, to the food system and to the planet, because, that's massive in terms of just fossil fuel expenditures for transport, for example.
00:36:15 - local food activism going, is going, has to go towards getting more government support, towards making it matter to many more people about the state of our local food systems, where our food comes from, who it goes to, where our food comes from, has to turn away from the industrial food system toward local production, towards regional production, right?
00:36:47 - that are not so dependent on the fossil fuel economy. It has to go, who does it go? Who does is the food? Who does the food go to? It has to go, to people who are not, who could not only afford, the upscale of, food stuffs, if you will, that are now being produced in farmer's markets and wholesale foods and so forth. It has to go to the rest of the population that is,
00:37:19 - global food colony. And by that I mean that they are the ones that have to depend upon a global prices, which are always set to undercut the local small scale farmer, grower. And to, and if, if you will make it impossible for our small scale farmers to be sustained, you can change that if small scale, if, sorry,
00:37:50 - massive, corn and soybean, corporate farming with tens of thousands of acres under corn, soybeans, if that system can be, supported by billions of dollars per year as happens now, why not support the small scale, farmer using organic or, or agro, ecological methods

Challenges Facing Small-Scale Food Systems

00:38:22 - but cannot be under, cannot sustain themselves if they're undercut by the massive food imports of the industrial food, economy. And that's the predicament that we discovered by asking the small scale what's happening around the small scale, sustainable food economy, and why can't farmers flourish. And then asking also what's happening around the lives
00:38:53 - the food they need, to prosper. And they certainly can't, afford them. And in fact, you, find themselves as part of this punitive economy. You can't even get food stamps, what used to be called food stamps, or supplemental, nutritional assistance program, v vouchers or snap vouchers, today without being, you know,
00:39:21 - anybody other than a pregnant, woman or somebody, racing a child under age six. But the rest, the rest of the adults, in the United States who need to have food, are not able to have access to snap benefits without being required to hold down a job and just a job, not a way of, not sustainably for them, economically sustainable, just a job.
00:39:54 - who might have talents in some other areas as a poor person, then simply flipping burgers at whole food at McDonald's, you know, has to go and work in the lowest paying jobs in our, precarious, service economy in order to get the food stamps that will feed her and her family. If you don't do the work, the job, the job,
00:40:25 - in the fast food system, doesn't pay enough to live off of hours, are durable and so forth. But you do it if you have to so that your kids can be adequately fed, not by the fast food system, but by the US taxpayer through, SNAP benefits. That's what we've got now, that's a punitive system driven by racism, by classism, and by a total neglect of what the food needs
00:40:59 - So those problems, when you identify the unsustainability of, small scale farming and the unsustainability for working, for working people of the food charity system, because it doesn't adequately meet their needs either, and the, SNAP benefits and other federal transfer payments don't meet their needs. This is the, what we have now.

Challenges in Sustainable Food Activism

00:41:28 - for food activism right now, food activists, whether in, whichever, kind you are involved in, if you're, working at a food charity, if you're working, to, promote a, a farmer's market, either one, they, they, the labor they give is largely, free. It's free to, it's free to the corporations, basically. It's free to, you know, to, for,
00:42:00 - and I won't go into that, but the key point is, food activism right now is not, it's self-sustainable as a, as a practice without the support that it really needs from, the government, given that the industrial foods economy isn't going to do it isn't going to meet either of these two problems. In fact, one can make a good case that the industrial food economy now globalized, is the source of both
00:42:27 -

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