This is the second in a series of weekly posts highlighting OKT’s Food Justice series. You can download series handouts here for free.
When people think of farmers in the United States, the image that most people have is a man. For the most part this is true, especially with the onset of industrial agriculture, where men operate machines to produce food. However, globally, women dominate food production.

According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),  women produce about 80% of the world’s food.

If you think about food preparation and preservation, the image, probably, is of work being done by women. This is also true whether it’s
preparing meals, baking breads, canning or saving seeds, women are
responsible for the majority of these tasks. Isn’t it ironic that while the world’s women are the most involved with food, they have the least to say in our current food system, which is dominated by large multinational corporations. This system doesn’t consider the well being of women in the decisions it makes, especially not the well being of women of color.

Because communities of color experience higher rates of poverty, women of color are forced to make difficult decisions about food with limited income every day. Research shows that the current food system impacts women of color disproportionately with higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, asthma, obesity and other illnesses of under-nutrition. The vicious cycle of poverty and limited access to healthy food is further compounded because communities of color have little or no health insurance.

Our Kitchen Table believes that these injustices need to be fought and the fight needs to be led by women of color. While providing temporary relief, food handouts and food assistance, are not the answer. We need a food system where women of color and communities of color play an intricate role in determining the kind of food they eat, how it is produced and who participates and benefits from that food production.

Organizations like Via Campesina, Navdanya and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers all recognize the vital role that women play in food justice and food sovereignty movements. Our Kitchen Table is committed to playing this same role in West Michigan, empowering women of color to have a voice in determining the kind of food system they want.

We see women of color creating food justice in the following ways:

• Having real access to healthy and nutritious food through growing, preserving and
  preparing their own food. We do this by offering food growing resources and
  operating neighborhood-based farmers
  markets.
• Changing school food policies to guarantee that their children eat healthy, nutritious meals, made fresh daily. We do this by
  supporting food growing projects and local schools with students and parents.
• Sharing knowledge and skills on food
  growing, food preparation, seed saving and food preservation. The more women have these skills and share them with each other, the more influence they will have in creating a food justice movement. We do this by hosting forums, workshops and creating educational materials on food justice.
• Challenging local restaurants to prepare food that is local, fresh, culturally
  relevant and does not use exploitative labor, including those who pick the food, prepare the food and serve the food.
• Demanding that the City of Grand Rapids allow women of color to garden on vacant, city-owned land for food production in their neighborhoods.

For more information on the food growing and food justice work of
Our Kitchen Table, contact us at OKTable1@gmail.com.

This is the second in a series of weekly posts highlighting OKT’s Food Justice series. You can download series handouts here for free.

Food Justice is an idea, a set of principles and something we should all strive to practice. More importantly, Food Justice is a movement and, like most social justice movements, it was born out of the lived experience of people experiencing oppression.

In many ways Food Justice grew out of the Environmental Justice
movement, where communities of color and poor working class people began to realize that their lack of access to healthy and affordable food
was not the result of their own behavior, but of a food system that was
motivated by profit.

It is fashionable for people to talk about how people who are living in
poverty also live in a “food desert.” What they generally mean is that
people don’t live close to a grocery store. Using the term “food desert”
is problematic in many ways. First, a desert is a vibrant eco-system and
not a barren wasteland, as is often associated with the term. Secondly,
identifying neighborhoods as food deserts ignores history and fails to
acknowledge that most of these neighborhoods had small grocery stores, farmers markets, fruit & vegetable stands and lots of backyard gardens. However, economic and political decisions driven by the current industrial food system resulted in neighborhoods being both abandoned and undermined, often resulting in food insecurity.

Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that neighborhoods
experiencing a lack of access to healthy, affordable food are communities experiencing Food Apartheid. Food Apartheid explains that a small number of people (agribusiness) determines the kind of food system that  the masses can access. Like the Apartheid imposed on Black South Africans, Food Apartheid means that few of us have a say in the current food system.

The movement for Food Justice is changing Food Apartheid. Armed
with the notion that everyone has the right to eat healthy, food justice
advocates engage in more locally grown food projects, sharing skills
on how to grow, prepare and preserve food, while exposing the current food
system’s unjust nature .

The Food Justice Movement is an international movement that is ultimately
fighting for Food Sovereignty, where everyone has say in the kind of food system(s) they want. Food Sovereignty is Food Democracy, where healthy food is a right for everyone―not just for those who can afford it. Here is a list of Food Justice principles that Our Kitchen Table supports and promotes:

• Food Justice recognizes that the causes of food disparity are the result of
  multiple systems of oppression. To practice food justice we must do the work through an intersectional lens.
• Food Justice advocates must focus on working with the most marginalized and vulnerable populations:
  communities of color, communities in poverty, immigrants, children, our
  elders, women, people who identify as LGBTQ, those with disabilities and
  people experiencing homelessness.
• Food Justice require us to work
  towards the elimination of exploitation in our food system, both exploitation of humans and animals.
• Food Justice demands that we grow food in such a way that preserves
  ecological biodiversity and promotes sustainability in all aspects.
• Provide resources and skill sharing so that people can be collectively more food self-sufficient.

Eating Healthy Food is a Right! The current global food system must be resisted and dismantled. For more information on ways to practice Food Justice in your community, contact Our Kitchen Table.

The Southeast Area Farmers’ Market operates 3 to 7 p.m. Fridays and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays at MLK Jr. Park, 900 Fuller Ave. SE 49507

The Spoke Folks will be at the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market Saturday. Representatives from this amazing Grand Rapids non-profit are favorites with market patrons because they not only provide advice and information, they also do bike repairs on-site and teach children and adults how to make their own minor bicycle repairs.  They will  return to the market August 20 and September 10.

The Spoke Folks mission is to increase and sustain bicycle ridership in the West Michigan area and beyond. Their goal is to make sure that people who are interested in cycling have access to safe and reliable bikes. And, their hope is to break down the obstacles that prevent people from cycling.

The Spoke Folks also run a non-profit, co-operative bike shop. They don’t fix bikes. Instead, they give cyclists tools and knowledge to fix them themselves. Don’t have a bike? The Spoke Folks refurbish and sell used bicycles of all kinds for pretty cheap. Stop by to see what they’ve got in stock. Also, the Spoke Folks stock new and used bike parts and accessories.

The Southeast Area Farmers’ Market is open 3 to 7 p.m. Fridays and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. Vendors gladly accept SNAP, WIC, and Senior Project Fresh/Market FRESH and Double Up Food Bucks.