Food Justice Resources

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What is Community Food Security?
“It is when all community members obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice.” – Mike Hamm and Anne Bell

LOCAL RESOURCES

Community Food Security Coalition – Portland based national coalition that hosts an incredible conference.
Community to Community Development – A Bellingham, WA based organization which seeks to empower people and respect the land that sustains them.
Washington Food System Directory – An overview of key sustainable food and agriculture related organizations in Washington state.
Urban Garden Share – A web site dedicated to connecting willing gardeners with local homeowners with yards to collaborate on gardening projects.
Island Meadow Farm Blog – Blog detailing the experiences of three local young farmers on Vashon, including FJP-ers Chandler and Caitlin!
Toxic-Free Future (formerly the Washington Toxics Coalition) – Toxic-Free Future advocates for the use of safer products, chemicals, and practices through advanced research, advocacy, grassroots organizing, and consumer engagement.
City Fruit – City Fruit works in Seattle, neighborhood by neighborhood to help residential tree owners grow healthy fruit, to harvest and use what they can, and to share what they don’t need.
Broadening Discourse and Centering Social Justice: Struggles for a More Just Food System in Seattle, WA – an undergraduate thesis on food justice in Seattle by previous CAGJ intern Yecelica Valdivia. Note: Any parts of this piece may be borrowed with the consent of the writer and acknowledgment how you see fit. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to borrow any pieces, please contact Yecelica Valdivia at [email protected]
Fresh Picked Seattle – Fresh-Picked Seattle aims to be a one-stop shop for information about food events and cooking resources around the Sound.
Urban Farm Hub – A news and information source for urban agriculture and food policy in the Puget Sound Region.
Urban Farm Project – A farm project located in the Cascade/South Lake Union neighborhood.
Growing Food in the City – A new guide that shows you how to increase your garden’s bounty while helping you conserve water, recycle garden wastes and keep pesticides out of local waters.

REGIONAL RESOURCES

Farm Folk/City Folk Society – A BC coalition to cultivate local, sustainable food sytems.
People’s Grocery – A community based organization whose mission is to build a local food system that improves the health and economy of the West Oakland community.
All local all the time! Athens, Ohio – how a local food economy can be done!
Just Food – A non-profit organization that works to develop a just and sustainable food system in the New York City region.
Brooklyn Food Conference – Works to create a Brooklyn base for the food movement, advocating for Food Democracy in local neighborhoods and everywhere in the world.
Occidental College Urban & Environmental Policy Institute – The institute works to advance community-driven programs and policies to build healthy, thriving communities while achieving social, economic and environmental justice.
Toronto Food Policy Council – A long-running food policy council, and Honorable Mention winner of CFSC’s Food Sovereignty Prize in 2009!

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES

Coalition of Immokalee Workers – Promotes social responsibility in the corporate food industry, with big victories that forced Taco Bell and McDonalds to pay better wages to farmworkers.
FoodFirst/Institute for Food and Development Policy – Excellent all-around resource!
Organic Consumers Association – Bringing together health, justice and sustainability, across borders.
Food & Water Watch – Challenges corporate control and abuse of food and water resources.
La Via Campesina – International Peasant Movement.
National Family Farm Coalition – Founded in 1986 to represent family farms and rural groups. Click here to view their Food From Family Farms Act – A Proposal for the 2007 U.S. Farm Bill: Crafted by family farmers to ensure fair prices for family farmers, safe and healthy food, and vibrant, environmentally sound rural communities here and around the world.
Grassroots International– Organization focused on defending human rights, movement building, resource rights, rethinking aid, and sustainable livelihoods. Click here to access their Food for Thought and Action: A Food Sovereignty Curriculum
Organic Consumers Association – Campaigning for Health, Justice, Sustainability, Peace, and Democracy.
“Eat Smart Move More North Carolina: Growing Communities through Gardens” – A planning and resource guide for anyone who is thinking about starting a community garden.
Sustainable Harvest International – Provides farming families in Central America with the training and tools to overcome poverty while restoring our planet’s tropical forests.
Towards Food Sovereignty – Publication by the International Institute for Environment and Development that describes the ecological basis of food and agriculture, the social and environmental costs of modern food systems, and the policy reversals needed to democratize food systems.
WhyHunger – Brings you into the food security movement, a movement that shows how our food system is connected, how our food grows, how it’s processed, who grows it, what we eat, where it comes from, who goes hungry and why.
Farm Bill Primer – The Farm Bill Primer features four interactive Congressional Agriculture Committee maps, and a “Who Cares” page. The site also includes links to key books, videos and the Farm Bill Budget Visualizer.

FARMWORKER/IMMIGRANT WORKER ISSUES AND RESOURCES

Injustice on our Plates [PDF] – A report from the Southern Poverty Law Center on Immigrant Women in the US Food Industry, sections include “In Search of a Better Life and the Crucible of the Crossing”, “Workplace Exploitation: Immigrant Women Powerless in the Face of Abuses”, “Sexual Violence: A Constant Menace”, and recommendations for positive policy changes.
United States Farmworker Fact Sheet [PDF]
A Fair Farm Bill and Immigration
Lessons from NAFTA: Food and Agriculture
Washington State Farmworker Housing Trust –  A non-profit organization that advocates for decent and affordable housing for Washington state farmworkers.
Farmworker Justice – A non-profit organization that empowers farmworkers to improve their living and working conditions, immigration status, health, occupational safety, and access to justice.
Facts About Workplace Sexual Violence Against Farmworker and Other-Low Wage Immigrant Women – From the Southern Poverty Law Center
Farmworker Movement Documentation Project – An online archive of essays, photos, graphics, and other materials documenting the United Farm Workers movement.
Agricultural Justice Project – a non-profit initiative to create fairness and equity in the food system through the development of social justice standards for organic and sustainable agriculture.
Farmworkers in Washington State History Project – a web site that details and documents the history of Washington’s farm workers from the 1890s to the present and explores their labor and political activism.

OTHER RESOURCES

The Food and Farming Transition: Toward a Post-Carbon Food System
Container Gardening Resource Sheet
Container Veggie Gardening Student Outline
What’s On My Food?
Farm to Hospital: Promoting Health and Supporting Local Agriculture

BUY LOCAL FOOD RESOURCES

Washington State Farmers Market Association
Food Routes
Local Harvest
Madison Market
PCC Natural Markets
Herban Feast
Locavores

READING LIST

Reportbacks on FJP’s visits to the Fisherman’s Terminal and University of Washington Farm and to Umojafest Peace Center and Danny Woo Garden by CAGJ intern Valentina de la Fuente!
‘We are Made of Our Food’: Latino/a Immigration and the Practices and Politics of Eating, a Community Report by FJP Co-Founder Teresa Mares
“The ‘Food Justice’ Movement: Trying to Break the Food Chains“, Mark Winston Griffith, Gotham Gazette, Dec. 2003
Undoing racism in the Detroit food system, Malik Yakini, The Michigan Citizen, 2010
When Eating Organic Was Totally Uncool, Pha Lo, Salon.com, Jan. 2011
Food for Everyone, YES! Magazine’s Local Food Revolution Issue from Spring 2009
Bringing the Local Food Economy Home, by Helena Norberg-Hodge
Stuffed and Starved, by Raj Patel
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
The Earth Knows My Name, by Patricia Klindienst
Going Local, by Michael Shuman
Deep Economy, by Bill McKibben
The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, by Sandor Katz
YES! Magazine
Greenblade Justice Journal
Grist, Seattle-based enviromental news and commentary
Toronto Food Policy Council’s Resource Database – Over the past ten years, the TFPC has produced a ground-breaking series of 15 discussion papers on various elements of a food systems approach to public health policy.
The Applied Research Center’s Color of Food Report, “The Applied Research Center recently embarked on a broad survey of the food system, to map out the race, gender and class of workers along the supply chain.”
Food & Water Watch’s The Economic Cost of Food Monopolies, “For decades, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have taken a hands-off approach to consolidation in the food system. The economic harm caused by the concentration of the food system is real…”
Seed Giants vs. US Farmers, a report investigating “how the current seed patent regime has led to a radical shift to consolidation and control of global seed supply and how these patents have abetted corporations, such as Monsanto, to sue U.S. farmers for alleged seed patent infringement.”

FILM LIST

The Future of Food
Good Food
Darwin’s Nightmare
Food Justice: A Growing Movement
Black Gold
Life & Debt
The Real Dirt on Farmer John
Broken Limbs
The Greening of Cuba
The Power of Community