Industrial agriculture is designed around an extractive relationship with the land, water, and other natural resources—large scale monocropping, or the practice of growing the same one or two crops (mostly corn and soy today) on the same plot of land, ultimately depletes soil health, making it less productive over time and increasing farmers’ reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. A lot of these crops go toward animal feed used on factory farms, aka Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). CAFOs contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, and burden workers and rural communities with polluted air and water. Industrial fisheries have a similar impact on our oceans. Large amounts of pesticides and antibiotics are used in on and offshore aquafarms, and overfishing, bottom trawling, and longline fishing not only impacts fish stock but can harm ocean biodiversity. Emerging developments like genetically modified salmon also pose a threat to native species and undermine indigenous communities’ food sovereignty.

This extractive mode of production is at the root of our food system’s role in the climate crisis. It’s behind the greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, biodiversity loss, and soil depletion that are symptoms of a failing food system.

WATCH: SALMON PEOPLE: The risks of genetically engineered fish for the Pacific Northwest

A remedy to the climate crisis

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than 90% of farms around the world are run by an individual or a family and rely primarily on family labor. Despite the myth that industrial agriculture and biotechnology are needed to feed the world, these family farms produce about 80% of the world’s food. Throughout time, people have evolved place-based cultivation techniques and trading systems, adapting to ecological and social conditions. And while industrial agricultural systems rely heavily on fossil fuels and chemical applications that contribute to climate change and biodiversity loss, smaller-scale producers not only depend on thriving ecological systems, they often contribute to them through nutrient cycling, habitat creation, and more.

Several studies have shown that utilizing traditional farming practices, which are rooted in stewardship and the interdependence of environmental and human health, can help mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis. Traditional agroecological practices (also known as regenerative agriculture) are built on a mutual relationship with the land.

Instead of using harmful pesticides, fertilizers, and monoculture practices, the majority of farmers around the world are small-scale producers using compost, cover cropping, minimal tillage, and crop diversity to grow food. In doing so, they are nurturing soil health, protecting biodiversity, and sequestering carbon in the soil, thereby reducing the amount of carbon in our atmosphere. Scientists say that transforming our food system to reflect these practices can potentially change the fate of our planet. Many farmers are already seeing small, but significant results like richer soil, increased biodiversity in the surrounding areas, and improved water retention. Many BIPOC producers who neither benefit from nor have an interest in industrial agricultural practices continue to farm using this traditional ecological knowledge.

EXPLORE: Real Food Media’s Tackling Climate Change Through Food Organizing Toolkit

Building community and resilience

For BIPOC communities, food and farming have long been connected to civil rights, community self-determination, and collective liberation. Many BIPOC agricultural communities have long been at the forefront of creating models that are heralded as part of a new sustainable agricultural movement.

While the predominantly white back-to-the-land “movement” of the 1970s is often credited for food distribution models like Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s, often known as “the box”), its origins are simultaneously rooted in Japan and birthed in the US via Black communities in the deep South in the 1960s. The original CSAs served as a means for consumers to buy-in and share the risk of crop failures due to weather or other unforeseen circumstances, and to share equally in the harvest.

WATCH: Food, race, and justice | Malik Yakini | TEDxMuskegon

Cooperative practices by farmers in the South played a key role in the Civil Rights movement and because Black and Brown communities continue to experience food apartheid to this day, they have always turned to each other and to the community to feed themselves and provide healthful food for their families. Some For many that have been systematically left out of the food system and often borne the brunt of a food system that was designed to amass wealth through their oppression, growing food on their terms and ensuring the communities’ access to it, is in itself a radical political act. The majority of BIPOC producers today are politically motivated by the need to fight for a more equitable, and ecologically sound food system and reclaim their connections to the land that has been historically denied to them. They use their position as providers and their land access to create space for learning, healing and resisting. Organizations like Truly Living Well in Atlanta and La Semilla Food Center in Anthony, NM have succeeded not only in growing food for local communities but also in creating a welcoming space for people to reconnect with their food sources, with each other and learn how to farm. The Dine Food Sovereignty Alliance is working with indigenous producers to honor their ancestral traditions and heal their land and advocate for a return to traditional farming practices and stewardship that their communities have used for generations.

READ: Diné Food Sovereignty – A Report on the Navajo Nation Food System and the case to Rebuild a Self-Sufficient Food System for the Diné People

Even as the largest chemical pesticide, fertilizer, and pharmaceutical companies buy up the food system and consolidate power by controlling seeds and inputs, indigenous communities and other BIPOC producers continue to grow, save and trade seeds – and with these traditional heirloom seeds – keep their cultures alive.

WATCH: Rematriation of Seeds | Rowen White

As we take measures to mitigate the climate crisis and commit to fighting systemic racism and white supremacy in our food systems, we should start by acknowledging the stewardship and resilience of these producers and organizations and their contributions to the community, the movement, and the planet. We should be asking ourselves what we can do to ensure that small-and-medium producers, especially those from BIPOC communities need to thrive. Apart from changes in policy and leadership, philanthropic dollars, community patronage and institutional funding can go a long way in honoring the work of BIPOC producers and ensuring that they can continue their critical work.

The post Can small-scale producers nurture climate resilience and feed us all? appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.

Lessons from the pandemic

The current model of food production and distribution is fuel-intensive and an active contributor to the climate crisis—both in its reliance on chemical pesticides and fertilizers made using fossil fuels, as well as in its fuel-intensive distribution network that has the entire country consuming food from a handful of food hubs. These industrial supply chains have also proven to be rigid and inadequate during crises and natural disasters such as hurricanes, forest fires, and public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic.

What seemed to many as a shortage in food supply during the early weeks of the pandemic was in reality, the inability of the centralized distribution channels to respond to disruptions in transportation and the shuttering of usual outlets like cafeterias, restaurants, and stadiums. During this time, communities in some regions had limited or no access to food, while producers in the same regions lacked access to markets. By April 2020, as the rest of the country was attempting to ‘flatten the curve’, meatpacking plants turned into COVID-19 hot spots, putting workers’ lives and public health at risk.

Community-based food systems are crisis-proof food systems

Decentralized, smaller-scale, community-based food outlets proved more reliable in the face of the pandemic—direct markets (farmer’s markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), and Community Supported Fisheries (CSFs)) saw an uptick, while mutual aid groups stepped in to ensure that at-risk community members were taken care of. At the same time, more people were growing their food, with the help of community gardeners and seed keepers. Community-based economies proved critical in this time of crisis, and we know that to survive future crises, especially those brought about by climate change, we have to transform our food system.

REPORT: Reframing Food Hubs- Food Hubs, Racial Equity, and Self-Determination in the South

To do this, we need immediate and long-term investment in localized food systems, Policy that supports the growth of small and medium-sized farms, and institutional adoption of value-based procurement programs like the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) that can help small and mid-sized producers to grow their operations, access markets and nurture mutually beneficial relationships between producers, workers, and consumers. We need shorter supply chains that grow pasture-raised livestock on independent small and medium-scale farms with small and mid-sized meat processors which are also more environmentally sustainable and result in more nutritious food for eaters. We also need increased funding for research on the role of regenerative agriculture and traditional agricultural practices in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, preserving and nurturing biodiversity, and subsequently mitigating climate change.

Grassroots organizations, small-scale producers, Indigenous communities, and cultural organizers have been building resilient and equitable food systems for years. As the pandemic has revealed, these systems are best positioned to withstand and mitigate crises. Investing in them will move us closer to a food system that can not only carry us through crisis like the pandemic and climate change, but also mitigate their impacts.

The post Community-based food systems are crisis-proof food systems appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.

Today, the food and agriculture industry spends billions of dollars lobbying each year, and their influence over policy means that the rules are still largely written in their favor. We’re now left with a reality of larger farms but fewer farmers and recent political decisions like the trade war on China have pushed many remaining small farmers, and rural economies over the edge. Under this system, where large corporations control almost every aspect of farming, it is often unviable to go against the current, irrespective of who you are—even without the additional barrier of structural racism.

Most farmers now rely on government bailouts and crop insurance to offset their losses and keep themselves afloat through particularly difficult seasons, but government aid has not reached all farmers equally. The payments are based on production: the bigger the farm, the bigger the payments and loans are configured to serve large scale farmers.  According to a report by NPR, about 100,000 individuals collected 70% of the money. BIPOC farmers, on the other hand, have historically been left out of USDA programs including disaster relief, conservation grants, and loan assistance due to discriminatory lending practices and inadequate outreach and assistance to their communities. Rather than rewarding farmers who practice ecological agricultural techniques that have long lasting positive effects on soil health, and air and water quality, such programs continue to benefit megafarms that practice extractive agriculture that contributes to the climate crisis. As a result, small farms engaged in ecological agricultural practices, struggle to remain viable in a market-based economy.

For BIPOC producers, though many of them have ancestral connections to agriculture and come from communities that have stewarded land for generations, continuing those traditions as a vocational farmer is impossible for a majority. Unlike their white counterparts they are also less likely to own land and have access to intergenerational wealth that can cushion their losses.

Yet, as you’ll see in the following sections, there is a growing number of BIPOC farmers that are at the forefront of the agroecological movement.

The post Small producers can grow food in regenerative ways — but our food system works against them appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.

  Not one of the companies gave specifics on the number of COVID-19 cases or deaths in their plants.

  Not one of the companies shared numerical information about their production capacity, making it impossible to assess the validity of the claims they made in March about threats to the US food system. 

  Not a single company shared information about prices charged to consumers or paid to farmers.

  Meatpackers are not following consistent practices. 

  While all four companies said they were “meeting” or “exceeding” CDC standards, the continued increase in COVID-19 cases in meatpacking plants suggests voluntary guidelines are not sufficient. 

  None of the companies are consistently implementing the CDC’s recommendation of 6-foot social distancing on processing lines. 

  Neither Cargill nor JBS USA’s responses claim to implement social distancing on their processing lines.

  Smithfield said that its plants are not designed for social distancing, and did not indicate it had or would pursue a sustainable solution.

  Tyson claims it is “creating barriers and/or requiring face shields on production lines where social distancing is not possible” which indicates that its plants are not implementing the 6-foot social distancing measure, and Tyson has offered no evidence of social distancing implementation on production lines.

  Reports from workers on the front lines further highlight the inadequacy of efforts to protect workers in the face of an unprecedented public health crisis that threatens the lives of their workers.  

Joint Statement by Food Chain Workers Alliance, Rural Community Workers Alliance, HEAL Food Alliance, American Friends Service Committee – Iowa, Idaho Organization of Resource Councils, and Forward Latino:

“Tyson and JBS have adopted policies that reject critical Centers for Disease Control guidance to stop the spread of COVID-19 at their processing facilities. This has led to an unacceptable number of workers getting sick and dying. These policies and procedures have a discriminatory impact on the predominantly Black, Latino and Asian workforce and reflect the existence of systematic racial discrimination. These policies that endanger workers are a deliberate choice by these companies to put profit over the lives of workers and their communities. If Tyson and JBS will not prioritize the safety of their Black, Latino, and Asian workers, USDA must enforce our basic civil rights laws. We are a collective of worker-based organizations and allies who have filed an administrative civil rights complaint with the USDA, because Tyson and JBS have received significant sums of public contracts through USDA. However, it is imperative that Congress act to ensure that OSHA does the job it was created to do and issue COVID-19 standards to protect all workers.”

Statement by Brent Newell, senior attorney with Public Justice:

“What Senator Warren and Senator Booker propose today will go a long way towards stopping harmful racial discrimination and compelling agribusiness to treat their employees and the communities in which they operate as essential, not sacrificial. It seems like every day that Public Justice hears from workers who fear for their health, and the health of their co-workers and communities, because of megacorporations’ failure to protect them from COVID-19. A worker at a Tyson plant said ‘Workers in harvesting are still working within feet, if not inches, of each other. Tyson has not accommodated this job to keep workers safe, their best protection so far is the masks and face shields but I don’t think that’s enough. Workers are still getting sick.’ A worker at a JBS plant who contracted COVID-19 said, ‘At my plant, we are still faced with working closely to each other on the cutting room floor and the company refuses to provide 6 feet distance between workers. The line speed is also too fast and I have difficulty with breathing and continue to feel nauseous while working at such a pace.’”

 Read the full press release from Senator Warren’s office

 Tell Congress to pass the emergency health and safety protections for workers immediately

The post Senators Warren & Booker Release Information from Investigation into Tyson, JBS, Cargill & Smithfield appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.

The post Taking Flight: HEAL’s 2019 Year in Review appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.

HEAL Food Alliance Announces Second School of Political Leadership (SoPL) Cohort 

Meet the 2019-2020 SoPL leaders working to transform our food and farm systems 

OAKLAND, CA – November 7th, 2019 – Today the HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance announced the second cohort of its School of Political Leadership (SoPL), a program for developing frontline leaders working towards more inclusive, democratic food and agriculture systems.

The nine-month long program will equip 11 leaders with the tools, knowledge, and skills they need to lead campaigns and drive political change. The cohort is organized into three teams from diverse communities in the U.S. and Navajo nation, working on new food economies, urban agriculture and equity, and food sovereignty.  

“Political leadership is key to systemic policy change on issues like food insecurity, land tenure, and wealth generation of under resourced and communities of color across the country,” said Qiana Mickie, a member of this year’s cohort and Executive Director of New York City based non-profit Just Food. “The time is now for grassroots policy campaigns that engage and are driven by the most impacted – in particular Black, Brown, and Indigenous leaders. SoPL is so critical to ensuring our collective voices and actions are felt from the ground up in politics.” 

HEAL’s SoPL leaders are community activists, organizers, educators, agroecologists, social entrepreneurs, land stewards, researchers, and advocates. The cohort includes rural and urban farmers, a community health worker, co-op founder, community garden manager, CEO, policy advisor, and non-profit directors.

“For too long the people who determine our food and farm policies have profited off of people and the planet. With the threat of climate change, we can’t afford to wait. From farmers to food chain workers, we must harness our people power to truly nourish our health, our economy, and the environment” said Marla Karina Larrave, Political Education Manager at HEAL. Through SoPL, the three teams will advocate for solutions to reimagine how our food and farm systems function in their own communities.

“The communities I serve deserve leaders who have the skills to help transform the political discourse and landscape to address the pressing challenges and barriers they face to advance themselves and their families,” said Stephanie Le-Charles Hall, Executive Director for Tolani Lake Enterprises, a Navajo-based nonprofit. “SoPL will help our grassroots leaders, including myself, who are working on food and water projects and programs to accelerate our existing work into political and governmental policies that directly benefit our communities.”

“As CEO of an urban agriculture business, the work that we do has a direct impact on low income and economically disadvantaged communities struggling with a lack of access to healthy food options and food insecurity” said Allison DeHonney, SoPL leader and CEO of Buffalo, NY-based Urban Fruits and Veggies. “We work diligently to make substantive changes in people’s lives with respect to the food that directly affects their health. Being knowledgeable in advocacy work – and working through SoPL to gain such knowledge – is important to continue to be effective in my community.”

Through interactive trainings, including power analysis, campaign strategy, communications and messaging, and field and base building, SoPL will prepare the teams to rise to the political, social, and economic challenges that are facing our food and farm systems today. Each in-person SoPL session will include hands-on field visits developed by local SoPL leaders, HEAL members and ally organizations.  

The first SoPL session will be held in Lindsay, CA in November 2019, where the teams will learn about each other’s work, examine their own political leadership through life mapping and storytelling, and ground themselves the history and culture of California’s Central Valley. SoPL alumni Ángel García and Californians for Pesticide Reform will host the session. 

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About the HEAL Food Alliance 

The HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance is a multi-sector, multi-racial coalition building collective power to transform our food and farm systems. We are led by our member-organizations, and strive to amplify the experience and expertise of frontline communities who are most burdened by the disparities of our current systems. Together, we are developing solutions to drive change. www.healfoodalliance.org 

The post HEAL Food Alliance Announces Second School of Political Leadership (SoPL) Cohort  appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.

In recent months, we have witnessed some of the most devastating consequences of Big Food’s business practices. From the intentional burning of the Amazon rainforest by industrial animal agriculture companies to the ICE raids at a Mississippi poultry plant – it’s clear that the current system is only working for a few corporate CEOs, while dramatically harming BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) folks, our communities, workers, and the Earth.

On October 21, farmers, fishers, students, food-chain workers, and community activists came together at Aramark’s headquarters in Philadelphia to deliver a petition with over 100k signatures and to demonstrate in the streets with a flash mob – all to demand that Aramark drop Big Food and invest in Real Meals.

The Real Meals Campaign demonstrating in front of Aramark’s headquarters in Philadelphia

Aramark, one of the biggest food service management corporations, invests in a harmful system that locks in Big Food corporations and locks out small-scale family farmers like Phillip and Dorathy Barker of Osusanya farms in North Carolina. Like so many other family farmers, the Barkers have been unable to sell their products in lucrative local higher education markets, largely due to Aramark’s network of deals that favor corporate food giants over small farmers and producers.  

For black and brown farmers, Aramark’s market has not been a good place. We are asking Aramark to use its power to invest in infrastructure that supports independent black and brown family farmers. Without some change in the way Aramark does business, the playing field will never be level

– Philip Barker, Farmer & Real Meals rep

Aramark makes its money by buying food from giant food corporations – some of which are the same corporations burning the Amazon rainforest and displacing indigenous people – and selling that food in cafeterias at universities, prisons, hospitals, and other institutions around the United States.

To draw attention to Aramark’s role in supporting Big Food and urge the food service giant to adopt the Real Meals Campaign’s demands, the Campaign hosted a press conference where black farmers, fishermen, university students, and local and national community activists who have been directly harmed by Aramark’s unjust business practices shared their stories and called on Aramark to do better.

As a student, I have seen firsthand how Aramark signs contracts with universities without the input of students who have to eat the food Aramark provides. Aramark upcharges students — many of us whom are food insecure and struggling under a ton of debt — for low-quality food. And they mistreat campus workers, some of whom are students themselves. That is why we are here today — to tell Aramark to stop exploiting students, workers, and producers for profit!

– Ofelia Sanchez, student at the University of South Florida

After the press conference, a BIPOC-centered flash mob organized by Uprooted & Rising broke out and shut down a portion of Market Street in front of Aramark’s Philadelphia headquarters. The performers danced in resilience as Black, indigenous, and people of color represented the folks most marginalized from decision-making in our food system. White allies acted as peace-keepers to block traffic. Dancers formed a spiral and circles to represent sacred symbols in nature and sacred shapes that their ancestors have used to point towards the four directions and to the continuity in the cycle of life.

While the flash mob was taking place, representatives from the Real Meals Campaign handed the100k petition signatures to Aramark’s front desk.

Those who signed the petition know that Big Food is not sustainable and #RealMeals that nourish us all are desperately needed. Petition signers are calling on Aramark to:

• Purchase at least 25% of food from sources that are local & community based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane;
• Invest $1 million in infrastructure for – and increase purchasing from – farmers and fishers of color;
• Reduce carbon emissions and factory-farmed meat, poultry, and cheese purchases by 25%; 
• Cut out the kickbacks that lock in big food manufacturers and lock out everyone else; and
• Create and maintain transparency and accountability to these goals.

Last year, Aramark made 14.6 billion dollars. In a world where money equals power, that’s a lot of power. But when we come together across sectors, we create a different, more sustainable type of power – people power to build a system that supports and nourishes our communities, farmers, workers, fishers – and addresses problems around racial injustice and climate chaos, rather than contributing.

To join the call for #RealMeals, you can add your name to the petition or amplify the call on social media. Your voice matters.

The post Real Meals takes the streets! 100k petition signatures and a flash mob delivered to Aramark’s doorstep appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.

For Immediate Release

Contacts:
Neshani Jani (HEAL Food Alliance), 510-974-3771, neshani@healfoodalliance.org
Erin Jensen (Friends of the Earth) 202-222-0722, ejensen@foe.org

Philadelphia, PA – October 21, 2019 – The Community Coalition for Real Meals, an intergenerational, multiracial group of farmers, fishers, ranchers, activists, students, and food workers, held a rally at Aramark headquarters and delivered a petition signed by over 100,000 people today. The petition’s message is clear: Stop placing profits over people and the planet, and prioritize a more just and sustainable business model.

Big Food corporations such as Aramark are complicit in many of our biggest problems: climate change, economic inequality, and racial injustice. The petition calls on Aramark to stop serving food from corporations that exploit workers, harm the environment, and produce unhealthy food, and urges Aramark to “be an active force for good working conditions, environmental sustainability, and racial justice.”

“Aramark’s business model of entering into exclusive contracts with huge corporate food manufacturers pushes farmers and fishers off the land and water, perpetuates racial injustice, and drives down wages, while driving up chronic disease and carbon emissions,” said Navina Khanna, Director of coalition member HEAL Food Alliance, a national alliance of over 50 food and farm justice organizations. “Their destructive practices are a threat to our collective future, and hit communities of color first and worst.”

The rally featured a flash mob and a diverse group of speakers including black farmers, fishermen, university students, and local and national community activists who have been directly harmed by Aramark’s unjust business practices.

“For black and brown farmers, Aramark’s market has not been a good place,” said Phillip Barker, farmer and founder of Operation Spring Plant, a non-profit that provides services to limited resource and small family farmers of color. “We are asking Aramark to use its power to invest in infrastructure that supports independent black and brown family farmers. Without some change in the way Aramark does business, the playing field will never be level.”

“We’re calling for fair prices,” said commercial fisherman and Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA) board member, Jason Jarvis. “Unprecedented corporate consolidation in the seafood industry denies fishermen a fair price that covers their costs to produce seafood and limits consumer choice in our schools and universities. These corporate business practices are eroding the economic infrastructure of our rural and coastal communities while causing damage to the ocean. Food service corporations, like Aramark can turn the tide by committing to real meals that include fair contracts.”

“As a student, I have seen firsthand how Aramark signs contracts with universities without the input of students who have to eat the food Aramark provides,” said Ofelia Sanchez, a student at the University of South Florida where Aramark has a contract. “Aramark upcharges students — many of us whom are food insecure and struggling under a ton of debt — for low-quality food. And they mistreat campus workers, some of whom are students themselves. That is why we are here today — to tell Aramark to stop exploiting students, workers, and producers for profit!”

Other speakers included Anim Steel, Executive Director of Real Food Generation, Julianna Fischer, Community Organizer at NAMA, and Charlyn Griffith, Artist and Social Scientist, Wholistic Art.

Today’s action is part of the Real Meals Campaign, an effort to pressure Aramark, Sodexo, and Compass Group — the country’s three largest food service management corporations — to make major changes in their higher education accounts, including:

• Purchasing at least 25% of its food from sources that are local & community based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane;
• Investing $1 million in infrastructure for – and increase purchasing from – farmers and fishers of color;
• Reducing carbon emissions and factory-farmed meat, poultry, and cheese purchases by 25%;
• Cutting out the kickbacks that lock in big food manufacturers and lock out everyone else; and
• Creating and maintaining transparency and accountability to these goals.

This is the first campaign to tackle higher education’s Big Food problem, not campus by campus or product by product, but at the source: the cafeteria management companies.

Watch the press conference and rally

Watch the flash mob

View photos from the event

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The Community Coalition for Real Meals is an intergenerational, multiracial group of farmers, fishers, ranchers, activists, students, and workers. The coalition includes representatives from the Domestic Fair Trade Association, Fair World Project, Friends of the Earth, HEAL Food Alliance, Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, Operation Spring Plant, Public Justice, Real Food Challenge, and Uprooted & Rising. In 2018 the Coalition launched the #RealMeals Campaign to transform the way that cafeteria food is sourced.

The post Food Justice Activists Hold Rally & Deliver Over 100,000 Petition Signatures Urging Aramark to Transition to a More Just & Sustainable Food Supply Model appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.

HEAL’s Real Meals Campaign released a new video featuring Baba Philip and Mama Dorathy Barker of Operation Spring Plant showing us how Big Food’s economic model leaves small farmers like them behind.

Big Food’s business model is a threat to all of us, with communities of color typically hurt first and worst. Baba Philip and Mama Dorathy’s experience illustrates the impact of Big Food’s business model on small farmers, especially farmers of color. The video also highlights three core planks of HEAL’s Platform for Real Food—providing opportunities for all producers, ensuring fair and competitive markets, and nurturing resilient regional economies! 

The Real Meals Campaign is a huge step in transforming this system to create a food system rooted in racial justice, fairness, and dignity that will sustain us for generations to come. To support the campaign, you can also sign the petition calling on Aramark to be part of the solution, not the problem.

Your support matters to the Barkers and other small family farmers across the country!

The post #RealMeals: Black Family Farmers Speak Truth about Big Food appeared first on HEAL Food Alliance.