Archives of Platform for Real Food

Can small-scale producers nurture climate resilience and feed us all?

Small-scale farmers and fishers and community producers, especially those from BIPOC communities do more than growing and catching food. Their work directly impacts community health and wellbeing, and because many of them use ecological agricultural practices rooted in traditional farming, their efforts contribute to improving soil health, increasing regional biodiversity, and ultimately mitigating the impacts […]
8 months ago

Community-based food systems are crisis-proof food systems

The current food system is a web of national and global production and supply chains controlled by a handful of large corporations like Walmart, Aldi, Dole Foods, JBS, Flower Food, and Aramark. The ‘success’ of this centralized system is measured by profit derived from extracting from and depleting land, water, and air, exploiting workers, and […]
8 months ago

Small producers can grow food in regenerative ways — but our food system works against them

Before Black Indigenous, and other People of Color even had the right to vote in this country, the government was writing rules to favor industrial agricultural production practices.  The first US Farm Bill, written in the 1930’s, calcified subsidies to increase production on monoculture farm operations – mostly dependent on chemical fertilizer inputs. Agent Orange, […]
8 months ago

Food Justice is Land Justice

A legacy of stolen land and stolen labor The history of agriculture in the US is one of colonization and enslavement, followed by a long history of denying land rights to Black and Indigenous people, and later to other People of Color. Between 1784 and 1887, 1.5 billion acres of land was stolen from indigenous people—through […]
8 months ago

Our food is grown and gathered by a variety of people in a variety of ways

The second plank of HEAL’s Platform for Real Food calls for the creation of a farming system that makes it possible for everyone to grow, raise, catch, hunt and forage for healthful food in ways that are environmentally sustainable and culturally appropriate for themselves and their communities. This includes: Independent farmers and ranchers, especially those […]
8 months ago

Raising grassroots voices to take on corporate factory farms

Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a Minnesota-based grassroots organization that is committed to breaking down power and consolidation in the food farming system while supporting small and medium farmers to build viable, values-based farming and ranching operations. They do this by organizing local campaigns, advocating for better policy on local, regional and federal levels and […]
9 months ago

Why are we calling to phase out factory farming?

What is “factory farming”? The handful of giant corporations that control the meat industry in the US tout factory farming as an efficient, cheap way to produce meat. In reality, factory farming comes at a huge cost to health and safety, the environment, and consumer pocket books, and that’s why we’re working with members and […]
9 months ago

The movement to phase out factory farming

In the previous sections, we covered why factory farming is bad for people, animals and the planet, and laid out facts about the systems and structures that are propping up this harmful system. Luckily, there’s a movement of people that are working towards mitigating the harms of factory farming and phasing out the system and […]
9 months ago

Voting with your fork won’t stop factory farms – but here’s what might

We’ve all heard the rallying cry that eating less meat can mitigate the climate crisis. From Silicon Valley CEO’s to celebrity billionaires to New York Times columnists, the urban middle-class has embraced the idea that going vegan or vegetarian, and switching to farm-to-table shopping habits can reduce our harmful emissions. But the science is mixed: […]
9 months ago
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