Taking Stock of the Movement: Food Justice

[marmar]

from the Civil Eats blog:





Taking Stock of the Movement: Food Justice
January 20th, 2011 By Kate Hoppe


You’ll never look at food the same way again. That is the unspoken promise of the book Food Justice, by Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, respectively the director and farm to school director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI), at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Published in October 2010, Food Justice takes the reader through a narrative analysis that relates the struggles and triumphs of food system change in the United States and abroad. Food Justice is about how, what, and where food is grown and processed, and who gets it. It’s about the pieces of our history that have come to shape the lives of the world’s hungry, its minority and migrant populations, and our food cultures, and what individuals and organizations are doing to change it.

But even as victories are won in the tomato fields of Florida, ending conditions of modern-day slavery for migrant farm workers, and in the schools of New Orleans, as students fight for healthy, locally-sourced meals, can we answer the question Michael Pollan couldn’t when President Obama asked him, “Is this a movement?” (pg 79).

This simple question, posed throughout the book, is the point from which the authors weave the web of food justice issues, revealing an answer that is at once complex yet accessible. The authors set out to uncover the common language and unifying themes that define and encapsulate the move to transform the food system. They argue the need to work united at all levels–from seed to plate–in order to effect change. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://civileats.com/2011/01/20/taking-stock-of-the-movement-food-justice/