(Earth Eats theme music, composed by Erin Tobey and performed by Erin and Matt Tobey)

KAYTE YOUNG: From WFIU in Bloomington Indiana, this is Earth Eats and I'm your host Kayte Young. Thanks for joining us. This week on the show we listen back to an exploration of food desserts. We talk with activists, grocers, organizers and community gardeners about the reality of not having access to good food where you live. We also interrogate the term itself. 

LIZ ABUNAW: It makes it seem as though the condition of healthy affordable food not being readily accessible in a neighborhood is just a matter of natural occurrence. 

KAYTE YOUNG: Those conversations just ahead after the news. Stay with us. 

(Music) 

KAYTE YOUNG: Earth Eats is produced from the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana. We wish to acknowledge and honor the indigenous communities native to this region and recognize that Indiana University is built on indigenous homelands and resources. We recognize the Miami, Delaware, Potawatomi, and Shawnee people as past, present, and future caretakers of this land.

First let's go to Renee Reed for Earth Eats news. Hi Renee.

RENEE REED: Hi Kayte. Protests by farmers in India continue to gain strength this week. They began in September in response to new laws passed by the Indian government. Before the new laws, farmers sold exclusively to state regulated markets or mandis which guaranteed a minimum support price for MSP. The MSP acts as a safety net for farmers when they sell particular crops. The new laws allow them to sell outside of these mandis directly to private companies.

Proponents of the new laws claim that farmers will benefit by having the freedom to sell to anyone they choose. But according to the New York Times many Indian farmers believe the overhaul will lead to lower prices and pave the way for corporate takeovers of their small farms. The average Indian farm is less three acres. Furthermore there is widespread complaint that the new laws were rushed through parliament without consulting farmers or farmers' unions. The protest began with tens of thousands surrounding the capitol of New Deli drawing support from prominent Indian actors, singers and athletes. The crowds now number in the hundreds of thousands across several other cities and even abroad.

Large scale community kitchens have been set up to feed protestors many of whom are members of the sheikh faith which holds generosity as a central tenant. 

The demonstrations are seen as a rear check on controversial prime minister Narenda Modi's power. Modi, a notable alley of President Donald Trump has been criticized in the past for what many see as anti-muslim policies. More than half of Indians make their living from farming, and farmers represent a powerful political constituency for Mr. Modi and his party. Farmers could also be important for bringing India out of the debilitating coronavirus driven recession. So far however, talks between farmers, farmers' unions, and the government have been unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the protests continue to gain strength and numbers with no sign of slowing anytime soon.

Thanks to Toby Foster for that story. For Earth Eats news, I'm Renee Reed.

(Earth Eats news theme composed by Erin Tobey and performed by Erin and Matt Tobey) 

(Music)

KAYTE YOUNG: It has been a wild year. We faced wildfire destruction for Australia to California, the coronavirus a global pandemic that continues to rage out of control, and long overdue racial unrest all over the U.S. and beyond. Much of what has happened has felt unprecedented. But has also shed light on systemic issues that have plagued our society for decades, in some cases for centuries. As the host of a food show, I've been interested in the intersections of these issues with the world of food. As 2020 draws to a close, I thought it was a good time to reflect on some of where we've been. 

In June I headed down to Louisville Kentucky to speak with folks remembering Chef David McAtee at the site of his barbeque stand on 26th and Broadway. He was killed on June 5th by authorities amid the violence surrounding protests of deadly policing in the black community. The Louisville community was already reeling from the police killing of Breonna Taylor in her own home. David McAtee's barbeque stand was a welcome source of good food in the neighborhood, and he was known to share food with folks who couldn't always come up with the money. You can find our story on chef David McAtee on our website at Earth Eats dot org.

Just two blocks away on 28th and west Broadway in Louisville is a Kroger grocery store. On the day I visited, just after McAtee was killed, the entrance and all the windows were boarded up with a sign saying it would open the following morning. I spoke with a few of the folks who were gathered in the parking lot.

MESHORN DANIELS: My name is MeShorn T. Daniels. We are here at 28th and Broadway, Kroger’s. The Kroger’s that got looted, broken into, and damaged because of supposedly angry people who supposedly protesting about a shooting that took place along 26th and Broadway. 

It's a couple reasons why I'm out here today. Because they very things that I was concerned with, is happening. We have lost all amount of honor for ourselves. Okay? This is not just about what's happening, with Breonna, and the issues with happened with the George Floyd. This is about the lack of responsibility of not allowing other people to cause you the bearing of your own. And I'm disappointed that we allowed ourselves to emotions to get captured. We can have anger, we can have protests, but you cannot tear up your own. 

I'm a gentleman that identifies myself as American descendants of slaves. I believe that the problems that we continue facing in this country is because of the misconception of who that demographics of people are. They're not the Negros, they're not the blacks, they're not the African Americans, but they are actually descendants of American slaves that are hurting because they never got that repaired. They never received that reparation. They never got that inheritance. They never got that love and respect to honor them. The things that we have happening and will continue happening until the dominate European culture of America honestly acknowledge that we have descendants of slaves here; American descendants of slaves that need to be treated with the love that their children of their this country, and not just used by this country to be a capitalist society. Okay? And I'm very committed to that in saying that's the problem. This calls for my own country, not being responsibility in handling their responsibility, and thinking it’s gonna be just sweep under the rug or we just, you know as they say, pull our bootstraps up and move on, get along, get over it. It ain't goin to change like that. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Interviewing] What does it mean for the community to have the Kroger closed for right now? 

MESHORN DANIELS: Oh, it's going to hurt the community big time. I mean you got elders, elderly people that this is where they get their drugs at. This is on the bus line. This is the lifeline; this Kroger’s is the lifeline to everything to this community. To lose this Kroger’s is... it's horrible. It's horrible. It's horrible. There is another grocery store 34th and Portland. Okay, the next one is Indiana. Okay? Go across... the next one is Indiana. You talking about close, the next closest is in... or 18th and Dixie Highway down there going on Chadly. That’s the next Kroger. 

KAYTE YOUNG: A group of people had set up grills and tables near the boarded-up building. I spoke with a woman who identified herself as Jocelyn. She and her young children had made sandwiches to give out in the neighborhood since the Kroger was closed. Jocelyn wanted to tell me about an urban garden project she's involved with called Victory Garden's Urban Farm, located in the Victory California Park Area of West Louisville. 

JOCELYN: It's over on Dave’s street, we have an urban garden. Since it's organic, we gonna have like fruits and veggies, we gonna have chicken eggs, and everything we need for moments like this one. If you don’t have fresh access, and we plan on donating most of it to the elderly or the sick in the community. And for the rest of it we'll be selling at Farmers' Markets that we're gonna set up in the West, because the West end doesn't see too many like Farmers' Markets. So, we plan on doing that too but... you know, we do what we can. We grow our own food; I grow at my house. Ebony grows at her house, her sister Angela also grows at her house, and then we grow all three together in the Urban Garden. So, between the four of those gardens we plan on supplying as we can of organic produce. 

We've actually been individually gardening for some time. We actually started the Urban Garden because of the response like this, we heard about Kroger, pulling out. We know we don't have many fresh stores around here and if you're going to this store, like it's not kept like other Krogers' in other areas. And you know, it's a lot of elderly in this area who are sick and don't have transportation at all times. So, we was gonna do kind of like a subscription thing where we can get to them, you know, every few weeks, or every month, or it depend on the need of the supply and make sure they have like the produce and stuff that they need. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Interviewing] Is the Kroger planning to leave the community anyway or...? 

JOCELYN: There was a rumor before the corona hit, I'm not sure what they were gonna do, or actually I tried to call the Kroger corporate a couple times today. I went to the Kroger on Dixie and they gave me someone’s information to contact, she was already gone for the day. So, I plan on calling her in the morning to get those questions answered. And I also wanted to know as far as they said, they gonna open up tomorrow at this location, but the pharmacy won't be open, and I wanted to know what they plan on doing about getting prescriptions out to the elderly. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Interviewing] So, you were out here today for a few hours just giving out food? 

JOCELYN: Yes, I'm just giving out food today. I had my kids with me today, so I don't plan on staying out too long. I've been out the past few days though, as far as like downtown and the protests. As far as being down here, I wouldn't really call this a protest. It's kind of what you would call family reunion, everybody getting together and doing what they need in the community, by the community. So, a lot of the outside people don't have to come in, if we don't see what we saw here at Kroger’s outside as you know looting the store, because according to the pictures that I saw it wasn't people from the neighborhood. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Interviewing] How many days were they closed? 

JOCELYN: Today was the first full day. Yesterday I think they closed like maybe a little early, but today was the first full day. 

KAYTE YOUNG: The voices you just heard were from earlier this year in June, in Louisville Kentucky. Talking with MeShorn and Jocelyn in Louisville’s west side, got me thinking about a conversation I had last summer with Sharrona Moore on Indianapolis' east side. After a short break we'll hear from Sharrona about her community garden and mobile farmers' market. 

(Gentle Piano Music) 

Kayte Young here, this is Earth Eats. We're taking a look back to earlier stories and reflecting on the ways in which the crises of this year have shed light on existing issues in the world of food, specifically we're looking at food desserts. We're talking with folks who experience a lack quality of food choices where they live and later we'll interrogate the term itself. In the summer of 2019 I drove up to Indianapolis to talk with Sharrona Moore about her garden project which is located in a predominately black neighborhood on the far east side of the city. 

SHARRONA MOORE: Welcome to Lawrence Community Gardens. We have 7.6 acres here. The purpose of the garden here is to really feed the community, so 50% of what we grow goes to area pantries, the other 50% we sell at our local farm stand. So, we provide affordable access to the community. 

We have chickens, we have bees, we have a hoop house where we're able to grow 365 days out of the year, because we eat 365 days out of the year. So we want to make sure we have food that's growing. This area here is our You Pick For Free section, so the community is able to come in and pick their own produce. Kind of give them that farm-to-table experience that they really will remember, like building memories. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] They also offer a summer youth program that includes skill building and growing marketing and selling fresh produce in the community. I asked Sharrona for a list of what they grow. 

SHARRONA MOORE: We have eggplant, zucchini, a little squash, tomatoes, chili peppers, jalapeno peppers, ghost peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, lots and lots of tomatoes - like I said, Swiss chard, bell peppers, cucumbers, horseradish, potatoes, celery, cabbage, lots and lots of herbs. We have onions and garlic, we also have green beans and peas, okra. We have greens too, we have collard greens and mustard greens, and kale. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] We had to cut our farm tour short so that she could meet a client for a haircut at the salon that she runs out of her home. When we arrived, I met DJ. 

SHARRONA MOORE: He's my nephew but also my 11 o’clock client. It just gives you a little glimpse at how my day operates, right? So, I don't get a salary for the operating farm. Some people do have salaries, but this is my project, and I'm still developing it. This is how I have to manage my time and to be honest, the garden could be further along, it could be more beautiful, more maintained - if I had the leisure of just being there all day. You know what I mean? But I don't, and this is how I have to... And my kids are homeschooled, so they're in the house working on their curriculum, and if they have questions I have to stop, and I have to answer their questions, and then I have to come back. So, it's just... my schedule is being juggled constantly, all day. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] Sharrona is also the founder of the Indiana Black Farmers Co-op. 

SHARRONA MOORE: That was a way for me to find other black farmers. Because the truth is, I will go to classes and workshops, panel discussions and there would never be any black farmers. I would be the only one. And so, when I meet people and I tell them what I do and they were like, "Oh, I didn't know there were black farmers." Well the thing is like, who they think built this country? Who do they think built? We built farming and agriculture on our backs literally, black people did. But we're no longer in that industry as farmers, we have moved away from that. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] Sharrona talked about the limited choices that now exist in neighborhoods like hers. 

SHARRONA MOORE: When you go to grocery stores outside of the neighborhood, the selections are far more greater than what we have available inside of the neighborhood. So that just shows again that food equity needs to be addressed on all levels. 

The Indiana Black Farmers Co-op was founded to support and encourage more black farmers, period. As far as food equality, everybody eats. I haven't met one person of a different race or gender or religion that didn't eat. So that's something that we all have in common. Food should be equal to all people; no matter what your economic status is, no matter what your race, no matter your gender, we should all have access to the same quality of food. And my personal mission is to make sure that in this community with Lawrence Community Gardens that we... the food that we are growing at that farm is staying in this community, to rebuild the community. 

Because we know wellness is a choice. It's a choice you have to make a choice to be well, but they also have to have options. And if your options are limited then you're gonna choose what's next best, or all that you have access to. So, we're doing this to make... see that farm stand out there? That's what goes into the community. It goes out into the community. We take SNAP at that farm stand, we take WIC at that farm stand, we buy food from other farmers to add to that farm stand, we also carry staple goods on that farm stand. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Interviewing] What do you mean by staple goods? 

SHARRONA MOORE: Rice, beans, things that we can...

KAYTE YOUNG: Like a full meal

SHARRONA MOORE: To make a full meal, yes. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] The far eastside of Indianapolis is considered a food dessert. 

SHARRONA MOORE: I've been a resident here for a long time, and that's why I wanted the garden to be in this neighborhood. But because I live here, and even here where I live, if I didn't have a car, I would be in trouble. Because I would have to walk literally six to eight blocks to get to anywhere where I could even get a cold drink, or a small bottle of milk. So, you know, and then trying doing that if you have a child in a stroller and a toddler, you know. And it's in extreme heat, what can you carry back? You know. What can you carry? How can you... how do you feed your children; can you carry bottled water? No. Not if you're walking. And if there's no buses, there is no buses that goes down 46th street at all. I would have to walk to 42nd street to get on the bus that runs once every hour, or either I would have to work to 38th street. I live off of 46th street. See what I'm saying? There's no shortcut, there are no sidewalks. So, it's just... it’s a struggle. 

I'm a long-time resident of this community so I have seen the transformation - there were access, groceries were here, they closed. You know, and then now they're starting this new program with Lyft where they're gonna drive, they're gonna come pick up neighbors and drive them to the grocery stores that left the community to begin with. It's some systemic issues going on here that need to be addressed as well, but until then, until we get it all figured out, Lawrence Community Garden is still going to be trying to reach the people with the food that we're growing. So, and that's just all that we can do. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] Our interview was cut short due to an unexpected issue that demanded Sharrona's attention. Her nephew DJ had this to share before I packed up my gear. 

DJ: I grew up over on 46th and Arlington, and we had a Kroger over there. And I've been going to that Kroger since I was probably 10 years old. So one day for the first time, maybe two or three years ago, I went to the Kroger's up on Binford road, and I saw meats and vegetables and fruits that I'd never seen in my life. And it's literally probably 10-15 minutes away, you know, which is in a different neighborhood. They had a selection of organics, I'd never seen that many green labels ever. I didn't even know that some of that stuff even existed. You see the meats fresher, the cuts are thicker, the fruit like I said, it's just fresher fruit. You see stuff that you never seen, starfruit, and you know things that I've always seen on TV. And I'm like, "Wow, they got this, they got that." Fresh aloe vera, you know you can buy a whole aloe vera, and then cut it and use the inside for skin care and stuff like that. So, I just didn't realize the difference until I started venturing outside of my neighborhood. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] That was DJ, Sharrona Moore's nephew. I reconnected with Sharrona later in the summer and learned about adjustments they've made in their programming due to the coronavirus restrictions. You can find that story on our website, Earth Eats dot org. 

(Gentle Piano Music)

In an interview last year with Leah Pennimen of Soul Fire Farm, she voiced objections to the term "Food dessert". This summer I called Liz Abunaw in Chicago Illinois, she's the owner and operator of 40 Acres Fresh Market in the Austin neighborhood on the west side of the city. Her project was recently featured in Forbes magazine and I was interested in her perspective on the role of grocery stores in predominantly black and low-income neighborhoods. I asked for her thoughts on the term "food dessert". 

LIZ ABUNAW: It makes it seem as though the condition of food not being healthy affordable food, not being readily accessible in a neighborhood, is just a matter of natural occurrence. It holds no one responsible, there's no actors at play that have the situation. We don't blame things like structural racism, we don't blame white flight, we don't blame redlining, we don't blame policy, we don't blame the businesses and the developers who determine which neighborhoods get their investment and which ones don't. 

So, I prefer the term food apartheid, because there's clear inequality and nine out of ten times it breaks down along racial lines. And here the city of Chicago it's predominantly black neighborhoods and some brown neighborhoods where, it's like, I can't find food. And it's particularly egregious in black neighborhoods partially because we're so underrepresented in the grocery industry. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] And Liz Abunaw is working to change that. 

LIZ ABUNAW: 40 Acres Fresh Market is a grocery startup in Chicago that focuses on increasing access to affordable fresh food in underserved neighborhoods. We currently operate on the westside of Chicago with a focus in the Austin community. And we are black owned, community built. We are all about not just bringing good food to the community, but everything that healthy food retail brings with it - the jobs, the change in the neighborhood environment, and of course the greater access to healthy food. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] The model for 40 Acres right now is to offer produce boxes at various price points which are pre-ordered and delivered. It's similar to a CSA or Community Supported Agriculture. But Liz is not a farmer, and they aren't necessarily purchasing from local farmers. 

LIZ ABUNAW: One of the things people don't realize is that there's two sides to this quote-unquote "food justice issue". There's the supply side, and that's really about how food is grown, it's about the environmental impact of our food. It's about the economic impact of how our food comes to market and that's like, how is it grown, are farmers getting a fair wage, are people who pick the food getting a fair wage. 

When you're buying cheap food it's because of economies of scale, and some large farming corporation is probably paying people pennies to pick your strawberries, pick your food, it's probably using up tons of water, it's not the most environmentally friendly. But that is how you get cheap food. 

So, when we talk about food justice on the supply side, it's really about raising the value of food for what it's really worth sustainably producing. On the other side of food justice is the accessibility side. It's the demand side. It's making sure that there's food infrastructure in a neighborhood. That the food is affordable, that it's of good quality, that multiple methods of payment are accepted; it's all about accessibility. And what you start to realize is that food justice on the supply side is like goes this way, and food justice on the demand side goes this way, and they don't really meet in the middle. I focus on the demand side. I focus on making it accessible, making it affordable. 

KAYTE YOUNG: [Narrating] Food justice, economic justice, racial justice, it's all so much more complicated than it seems at first glance. Liz says the Austin community has seen some damage from the recent protest in Chicago, but she says the community has pulled together to clean up and to take care of each other. It's rarely just one thing, or the other; workers’ rights, or affordable food, destruction or care. Sometimes it can be both / and. 

Liz Abunaw has plans for 40 Acres Fresh Market to open a brick-and-mortar grocery store in the Austin community, and eventually in other underserved areas in Chicago. We spoke in June of 2020. 

(Music)
Kayte Young here, this is Earth Eats. As early as the first week of stay-at-home orders in March, we saw images in the media of absurdly long lines of cars filled with families seeking food assistance. From San Antonio Texas to Burlington Vermont, food banks were stepping up to get food to those who faced sudden unemployment. In some places the National Guard was deployed to assist with moving food, packing boxes of canned goods, and directing traffic increased demand and reduced volunteer crews. 

It can be heartening to see resources popup as they're needed to address food insecurity in our communities, just like it can be heartening to participate in a food drive. But my guest today challenges us to think beyond charity models when we look to address food insecurity. 

SUZANNE BABB: My name is Suzanne Babb, I worked at a nonprofit called WhyHunger, and I codirect the U.S. programs there, and I'm also a farmer at a Black and Latinx women lead farm called La Finca del Sur, and I'm a founding member of an organization called Black Urban Growers. 

KAYTE YOUNG [NARRATING]: WhyHunger supports grassroots community-based organizations in creating a more just food system. 

SUZANNE BABB: And so we both work in the U.S. and around the world, and we work with everything from emergency food providers to peasant lead social movement. And we provide sometimes it's financial support, sometimes it's technical systems, but it's all grounded in building relationships with the organizations and networks that we're part of. And we're supporting them through years of relationship and being the incompetent with them through everything that they're going through, and that helps to build trust for them so that they can come to us for things that they might not go to another kind of support or funding organization for. Because the whole basis of any... of organizing for anything is about relationships. 

KAYTE YOUNG [NARRATING]: I spoke with Suzanne recently in a zoom call and asked her about this moment; from the COVID9 pandemic to the national reckoning around race, and the connection between these events and what they're revealing in terms of food access and food assistance. 

SUZANNE BABB: I think COVID has been bringing to light those connections, in the way that racism plays a role in the food system. I think from the start of the U.S. racism has been part of the foundation and I think racism is a tool that capitalism uses to continue to exploit people for their labor. 

And if we're looking just at the food system, you know we can take it all the way back, or we have to take it all the way back to when Europeans came here and tried to get rid of indigenous people and move them off their land. And land is the basis of freedom and it's the basis of cultivating food. And people had beautiful food forests and systems in different ways, whether they were hunter gatherers or whether they grew food. And so that was like the first initial move in terms of food system. 

And then if we think about slavery where Africans from West Africa were kidnapped and brought over here to work in agriculture, partly because they were so skilled at it. But treated inhumanely, like property, and built the wealth of the country through growing cotton and tobacco and sugar that got shipped throughout the U.S. and throughout the world. That's our food system, right? 

But I think always in talking about this we have to talk about the oppression. We have to talk about the liberatory parts of the food system, cause that's always gone in conjunction. 

So just thinking about... as a black woman, as a black farmer it's been really important to reclaim those liberatory parts of history and thinking about how my ancestors brought seeds over in their hair. Like that was the one thing that they could bring, and it just talks about how important food is, how important food is to culture. Not only to consume is nourishing for us, but tied to spirituality, tied to language and tradition. And even stories of like when folks in place still trying to ask for a piece of land to grow their own food. And that's why things like watermelon and okra and sweet potatoes still exist and are still part of black cultural foods because they came from Africa and that was part of the culture that we can still continue to have. 

But I think that in the food system there has been this history of always using another group of people, another racialized group of people for the labor. And then within to justify that exploitative labor, using people for their labor, comes the stereotypes and the belief that these people are inferior, and that white people are superior. And that's... regardless of what system you look at, that's kind of like racism is used as a tool to justify that. And if we're just looking at the labor from farmers, farmers of color who had less access to credit and capital for their farms, less access to markets intentionally, to food chain workers who are usually people of color because... you know other people don't want to do that, and they don't get paid as much, or even if they are white people, the white people get paid more than the food chain workers. Work in inhumane conditions that are not safe, that are exposed to pesticides. To consumers, to communities of color that are denied access. 

And that access is not... you know it's not by chance, it started back in the time when the government was giving people loans to buy homes in the suburbs. And cities used to be a little more diversified in terms of their demographics. And so when white people moved out to the suburbs, the businesses moved with them. And banks decided to divest from these city neighborhoods, that's where redlining comes from. Redlining, like they actually took the red line and (the banks) said, "We're not gonna invest, we're not gonna invest in businesses, small businesses to go in there, we're not gonna give people to buy houses." All of that thing. So you create a vacuum where people don't have access to food. And it was deliberately communities of color. So racism plays... that's why people use like "food apartheid" versus "food desert" because that speaks to intentional policies and practices that have denied people access to healthy food. 

And I think that then wrapped around what's happening right now with COVID-19 is where... because people had access to unhealthy food that was intentionally put in this neighborhood that they didn't have control over, they have a higher rate of diabetes, and high blood pressure, and kidney disease and all of these things that now make them more susceptible to having COVID-19 in a much more severe form. So it's like... it's almost like circular in this. 

And that's why... like food has to be at the center of these kinds of conversations around this. Because food is the reason why people are sick and are more susceptible to this virus. And people need their food during this time. And people who are not treated well, are not paid well, and are not kept safe, they still have to go out and make sure that everybody else gets the food that they need. 

KAYTE YOUNG [NARRATING]: Suzanne talked about organizations on the ground within communities, taking up these current food access challenges by forming mutual aid groups, setting up bartering systems and finding alternative ways for people to get what they need. 

SUZANNE BABB: I know like in the Bronx our community garden along with other gardens and farms in the Bronx and the south Bronx are getting together to create a food hub. Which has always been a conversation but feels even more pertinent now. So it's like how can we grow food and like aggregate it together and maybe work with some rural farmers who can bring food in and have people have access to like good food boxes, that's been aggregated from all these community gardens and farms. Which we've always wanted and now this pandemic has accelerated and amplified the need for that. 

KAYTE YOUNG [NARRATING]: Suzanne notes that it matters who is creating these solutions. 

SUZANNE BABB: It is led by and the solution comes from people in that neighborhood, the people who are most impacted. Which is really important, cause often these solutions come from outside and are not in conversation with people in the communities about what they need. 

KAYTE YOUNG [NARRATING]: As someone whose been working in the emergency food system, I wanted to hear Suzanne's reaction to the images of people in cars, lined up, waiting for hours and hours for boxes of food as the pandemic restrictions closed down so many businesses. 

SUZANNE BABB: It is not surprising to me to see that, when you know that a lot of people are one emergency away from needing that kind of help. The Poor People's campaign who we're a partner of, talks about how most people don't have $400 for an emergency or if they have to pay $400 that's going to push them further into poverty. And just to think about the millions of people that have lost their jobs. 

And I think about the strain that puts on emergency food providers, on food pantries, food banks, soup kitchens. Who before the pandemic were looked at as the solution to hunger, and that is... and they are not the solution. 

And I think in the network that we're a part of, so in the Hunger Gap that's one of the things we have been vocal. Nonprofits are not the solution to food security. It is really the government's role and they have really... they've removed themselves from that responsibility. We do have food stamps, people often don't get enough of it, but there needs to be a bigger kind of food security plan in the United States to protect people. Because food is a human right and there are covenants that the U.N. has created, and other countries have worked on policies and we really need it here in the U.S. 

But I think also what's come up for me is that the response to this has been again charitable. You know, like tons of money going towards Feeding America for food banks... just so that they can further institutionalize food banking as the solution. But that's not the answer. 

But what has been really great has been in conversations that I've had with everyone from food sovereignty and food justice to emergency food organizations, is this realization that in order to be more resilient we need to work on local food economies. And what that looks like might be different for everybody and every community but that we cannot rely on this national and global food system to take care of people all the time, but especially during times of emergency because of so many faults within it, because it's so delicate. That was one of the big issues again with the pandemic was what's going to happen to the food supply chain. A meat processing plant that serves half of the country has an outbreak and then all of the sudden there's no supply. 

And not only do local food economies make us more resilient, but it allows more people to be a part of the food system in an equitable way. It allows local small scale independent farmers to participate and gain access to markets. It allows people to maybe grow their own food. They can go, they have more options in terms of what they can access, and it also makes you think about what are alternatives to say a grocery store. Like coops and farmers markets and the roles that they can play. Because farmers' markets for a lot of people seem safer now because they're outdoors versus grocery stores. Or a lot of places don't have access or 70 miles away from the nearest grocery store. So there needs to be more options and those options need to be grounded in equity and justice so that everyone has an opportunity to participate in it in some way. 

KAYTE YOUNG: I'm speaking with Suzanne Babb of Why Hunger. More from our conversation after a short break.

(Music)

This is Earth Eats, I'm Kayte Young, and my guest today is food justice organizer and urban farmer Suzanne Babb. We were talking about the kind of responses we need to see in our food system that go beyond distributing food boxes in a crisis. I suggested that it seems like a failure of imagination that we can't see our way to a different response to food insecurity other than food banks and charitable models.
SUZANNE BABB: I think you're totally right it is about a failure of imagination and I think also like we buy into it. Food banking has been around probably 30-40 years now and so people have just gotten used to somebody comes around, whether it's the boy scouts or the girl scouts. And then you get your can of food. And just some people need this help. 
But there are so many things that are part of that narrative that need to be examined. Like why do we have to do this? Why do some people need this food? Why do we have food banks as a solution? And investigate the kind of dominate narrative we have around hunger. Oh you know just some people aren't working as hard and they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when that image and that concept doesn't even make sense. You cannot literally pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You can pull your boots up. (Laughs)
KAYTE YOUNG: You can pull your boots up (laughs)
SUZANNE BABB: But you're in it you can't pull those up, like... so I think that that's what it requires. And I think you know, those conversations now are happening and at the same time with the protests around police violence, we're talking about defunding police. 
Those things throw people for a loop because they cannot imagine that something else is possible. Something has been possible for a lot of other people so let's just, let's just be open to possibilities. Let's be open to the idea that like if you give people a living wage and they have affordable housing and affordable healthcare, and you give them access to grocery stores with like fresh healthy food or farmers' markets, or the tools to grow their own food, that another way is possible that they don't need food banks. Or the government makes sure that we have access to capital to make all of these things happen, we don't need that. 
You know same thing with defunding the police, if communities have what they need so that their crimes of poverty are not being committed, so people feel safe when they have adequate lighting and green space and all these things that make their neighborhood and their lives less stressful, maybe we don't need to police them in that same way. 
KAYTE YOUNG: We talked about people who worked in the food system, either as farm labor or as factory labor, grocery store workers and the food service industry. In the pandemic they've been deemed essential workers, but their pay and status does not reflect that. 

SUZANNE BABB: 25% of the people in the country worked in food and it's one of the lowest paying jobs. And so I think it's like you can't talk about food access without talking about a living wage. (You) can't talk about food access without talking about affordable housing. We can't talk about food access without talking about affordable healthcare. Like how many people have gone bankrupt because of a health emergency is just astounding to me. And people having to make a choice between rent and food? And that is food chain workers, that's other consumers and that's farmers as well. 

So I think that this work requires a lot more kind of collaboration with other folks who are working on other things, and even within the food system, working on things together to kind of push back the system that already exists. 
KAYTE YOUNG [NARRATING]: In her role with Why Hunger, Suzanne is involved in the network called Closing The Hunger Gap. I asked her to talk about their work. 
SUZANNE BABB: Closing the Hunger Gap is a network of emergency food and food access and anti-hunger organizations that have realized that charity is not the answer to hunger and that organizations really need to shift their work from one based in charity to one based in justice. That food distribution alone is not solving the problem. 

And so our major goal is really to be a support system for organizations to make that shift, to provide a collective voice that speaks out about the root causes and challenges the dominate narrative. because often times organizations feel like they can't do it on their own, whether it's because whose funding, or maybe their food bank controls them in terms of what they can for advocate for. But this is a collective voice that can speak out against that.

And then also how do we use whatever power and resources that we have to support the grassroots frontline organizations that are doing this work? Because that's where we really will lead resources need to be funneled. Not to emergency food providers to further institutionalize us, but supporting the work that grassroots organizations are doing. 

So we do that in several ways, we've had a conference every two years. We have a leadership team that helps to coordinate the activities. Since the pandemic hit we started to have biweekly member meetings where people could just talk about what's been going on in their community, what's been challenging, and what people have been able to do to kind of see their way through those challenges. And there's talk about like what is this highlighting, these kind of things that we've been talking about with kind of root cause issues. 

And also been doing some regional work. Recognizing that people really want to know what's going on in their region. And each region is dealing with different issues. And so thinking collectively about what they can learn from each other and what's kind of the work they can take on together. 

And then we have a community of practice around racial equity which is just an informal space for folks who really wanna dig in and deepen their learning around that. 

And we also have a working group around narrative change that's really looking at what is the dominate narrative, how do we challenge that narrative, what is the new and the true challenge that we wanna see knowing that narrative, the narrative that we use is tied into the solution. So we envision doing a lot of work around that and what we're trying to do now is beginning to create a national narrative campaign. 

KAYTE YOUNG [NARRATING]: Closing the Hunger Gap is also documenting stories of organizations who have done this transformational work as a resource for those who don't quite know where to start. 

SUZANNE BABB: I think that it is important for people to have that resource, and I really think it's important for people to do their own work. If you're a white person you really need to read about whiteness and white supremacy and how you embody that, how your organization embodies that. If you think about if you're mostly in a white line nonprofit that is working with communities of color, if none of you have examined the way in which whiteness plays a role personally and the way you're doing organizational work, that is gonna impact the way you do work with communities of color. 

And that is the way a lot of it this work operates, especially around food access. Right? You know people come in with the solution and they just roll out these programs for these communities without a consultation. That is grounded in white supremacy and this idea that... your ideas and because you have the resources that you're superior and you know better than the communities. The communities are living it! They know what's wrong, they know what needs to change. The often times just don't have the resources to do that. 

And so instead of coming in thinking that you know what people need to do, come in and ask. It's like you can't do anything about being white but you can recognize the power and privilege that you have, how that plays out and then ask yourself how do you use that power? And then for people's color we need to investigate the way that we internalize the oppressions that we hear, and we need to do the healing work for that. Think about how we then use that healing to do the work to help support our communities. 

So we've all got work to do. A lot of white people get caught in guilt and shame and defensiveness, and we're all impacted by it and we can't think that we're not. So recognize how you're impacted by it, and then how do you use that to for us to achieve racial equity. 
KAYTE YOUNG [NARRATING]: As early as the first week of stay-at-home orders in March, we saw images in the media of absurdly long lines of cars filled with families seeking food assistance. From San Antonio Texas to Burlington Vermont, food banks were stepping up to get food to those who faced sudden unemployment. In some places the National Guard was deployed to assist with moving food, packing boxes of canned. 

That's all we have time for today. Thanks for listening. You can find out more about all of these people and their projects at Earth Eats dot org. 

RENEE REED: The Earth Eats team includes Eoban Binder, Spencer Bowman, Mark Chilla, Toby Foster, Abraham Hill, Payton Knoblech, Josephine McRobbie, Harvest Public Media, and me Renee Reed. 

KAYTE YOUNG: Special thanks this week to Meshorn Daniels, Jocelyn, DJ, Sharrona Moore, Liz Abbunaw, and Suzanne Babb. 

RENEE REED: Our theme music is composed by Erin Tobey and performed by Erin and Matt Tobey. Additional music on the show comes to us from the artist at Universal Productions Music. Earth Eats is produced and edited by Kayte Young and our executive producer is John Bailey.

(Earth Eats theme music, composed by Erin Tobey and performed by Erin and Matt Tobey)