What offers a sense of comfort and grounding to place more than a nutritious meal shared with others? The simple act of “breaking bread” has been taking place for thousands of years. Throughout the ages people have come together to celebrate the community of a shared cultural identity and a shared humanity through food. In their book, “Environmental and Food Justice” Teresa M. Mares and Devon G. Pena define it as autotopography, the grounding of self and communal identities through the cultivation and celebration of meaningful food.
This deep history of culture is also shaped and defined by politics. Power and Domination have their systemic roots in the control of food production, and as the industry of capitalist free trade has metastasized to all reaches of the globe, food has becomes a commodity of unequal access. In response, a growing movement towards an alternative food-system is taking place.
“Think Global, Act Local” is the leading catchphrase of an alternative food-system. While this movement is noble in many aspects, it is not entirely free from issues of inequality that marginalize people and cut them off from their cultural identities. The approach to food justice often focuses on issues of access to healthy fresh foods apart from large agribusiness food chains. In support of localized agriculture many people of affluence have joined CSA’s. This vision has good intentions but becomes myopic when it fails to recognize that the majority of farmers are white. Those who can afford to buy local foods may not realize it but according to Mares and Pena, “they are taking part in being beneficiaries of generations of structural violence and intergenerational historical trauma experienced by Native People. It also fails to realize the impacts of modern forestry and agribusiness (including organics) and urban sprawl on the habitat of native species (Environmental and Food Justice, pg.9).” This in turn, denies access of native people to their own local foods and their own cultural heritage.
This leads us to contemplate the full meaning of justice in the food system. It is not so easily narrowed down to one simple solution of “support localized agriculture, join a CSA!” When we consider the deep cultural history of a place we begin to see the connections and the reflexive relationships between food sovereignty and environmental and social justice.
I believe it is necessary to build a movement that not only supports localized sustainable agriculture and equal access to fresh healthy foods but also one that supports the regeneration of forests and native species so that native peoples have access to their own local food- systems. This could also be an important step in empowering marginalized people towards meaningful livelihoods through the selling of their own locally procured goods to the larger community. I do not propose that this offers an entire solution to the current food system crisis but it may encourage us to be aware of the complexity and diversity of the food system as part of a larger ecosystem, an important thread in the web of life. By respecting and valuing the different cultures of our world we are better able to construct systems that honor and support life rather than diminish it.
Works Cited
Mares Teresa M., Pena Devon G. Environmental and Food Justice Toward Local, Slow, and Deep Food Systems