Talking Climate: Food
Our Second Fridays programming continued in May with Talking Climate: Food. This event took place on May 21, 2021.
Every aspect of our food systems is affected by climate. How we get our food, where it comes from, what we eat, whose work ensures that food is available in the first place -- are all also issues of justice. In this conversation, expert panelists Tony Hillery, Founder and Executive Director of Harlem Grown, Arcenio J. López, Executive Director of the Mixteco Indígena Community Organizing Project, and Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist at The Earth Institute at Columbia University and at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies discussed the climate and equity concerns embedded in the production, distribution, and nutritional layers of our food systems. The conversation paid particular attention to how food access can transform communities, how farmworkers’ labor is essential and should be treated as such, and how our currently unsustainable food systems can and must be oriented towards justice.
Like all of the Climate Museum’s programs, Talking Climate: Food aims to create ground for community-building, democratic engagement, and civic action on the climate crisis.
The event began with a reading by the celebrated poet Dr. Craig Santos Perez.
This resource guide is designed to complement our Second Fridays programming. If you enjoyed these readings or want to add to the list, please let us know!
Climate Change and Food Systems
“Climate Change and the Future of Food” by Ryan Hobert and Christina Negra (The UN Foundation, September 2020)
“As the world experiences increasingly severe climate impacts on agricultural production, many of our food systems are being pushed to the breaking point. In short, climate change is putting food production at risk.”
“Food, Farming, and the Fate of Planet Earth” by Dr. Jonathan Foley (Global Eco Guy, March 2020)
“Our food system is now so large, and so unsustainable, that it is endangering the very environmental systems that support and sustain it.”
“Climate Crisis: 11 Foods Already Being Impacted by Climate Change” by Andrea Marks and Hannah Murphy (Rolling Stone, April 2021)
“The Great Nutrient Collapse” by Helena Bottemiller Evich (Politico, September 2017)
“As best scientists can tell, this is what happens: Rising CO2 revs up photosynthesis, the process that helps plants transform sunlight to food. This makes plants grow, but it also leads them to pack in more carbohydrates like glucose at the expense of other nutrients that we depend on, like protein, iron and zinc.”
“Third of Global Food Production At Risk From Climate Crisis” by Fiona Harvey (The Guardian, May 2021)
Land, Labor, and Food Access
“The Great Land Robbery” by Vann R. Newkirk II (The Atlantic, September 2019)
“Even as the U.S. government invested billions in white farmers, it continued to extract wealth from black farmers in the Delta. Each black farmer who left the region, from Reconstruction onward, represented a tiny withdrawal from one side of a cosmic balance sheet and a deposit on the other side.”
Food Apartheid: Racialized Access to Healthy Affordable Food by Nina Sevilla (Natural Resources Defense Council, April 2021)
“Food security is more than proximity to a grocery store; it should be about food sovereignty—the right of all people to have a say in how their food is grown and the right to fresh, affordable, and culturally appropriate food.”
“Research unveils inequalities in times of crisis” (University of California Irvine School of Social Ecology, August 2020)
Article on “The (in)visible victims of disaster: Understanding the vulnerability of undocumented Latino/a and indigenous immigrants” by Michael Méndez, Genevieve Flores-Haro, and Lucas Zucker.
“Farmworkers at Risk: The Growing Dangers of Pesticides and Heat” by Rafter Ferguson, Kristina Dahl, Marcia DeLonge (Union of Concerned Scientists, December 2019)
“Threats to farmworkers are a threat to the nation—to our economy, food security, health, and rural communities. Farmworkers deserve the respect, rights, and safeguards available to other workers, and recognition of their essential role in building a more resilient food and agriculture system.”
“Earth’s New Gilded Era” by Vann R. Newkirk II (The Atlantic, October 2020)
“Thousands of miles separate the fields of Honduras and the continental breakfasts in the States. But these are terminals of a single, continuous system. Heat bears down most on the global working poor and developing countries, while their wealthier planetmates are able to evade the worst of the warming.”
Looking Forward: Food Activism and Policy
“Treat Farmworkers as Essential, not Sacrificial” by Lena Brook and Juanita Constible (Natural Resources Defense Council, September 2020)
“For too long, farmworkers have been expected to put their lives at risk to keep grocery store shelves full. In the long term, we need to create a different kind of system, where humane and dignified guidelines establish when conditions for outdoor work simply aren't safe.”
“Buried in the American Rescue Plan is a Landmark Agricultural Bill for Black Farmers” by Lily Zaballos (NYC Food Policy Center, April 2021)
“The initiative follows more than a century of discriminatory practices that have repeatedly denied access to loans and other resources to Black, brown and Indigenous farmers and resulted in major land loss for communities of color. According to data from the Census of Agriculture, in 1910, 14 percent of U.S. farmers were Black, in 2012 this number had fallen to less than 2 percent.”
“‘Make Farmers Black Again’: African Americans fight discrimination to own farmland” by Jillian Forstadt (NPR, August 2020)
“Indigenous Food Security is Dependent on Food Sovereignty” by Andi Murphy (Civil Eats, July 2019)
“The study also showed that essentially everyone who participated wants more access to indigenous foods, but they first have to overcome limited access, regulations, and a legacy of colonialism to eat the food that has been part of their tribal identity and culture since before colonization.”
Book Recommendations:
Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s practical guide to liberation on the land by Leah Penniman (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018)
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions, 2020)
Work and Insights from our Expert Panelists
Tony Hillery, Executive Director and Founder of Harlem Grown
“Meet Tony Hillery, Founder & Executive director of Harlem Grown in New York City” interview (Chefs for Impact, February 2021)
“Community Change at Harlem Grown: From the Ground Up” talk by Tony Hillery (Change Food Fest, November 2016)
Please consider purchasing Tony Hillery’s book Harlem Grown: How One Big Idea Transformed a Neighborhood (Simon & Schuster, 2020) from your local independent bookstore
Arcenio J. López, Executive Director of the Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project
“Meet Arcenio J. Lopez of Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP)” interview (Voyage LA, June 2018)
“Understanding the Realities of Indigenous Migrant Farmworkers in the Time of COVID-19” panelist (Cultural Survival, August 2020)
“A California radio station is battling coronavirus misinformation among indigenous farmworkers” by Nicole Chavez (CNN, November 2020)
You can listen to Radio Indígena 94.1 FM here
Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
“Climate change responses benefit from a global food system approach” by Cynthia Rosenzweig et al. (Nature, February 2020)
“Confronting Climate Change: Science and Activism to the Rescue,” with Naomi Klein and in conversation with Ross Andersen (Aspen Institute, March 2020)
"We're going to be able to help the planet." interview (StoryCorps, March 2020)
You can explore Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig’s collection of academic articles, reports, and books here.
Dr. Craig Santos Perez, Poet and Professor at University of Hawai'i, Manoa
“Love in a Time of Climate Change” by Craig Santos Perez from Habitat Threshold (Omnidawn, 2020)
Consider purchasing Craig Santos Perez’s book Habitat Threshold from your local independent bookstore.
Support Indigenous Food Sovereignty
In a virtual context where readers and audience members join us from across the United States and around the world, we acknowledge that this event, and our work and lives generally, take place on unceded Indigenous territories. We encourage readers to discover the longer histories of their particular locations and of others listed here, and to engage with efforts restoring land back to Indigenous stewardship.
Native Land Digital: This is a tool to use as a first step in learning more about the names, traditions, and histories of Indigenous communities and land across the globe.
“Resource Guide for Indigenous Solidarity Funding Projects: Honor Taxes and Real Rent Projects.” Compiled by the Indigenous Solidarity Network and representatives from the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust/Shuumi Land Tax, Real Rent Duwamish, and the Manna-hatta Fund.
Below please find more information on organizations working on Indigenous food access, food sovereignty, and agricultural restoration, and ways to support their initiatives.
Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance
“We are an organization dedicated to restoring the food systems that support Indigenous self-determination, wellness, cultures, values, communities, economies, languages, and families while rebuilding relationships with the land, water, plants, and animals that sustain us.”
“The mission of Dream of Wild Health is to restore health and well-being in the Native community by recovering knowledge of and access to healthy Indigenous foods, medicines and lifeways.”
“We are a hands-on tribal community educational farm in the Four Corners region of the Navajo Reservation. We have preserved the traditional Navajo crops and techniques for years, and now we have created a teaching environment to pass down what we know about culture, history and heritage foods.”
Native American Agriculture Fund
“The Native American Agriculture Fund will provide grants to eligible entities for business assistance, agricultural education, technical support, and advocacy services to support Native farmers and ranchers. Eligible entities include 501(c)3 organizations, educational organizations, CDFIs and Native CDFIs, and tribal governments.”