The role of community in food systems
I grew up in an extremely abundant area on the central coast of California, in the United States, and was gratefully and luckily never without food on the table. On that table was often produce, mostly coming from the fields that surrounded our city center, because all year long we had access to the fruits of many labors.
I completed my undergraduate education in another part of California that was likewise surrounded by acres and acres of productive fields. California produces the large majority of fruits and vegetables for all over the country, and while I was fully aware of our privileged location of advantage, I still naively assumed that those who lived right in the middle of it must have had access to this abundance as well; it was right out our backyards!
It wasn’t until I volunteered in public elementary schools, facilitating taste tests at the hot lunch line for the vegetables that would conceivably be coming from the school gardens, that I saw the numerous broken and frayed lines of connection from field to food in the mouths of those who need it most. Days would pass when there were only canned, syrupy sweet peaches to try.
From what I could see, it was never necessarily a problem of production, it’s a problem of access. It’s always been a problem of access. And that access is not the fault of either “side,” nor production, nor receiving.
I began to work in the field, both that of soil and in the general ambient of food access and production. Years later have found myself here. I have just completed my first year of three-year dual master’s degree track at Tufts University in Boston Massachusetts; an M.S. in Agriculture, Food, & Environment, and an M.A. in Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning and about to attend UNLEASH LAB 2017 in Copenhagen to address the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals related to food with people from all over the world.
I have spent the past couple months asking various people I know, various people I work with, family members; what they would do if they were afforded such an opportunity, the chance to work with incredibly talented and experienced people, bubbling with passion and energy to address some of the most important questions we face globally right now.
I don’t know where to begin, it’s hard to know where to begin; to tackle something so huge, you must start small.
Based on my past work and current research, the idea of community keeps surfacing and finding itself in a central role of robust food systems. Many food access programs, food programming in general, food education, farming awareness and beyond, needs a community partner. That access, to a physical product, to knowledge, to a cultivated appreciation is something that often happens along the middle; it is not the solely the responsibility of one side or the other, not the beginning with production or the end with consumption, but a continuous commitment throughout the journey.
Community partners can fill that needed gap in the middle. Community members know what the community needs, they are able to move from the ground up and out. When robust food systems are established at the smaller level, networks of healthy food systems can be generated and interactions facilitated among them.
Community partners can play a significant role for the in-between with food producer and food consumer in a way that does not inhibit or marginalize the actions or validity of either.
It’s all about people. It’s always been about people. And the people are the ones who are going to make these connections and bridge the gaps that exist currently; gaps in awareness, in education, in appreciation, compassion, and beyond.
This isn’t a technologically advanced idea, this isn’t something novel. It’s about returning to what we know and doing it well; because we do know, we are capable, we are intelligent, we are social beings that require social interactions to sustain ourselves. These networks of interactions can likewise sustain ourselves physiologically by increasing the accessibility of food as well.
It’s difficult to imagine that in just nine days, we could solve something like world hunger. This is a valiant effort that has garnered attention for decades and has incited many different endeavors and projects that have accomplished so much, and yet we still find ourselves here, asking similar, if not the same questions. At UNLEASH I hope we do ask these same and similar questions, and also that we ask other questions, questions that may not have been raised before with answers we have not yet considered. I believe that all one thousand people attending will have these different, new, needed answers and will also bring answers from their communities, because the people who aren’t attending also hold these wisdoms. Recognizing the distinguished privilege of those of us who are able to attend such a working group and have these days to think about and develop solutions to these problems, I hope that we can also bring the perspectives of those who are unable to attend, most of whom are those for which we are attempting to create solutions. I wish and believe that we will bring together new ideas, share from our difference experiences and our different views of the world to create a multitude of collective responses, ideas, projects, and that we foster a hope among each other as we see so many people all working together to achieve something together.
