Food production has gone from local to global, and is on its way back to local again, at least if many progressive “foodies” have their way.  Which, arguably, is a good thing.  As the foodies – advocates of local, organic and sustainable food like Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver – have demonstrated in New York Times articles and memoirs of growing all one’s food, organic and local food is much more sustainable than the current status quo: factory farmed, shipped halfway around the world, highly-processed food.  Pollan, Kingsolver, and their allies, however, have by and large forgotten a huge piece of the pie: that, in addition to the legs of economy and environment, the three-legged sustainability stool must also, as in the words of farm worker organizer Greg Asbed, rest upon the leg of equity.

 
Thanks to the efforts of such foodies, much has been done to shore up the (local) economy and environment legs of food sustainability.  The “organic” label is now recognized by nearly everyone; new farmer’s markets are popping up in towns large and small; heirloom tomatoes and beans are regaining their rightful place in our diet.  The equity leg, however, is perilously short, and the stool may yet fall.  Nowhere near enough attention has been paid to low-income communities’ access to food, nor to the often slave-like conditions under which farm workers labor. 

 
For middle class eaters, the food movement has been a boon, bringing healthier, fresher foods to their plates. For low-income and inner-city communities, however, such options often are not available.  These communities often find themselves in the middle of  “food droughts,” without any fresh or healthy food choices. Detroit and West Oakland, two predominantly African-American and poor communities, have not a single supermarket within their boundaries.  According to a nationwide study of nineteen metropolitan areas, zip codes with high levels of poverty had 30 percent few supermarkets than higher income neighborhoods.[1]  Often without cars and adequate transportation systems to drive to supermarkets, residents of such areas are left to shop at convenience stores that are not only more expensive but stocked with a much smaller selection of healthy food options.


Another impact of the dominant agricultural system is the effect on agricultural workers.  The individuals who pick our strawberries and harvest our grains feel the double negative impact: not only do they ingest many of the unhealthy products, but they are exposed to the harsh chemicals and unsafe and unjust working conditions that allow for such cheap, readily available food products.  In fact, many farm workers toil under what amounts to modern day slavery. Even workers on organic farms don’t fare much better, contrary to the assumption that many consumers make when they buy organic. True, workers on organic farms are spared exposure to harmful chemicals used in conventional production; but the lack of pesticides often requires the use of back-breaking techniques like hand-weeding.  And organic farm workers, particularly at the increasing number of large-scale industrial organic farms, often earn wages comparable to their counterparts at conventional farms and receive no health benefits.  These workers can certainly not afford to purchase the organic produce they harvest.[2]

 
All hope is not lost, however.  In West Oakland, for example, People’s Grocery is an oasis – a mobile one at that.  With its Mobile Market, a converted delivery van shuttling healthy food, and its many other food health-related programs, People’s Grocery is changing food systems with every corner the Mobile Market turns.

 
And in southern Florida, one little-known group of seemingly powerless farm workers has found time, in between picking tomatoes and harvesting watermelons, to start a mini-revolution in the kingdom of fast food.  This April, after throwing the last still-green tomato into the final delivery truck in rural Florida, the members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) boarded a northbound bus.  Two years after an unprecedented win in a boycott against Taco Bell, in which the Chalupa-maker agreed to double the pay rate for its tomato purchases and sign a zero-tolerance policy for what has amounted to modern-day slavery in the produce industry, the CIW was at it again.  This time the target was McDonald’s.  The Big Mac maker hardly put up a fight: two days before the boycott was even set to begin, McDonald’s reps called up CIW and agreed to every demand.  Did CIW rest?  Not even close.  After a night of celebration, the workers turned their attention to the king; Burger King, that is.  Because the harvest can’t wait, CIW is back in the fields picking watermelons now, but Burger King has murmured intentions to cooperate once CIW’s campaign fully begins.

 
As monumental as these victories are, wins for tomato pickers do not change the overall abysmal wages or oppressive conditions of farm labor, nor will a local effort in West Oakland fully reverse the racism and classism that have created food deserts.

 
Because we all need to eat to live, food politics are an area where we can take both large and small-scale steps to shore up the equity leg of the sustainability stool. Even if you don’t eat at fast food restaurants, it is almost inevitable that you consume food and beverages that involve gross exploitation. It could be in your cup of organic coffee or in produce you buy from the market.  Just as we have begun to insist our food be organic and local, so we need to demand that all food everywhere, sold by every business, be harvested fairly and justly, and available to all eaters, rich and poor.