Featured image: Global Justice Now

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Across the country and around the world, people are asking important questions about their food: Where did it come from? How was it produced? And these questions are sparking conversations, movements, and policy changes with far-reaching impacts on our health and environment. Many people are also taking steps to grow their own food or buy organic for their family. But is that an option for everyone? And is it enough? What can we do to make sure the food system works for everyone?

If we believe that healthy, affordable, delicious food is a human right (and we do!), we have to ask not only where and how our food is grown, but who is behind our food. In the United States, over 21 million people work in “food chain” jobs, growing, harvesting, processing, butchering, transporting, preparing, selling, and serving food. Maybe you even work in the food system or have at one point in your life.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the food system as it currently exists does not work for food workers. Eight out of ten of the lowest-paying jobs in the country are food system jobs. While bringing food to consumers’ tables, many food workers can’t access safe and nutritious food themselves due to poverty wages. Women and workers of color are especially vulnerable to exploitation and workplace abuses, and undocumented immigrants are often afraid to speak up due to fear of deportation.

By choosing to consume food that was produced using fair labor practices, we can grow market demand for worker justice. We can—and should—also go beyond “voting with our forks” by supporting worker-led organizations and campaigns that are fighting for higher wages, fair contracts, the right to organize, safe workplaces, and protection from harassment.

The resources in this toolkit will help you organize a fun and engaging film viewing event and help participants understand why worker justice is a necessary part of food system change.

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Journalist and infant health advocate Kimberly Seals Allers breaks breastfeeding out of the realm of “personal choice” and shows our broader connection to an industrialized food system that begins at birth, the fallout of feminist ideals, and the federal policies that are far from family friendly. The Big Letdown uncovers the multibillion-dollar forces battling to replace mothers’ milk and the failure of the medical establishment to protect infant health. Weaving together research and personal stories with original reporting on medicine, big pharma, and hospitals, Kimberly Seals Allers shows how mothers and babies have been abandoned by all the forces that should be supporting families from the start–and what we can do to help.

The post The Big Letdown: How Medicine, Big Business, and Feminism Undermine Breastfeeding appeared first on Real Food Media.

After an initial career of community organizing and affordable housing advocacy, a stint with green building construction, a few seasons tending and establishing urban gardens, and four years helping to run a 300 member CSA farm, in 2009, Kristin started Radix Farm, her own farming venture.  At Radix Farm, Kristin strives to make small-scale farming a sustainable, viable and profitable business that treats the ecosystem, the customers, and growers with care and respect.  She grows healthy and high quality produce using organic practices, and by planting a bio-diverse farmscape, nurturing the soil, and giving individual attention to the crops.  Kristin enjoys sharing her passion for sustainable farming with the community and with other new farmers.

“Radix” is the Latin word for root, from which came the words radical and radish. Root, radish, radical: Radix felt like the perfect name for my farm.

Radix Farm’s produce can be found at the Ballston Farmers Market in Arlington, Virginia, at the Petworth Famers Market in Washington, DC, or by becoming a member of Radix Farm’s CSA program.

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