Welcome to the Food Justice Challenge. In these next five days, you will learn about the intersectionality of race in the food system, the inherent inequities that BIPOC community members face, and how food justice activists are dismantling these injustices.

If we look at food sovereignty and the food justice movement, its connection to racism is undeniably clear. Karen Washington, James Beard Foundation Leadership Award winner and food sovereignty leader explains that the food system of the United States, “is not broken; it’s working exactly the way it’s supposed to: as a caste system based on demographics, economics, and race.”

As defined during the Declaration of Nyéléni at the first global forum on food sovereignty in Mali, food sovereignty is “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems” (2007).  An alternative definition from the U.S. Department of Indian Affairs states that food sovereignty is, “the ability of communities to determine the quantity and quality of the food that they consume by controlling how their food is produced and distributed” (2022). 

Food sovereignty goes hand in hand with the food justice movement, which according to the Food Print organization is, “a holistic and structural view of the food system that sees healthy food as a human right and addresses structural barriers to that right” (2021).  Food justice is a movement that works “not only for access to healthy food, but for an end to the structural inequities that lead to unequal health outcomes” (Food Print, 2021).

Today you will learn about the history of racism in our food system and the important role that food sovereignty plays in creating an equitable society.