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Redefining Food Narratives: Thoughts and Reflections of a Rising Black...
I remember growing food in the third grade during garden club at Twin Oaks Community Garden in D.C. I grew onions, collard greens, and mustard greens. I’d bring my harvest home for my family to eat. My...
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Introducing Food Access: A Tale of Two Grocery Shopping Trips
Sunday is grocery shopping day. As I sit on the couch sipping my morning coffee, my husband walks over and asks, “What do you want to make for dinner this week?” I reach for a pen on our coffee table...
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From Baltimore Protests to Food: The Importance of Community Voices
Two months ago I was in Baltimore for a conference focusing on healthy food access. Before the opening reception I squeezed in a run. With temperatures well below freezing, I ran down to the Harbor...
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A Labor Day Story: The Life and Death of a Farmworker Fuels the Fight for...
The call came early on Labor Day. Prisciliano Salvador, 92 years of age, had passed away overnight in his birthplace, the Zapotec community of Yatzachi el Bajo, Oaxaca, Mexico. My uncle was a peasant...
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A Look Back at Dr. King’s Demands for Food Justice
Photo: National Archives and Records Administration/In May of 1968, the Poor People’s March on Washington brought some 3,000 activists to the nation’s capital for more than six weeks. The campaign,...
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Why We Can’t Separate Justice and Sustainability in the Food System
Betty-Ann Bryce, Mark Stout, at Miller Farms in Clinton, Md. USDA photo by Preston KeresMost of us wish we could eat with the confidence that everything on our plate has a story we can feel good about,...
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Pandemic Exposes Plight of Food Workers Who Have Long Fought for Justice
The rapid spread of COVID-19, with confirmed US cases now nearing 100,000, is forcing the federal government to confront some stark realities. And not just the fact that it was woefully (and willfully)...
View ArticleOn Indigenous People’s Day, a Look at the Movement to Revive Native Foodways...
“Tribes are not sovereign unless they can feed themselves,” notes Ross Racine, Executive Director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council. This is such a brutal fact that that the destruction of Native...
View ArticleWith Trump Executive Order, Are Meat and Poultry Plants a COVID-19 Ticking...
On April 28, President Trump issued an executive order intended to direct slaughterhouses and meat and poultry processing plants to remain open as critical infrastructure. The order noted that these...
View ArticleDisempowered by Tyson—How Big Chicken Hurts Farmers, Workers, and Communities...
A few years back, the nation’s largest meat and poultry company used the slogan “Powered by Tyson” to sell its chicken, pork, and beef. Tyson Foods’ marketing language has since changed, but the...
View ArticleAsk a Scientist: Tyson’s Near Monopoly is Bad for Workers, Farmers and...
Wall Street Journal reporter Tony Horwitz won a Pulitzer Prize for series he wrote in December 1994 about working conditions in low-wage US jobs. One of his articles focused on the poultry industry,...
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How Do You Fight for Environmental, Climate, and Food Justice? Eastie Farm...
It was a cold November day in Boston, and I rushed from a conference on public health to tour Eastie Farm. Founded in 2015 on a single lot in East Boston, this urban farm has expanded to seven sites...
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Six Reasons Why You Should Care about the (So-Called) Farm Bill
The last few years have been marked by Big Food corporations exploiting and endangering workers, ripping off farmers, and jacking up grocery prices to pad their profits, but 2023 is a chance to turn...
View ArticleWhat Should the 2023 Food and Farm Bill Include—and How Do We Make It Happen?
NOTE: This post has been updated to remove the mention of a marker bill that had not yet been introduced at the time of publication. Hello, UCS blog readers! My name is Melissa Kaplan and I joined the...
View ArticleWill Climate Change Force More Farmworkers to Go Hungry?
Continued flooding in California caused by severe storms called atmospheric rivers continues to shock the country. Just last week, broken river levees devastated the majority-Latino community of...
View ArticleLos agricultores esperan que el Proyecto de Ley Agrícola del 2023 sea una...
Se supone que las políticas y la legislación deben ser las vías de acceso a los recursos y los esfuerzos de abogacía. Desafortunadamente, hay cosas como el lenguaje complicado, la falta de promoción...
View ArticleFarmers Are Looking to the 2023 Farm Bill for Transformational Agriculture...
Policy and legislation are supposed to be routes to resources and advocacy. Unfortunately, things like challenging language, lack of promotion of programming, and lack of adequate support for people...
View ArticleCoalition Members Deliver Their Food and Farm Bill Message to Congress
After several years of virtual meetings due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, this May marked the return of the annual in-person conference for members of the Good Food For All (GFFA) coalition. It...
View ArticleThe United States Needs to Protect Its Farmworkers from “Danger Season”
Farmworkers face many hazards while performing the labor that props up the $1.264 trillion US food and farm economy, yet a new analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) found that federal...
View ArticleWhy Living Above the Poverty Line Doesn’t Guarantee Food Security
If you are worried about the rising cost of food, you are not alone. In the United States, approximately 1 in 10 households experience food insecurity (although research suggests it’s actually many...
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