Growing food justice by planting an anti-oppression foundation: opportunities and obstacles for a budding social movement

Situating On-farm Apprenticeships within the Alternative Agrifood Movement: Labor and Social Justice Implications

“…Quantitative data, as a backdrop for the population under study, enabled us to examine the likely incidence and prevalence of lived experiences and activities, so we could judge their importance in agriculture more holistically. Interview protocols and the survey instrument were derived from a content analysis of three handbooks or guides (Jones, 1999;Mills-Novoa, 2011;Powell, 2007) aimed at advising farmers who host apprentices. For purposes of this study, an on-farm apprentice is defined as someone who is an apprentice, intern, on-farm student, etc.…”

“…Individual farms throughout the U.S. have been increasingly implementing apprenticeships (Niewolny & Lillard, 2010), occasionally with technical support from Cooperative Extension and/or nonprofit entities (see, for example, Carey et al, 2006). They may be more common on small, labor-intensive, sustainability-oriented farms (Endres & Armstrong, 2014;Hamilton, 2011;Pilgeram, 2011;Powell, 2007), who may view apprentices as a critical source of inexpensive farm labor (Pilgeram, 2011;Kalyuzhny, 2012;Wood, 2013).…”

Does Urban Agriculture Improve Food Security? Examining the Nexus of Food Access and Distribution of Urban Produced Foods in the United States: A Systematic Review

“…A growing number of urban agriculture articles highlight histories of oppression, structural racism, and economic divestment that are tied up in the narrative and ability of UA to improve food access in low income communities, often described as "food deserts" [7,24,27,32]. These studies draw attention to agricultural history; complex historical relationships between minority communities and farming; land theft; and structural dynamics of power and privilege, critiquing those who uncritically accept the multiple benefits of urban agriculture.…”

Food Justice: What is it? Where has it been? Where is it going?

“…While different disciplines tend to define it through their own respective lenses, food justice is a concept that informs multiple areas of thought, action, and study, including: 1) alternative, activist, and oppositional food movements [4,7,[9][10][11][12][13] 2) environmental justice [2,4,11,14,15] 3) food security [2,6,7,12,13] 4) health equity and disparity [7,11,13,16] Although they differ significantly in their scope and approach, these issues intertwine across the landscape of the literature, collectively defining the principles of food justice and suggesting strategies for intervention. As Gottlieb and Joshi explain, "What connects these approaches is the desire to create fundamental change as well as alternatives to the dominant food system" [8].…”