The Intersection of Environmental, Climate, and Food Justice

Joan McGregor

The current food system is harming the most vulnerable people in our society. If you are poor and minority, you have a much higher chance of being obese, having diabetes, and the diseases related to it. African Americans are nearly 1.5 times as likely to be obese as whites are, and African American children are at even higher risk of obesity than white children are. With Latino and Native American children, the rates of obesity and diabetes are even higher (GAIN n.d.). Many of these same people have high rates of food insecurity, namely, lack of regular access to sufficient nutritious food; these people include farm workers, who have the highest levels of food insecurity in the nation (Grauel and Chambers 2014). "Food deserts," areas without reasonably close access to grocery stores with fresh foods, are also most prevalent either in inner cities with high concentrations of low-income and minority populations or in rural areas, such as agricultural areas and tribal nations. Many workers in the food system, such as farm workers, meat processors, and restaurant workers, are minorities and women, subject to low wages and often dangerous working conditions, such as exposure to high levels of chemicals in fields or dangerous equipment in the meat industry. The current system of industrial food production not only results in environmental harms such as soil depletion, chemical runoffs in streams and other waterways, and the subsequent loss of biodiversity but also has detrimental health effects on the surrounding human communities because of its intense chemical burden (Nicolopoulou-Stamati et al. 2016). That same industrial agriculture system that is causing harm to vulnerable humans' health has a substantial impact on the amount of global greenhouse gases, constituting somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the total amount (Gilbert 2012). Excessive carbon in the atmosphere will harm future generations but is already having effects on current populations, often the most vulnerable ones. Climate change is harming the food systems of vulnerable communities now; for instance, with seas rising and permafrost melting, the Inuit people are forced to relocate, inevitably to places where they cannot access their traditional foods (Tsosie 2007).

Until recently, the food system was not recognized as a locus of social justice problems. Its effects on the environment and the climate were mostly ignored as well. Largely fueled by popular writers and filmmakers Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation, 2001), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, 2007), and Marion Nestle (Food Politics, 2007), food is now on the radar for many more people. These popular writers exposed the problems with the growth and ubiquity of "bigag" with its monocultures cheapening the price and the quality of food, leading to an abundance of low-quality food and in turn causing a burgeoning health crisis of obesity, cancer, and heart disease. Additionally, they exposed industrial agricultures' reliance on artificial fertilizers and pesticides, resulting in devastating effects on the environment. Out of this attention to the health and environmental problems of the food system grew a robust nationwide food movement focused on healthy, organic foods that are good for people and the planet. Michelle Obama even got into the spotlight, growing a garden at the White House and making "Let's Move," a healthy eating and fitness campaign for children, a centerpiece of her mission as First Lady. This food movement is largely populated, however, by the white upper middle class who have the resources and the ability to access healthy, environmentally friendly alternatives. With it, we have witnessed an explosion of farmers' markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), community gardens, and farm to table restaurants. The organic food industry is the largest growth area in the food system (Organic Trade Association 2017). While this movement is bringing needed attention to the food system, its concentration has not been on the social inequities in and around the food system and the barriers faced by low-income and minority communities that prevent them from participating in the food movement's proposed solutions. Much of the food movement has been focused on changing people's behavior, namely, calling them to make better choices, and has not acknowledged the structural and interrelated problems that make individual choices and market solutions very difficult or not viable at all in many communities. For members of low-income and minority communities, the proposed solutions, such as Pollan's "Eat mostly plants, especially leaves" (2009) are not necessarily possible, since many of those communities are food deserts with no access to full-service markets with fresh vegetables. Furthermore, the income of the poor has been steadily declining since the 1970s (Pew Research Center 2015) and, ironically, if the inner city poor have access to fresh vegetables in their neighborhoods, the vegetables tend to be cost-prohibitive, even more expensive than in predominately white, suburban neighborhoods (Treuhaft and Karpyn 2010).

Another food movement, the food justice movement, has been emerging as well, led by grassroots organizations focused on the inequities in the food system. "Food justice" is defined as "communities exercising their right to grow, sell, and eat [food that is] fresh, nutritious,...