Food Justice Panel - Community Reads Program, UWB/CC Campus Library

00:13 - For for this food justice panel, we are so excited to have panelists from local farms, the Community Alliance for Global Justice from our campuses, Health and Wellness Resource Center, as well as a student moderator from Cascadia.

00:28 - If you are a UWB or Cascadia student participating in Wellness Fest, you can enter a raffle to win an Amazon gift card for attending this event, I think.

00:38 - Yeah. Michael, just put a link in the chat to that raffle forum that you can use to enter the raffle for being here to begin.

00:48 - The University of Washington, Bothell and Cascadia College Campus Library acknowledges that we occupy land that has been inhabited by indigenous people since time immemorial.

00:58 - Specifically, this campus is located on Sammamish land from which settler colonists forcibly removed Coast Salish people to reservations in the mid 19th century.

01:08 - Historically, the Sammamish were closely related to the Duwamish, and today their descendants are members of the Snoquamish, Snoqualmie, and Tulalip tribe’s campus library workers want to honor these native communities and their elders in particular.

01:23 - It is important to note that this acknowledgment is really just an opening and a small part of the ongoing work that needs to be done for us to repair harm and to be in good relation with this land and local tribal members less on the sly that is currently being displayed.

01:39 - We have provided some additional opportunities for learning and engagement. The Native Lands Web site maps the lived history of indigenous peoples.

01:47 - You can enter an address on the site. If you’re not familiar with it, or click on the map to discover information about the tribe’s languages and treaties relevant to that place, you can learn more about the history of campus or enter the address of wherever you are.

01:59 - Now to learn more about your area. Sovereignty Farm is a new seat to table project that will provide opportunities for indigenous elders, apprentices, artisans and farmers to grow and serve traditional foods at the chief Seattle Club Day Center and the cafe that will be available to the public in chief Seattle Club’s home-building opening later this year.

02:20 - You can visit their website to learn more, including the opportunity to donate to the farm’s overseeing organization.

02:26 - Native Works and Real Rent to Duwamish is an opportunity for those who live and work in the Seattle area to make rent payments to the Duwamish tribe who have not been justly compensated for their land and resources.

02:39 - You can visit their website to set up monthly payments that go directly to the dormice tribal services.

02:46 - The next three things on a slide are library resources available from YouTube libraries and some availability from local public libraries as well.

02:54 - Promise Land is a documentary that follows the Duwamish and Chinook tribes as they seek recognition in indigenous people’s history of the United States tells the history of the U. S. from the perspective of indigenous people.

03:07 - And I also understand that a portion of the new HBO series called Exterminate All the Brutes is based on this work and specifically because this is an academic environment.

03:19 - I wanted to highlight the book research, a ceremony which presents indigenous research methods as a way to instill accountability and relationships into the research process.

03:29 - The documentary and books, like I said, are all available through libraries.

03:33 - If you have any additional resources that you would like to share with this community today, you can go ahead and send me a chat message and I can share it with the rest of the attendees in a in a little bit here.

03:46 - I would like to tell you a little bit about the Community Read’s program now.

03:51 - For those of you who are new to community reads, the library has programing each quarter, sort of routing a common reading.

03:57 - Our intent is to facilitate space for critical dialog around issues of equity, diversity and social justice.

04:04 - My name is Tami Garrard and I am the access services manager in the library and a member of a Community Read’s team.

04:10 - And I’m going to let each community, Read’s team member, briefly introduce themselves now.

04:14 - So I will pass it to Cora. Hello, everyone.

04:20 - [Cora Thomas] My name is Cora Thomas and I’m a circulation lead at the campus library.

04:24 - Thank you for coming. We really are excited to have this this event for for you all.

04:29 - So thank you. [Michael Mungin] And I can go next.

04:37 - I am Michael Mungin. I’m multitasking, I’m sort of running the slides as well, but I am research an instruction librarian for Cascadia and for you to Bothell.

04:46 - And I am also happy to be here. [Hannah Mendro] I can go next.

04:53 - I’m Hannah. I use she her pronouns. I am a Materials processing technician at the library, and I’m also very excited to have you here.

05:01 - And I’ll pass it to Sarah. [Sarah Leadley] Hi, everyone, I’m Sarah Leadley I’m the associate dean and director of the library and contributed very little to this event.

05:11 - So kudos to the team members who just introduced themselves.

05:18 - [Tami Garrard] Thank you, Sarah. This year, community reads is focused on environmental justice issues all year and during spring quarter, we have been focusing specifically on food justice. So besides this panel event, today we have online programing with discussion space activities and an opportunity to contribute to our food justice Zine.

05:40 - That’s all available in an online canvas course, which is available to the UW and Cascadia community with a UW Net ID.

05:47 - And are reading this quarter is this amazing essay called Black Gold by Leah Penniman, who is the founder of Soul Fire Farm.

05:55 - In her essay, she addresses the history of black communities relationship to land and farming, the relationship between growing food and climate change, and the disproportionate impact of climate change on my poor communities.

06:09 - She also talks about how soil and relationship with soil can work to bring healing after a history of trauma and land dispossession experienced by BIPOC communities in this country.

06:21 - The essay really is incredible. Highly recommended.

06:24 - You can access it with your UW Net ID through the link on our Web site or within our canvas course if you’re affiliated with UW Cascadia.

06:33 - And at some point we’ll give you links to that Web site and canvas this course throughout the next hour and a half.

06:40 - And you can still see the content for our previous quarters.

06:43 - Environmental justice themes in the campus course, although the discussion and the activity spaces have been closed down.

06:48 - But fourth quarter, we looked at climate justice and specifically on rising waters.

06:52 - Coral reef destruction and indigenous activism. And then winter quarter.

06:57 - Our focus was on climate refugees and climate migration.

07:01 - So I am going to now turn it over to Hannah to discuss the format of the rest of the events and community expectations.

07:09 - Before we begin our panel discussion. [Hannah Mendro] Thank you, Tami.

07:13 - So, yes, I’m just going to go over some expectations for the event.

07:17 - Both expectations that you can have us and for how it will look.

07:21 - And expectations that we have of you as community members. So we have our community agreements up on the screen due to time constraints.

07:30 - I’m not going to go through all of these, but this is a set of agreements that we have as a preface for both in person and online discussion events.

07:39 - And because most of the discussion in today’s event will be taking place between our panelists, I’m not going to go through these.

07:44 - They’re not quite as applicable. But I do want you to keep them in mind as you engage in the Q&A at the end of the meeting.

07:51 - And just in general, but I do want to make a positionality statement, which was written by Michael and adapted for today’s event: positionality refers to how one’s world view and lived experiences shaped their understanding of an interaction with the topic.

08:06 - Our values, identities, experiences, biases and previous knowledge influence how we interact with topics, texts and even teachers, classmates and colleagues, the community reads.

08:16 - Team wants to acknowledge that in discussing food, justice and environmental justice, we are discussing matters that disproportionately target poor people and people of color.

08:24 - Groups that have a long and documented history of having their values and experiences discounted and invalidated, including at educational institutions like this one. We seek to intentionally make space for such voices.

08:36 - All our panelists will be coming at the issue of food justice from different positionalities.

08:40 - And we know that all of you as audience members will be as well.

08:43 - So we encourage you to keep your own positionality in mind when reacting or responding to our panelists discussions and when participating in Q&A.

08:50 - So among all this, the most important thing to remember is that we don’t tolerate hate speech or anything that targets marginalized communities.

08:59 - And unfortunately, we know that that sort of thing can and has happened at some meetings before.

09:05 - So I just want to go through some steps that we’ve taken to hopefully prevent anything like that from happening here.

09:11 - So I’m just gonna do a quick outline of what the event will look like.

09:14 - And throughout that outline, the precautions that we’ve taken to hopefully make sure that everyone has a safe experience here.

09:21 - So once I finish this outline, I’m going to do a brief introduction of our panelists and then I’m going to pass it over to our student moderator and to the panelists themselves for more in-depth introductions and also to get their discussion started.

09:34 - The panel discussion will be the bulk of the event today.

09:37 - It’ll probably be about forty five minutes. And during this time, we do ask everyone but our panelists to keep audio and video muted.

09:46 - We don’t want to silence anyone, but if we do hear disturbing noise coming from your window, we will mute you.

09:52 - During this time, chat will also be closed to all but our community, reads team members.

09:59 - We ask that you hold your questions and reactions until the Q&A period.

10:02 - But if you do have any tech or access needs that arise during this time, please message those to Cora Thomas who will be dealing with.

10:09 - So if there are any technical difficulties or things that we need to adapt to, please let her know.

10:14 - After the discussion, we will be opening the chat up for an audience Q&A.

10:18 - So we’ll open it up so that everyone can communicate with one another. And at this time we will be locking the meeting so no one else can enter.

10:26 - We’re gonna keep it open until then, but once we open up chat, we’re gonna close it so that hopefully we don’t get any Zoom bombing.

10:35 - If you do leave the meeting before that time, you won’t be able to enter reenter once we’ve once we’ve locked the chat.

10:40 - So after we have our Q&A, we’re gonna have a brief reflection for the audience.

10:44 - This will just be a few minutes. It’ll be one question that we’ll ask you to think about.

10:48 - You can either put your answers in chat or you can just think about it on your own. Participation is totally voluntary.

10:54 - And if anything does happen. So, again, we keep you.

10:58 - We ask you to keep your positionality, and keep our community agreements in mind when engaging with with our panelists.

11:05 - But if anything does happen during the meeting that defies those agreements or that threatens the safety of any marginalized group, that person will be removed from the meeting. And we will be checking in with everyone after this meeting.

11:18 - You should have clicked to accept recording when you entered.

11:22 - This meeting is being recorded and a recording will be available probably in a few days.

11:27 - We will give you more information on that at the end of the meeting. So now that we’ve gotten some of those logistics out of the way, I’m just gonna do a brief introduction of each of our panelists and then I will pass it over to them.

11:38 - So with us today, we’re very excited to have Ray Williams from the Black Farmers Collective, a group of urban food system activists dedicated to providing opportunities to improve the health of our communities through all aspects of the food system.

11:51 - We also have Emma Shorr from Rising Sign Farm, a queer woman owned and operated vegetable farm in Carnation, Washington, on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish people, which is dedicated to food sovereignty and justice.

12:02 - We have Noel Hutton from the Community Alliance for Global Justice (C. A. G. J), which is a grassroots group which works to strengthen the global food sovereignty movement through community education and.

12:11 - Mobilization. And we have Faye Farreles and Ree Robson from the UW Bothell and Cascadia Health and Wellness Resource Center or HaWRC and Faye and Ree Connect students to essential resources that allow them to reduce barriers and increase academic success.

12:25 - And finally, we’re very excited to have a student moderator with us today.

12:28 - Julianna Folta is a junior majoring in sustainable practices at Cascadia College who plans to pursue a career in sustainable and equitable food production. And with that, I’m going to pass it off to Julianna and to the panelists to introduce themselves and a little more depth and to take away the discussion.

12:45 - [Julianna Folta] Thank you all again so much for being here. Thank you for that great introduction.

12:50 - My name is Julianna Folta. I go by she her and as Hannah said, I am a student at Cascadia College’s Sustainable Practices Program.

12:58 - I also hail from the Cascadia Sustainability Club, where we focus on education and hold conversations about what actions we can take to lead to more sustainable lives and how we can lead by example.

13:10 - We’re also a hands on club and are eager to participate in activities focused around bettering the local environment through acts of service.

13:17 - So if you’re interested in engaging with that, if you’re a Cascadia student, you’ll learn more about how you can join us at the end of this panel.

13:25 - But also, if you want to collaborate with the club, also reach out.

13:29 - We’re very open and excited to work with anyone. With that being said, I’m going to pass it on to Ray to kind of introduce himself some more.

13:42 - [Ray Williams] Thank you, Juliana. You know, I guess I want to first thank the organizers here for this and all the participants and want to call out that.

13:54 - Thank you for the land acknowledgment. And also, what needs to come with acknowledgments is how how people can help.

14:01 - Right? How you can actually do something. And so the fact that you share that is really great.

14:06 - Ray Williams. He his pronouns bi racial. And, you know, I think because of your comment about positionality, I’ll I’ll I’ll go just a bit into that that bi racial in this year.

14:23 - Born and raised in Seattle. You know, for the biracial folks up there just had a conversation with folks and it was it was interesting how some folks asked you to choose right where you are and how you how you identify.

14:37 - And I think I pushed back from that. But one of the things that I have done is I have chosen to serve a community.

14:44 - And I think because of our community’s search effort, you sort of do have to do that.

14:47 - So I’ve chosen to serve the African-American community, the black community here in Seattle by by working with Black Farmers Collective to try to bring some more health community.

15:01 - So when I raised here, happy to be part of this, this panel.

15:07 - Honored. Thank you. Thank you, Ray. So happy to have you.

15:10 - Noel, could you go ahead and introduce yourself and your organization again? [Noel Hutton] Hi, everyone. My name is Noel Hutton. I issue your pronouns to add onto what Ray was just saying, that I should call out today’s day of awareness for missing and murdered indigenous persons.

15:29 - And I’m not going to go into that. But something to look into after today.

15:35 - I’m an organizer with Community Alliance for Global Justice (C. A. G. J), which has been thoroughly involved, and yet we’ve never met before.

15:45 - And our mission is to strengthen the global food sovereignty movement through food sovereignty.

15:51 - It’s a little bit different than food justice, They’re all. They’re all just terms.

15:55 - But it has deeper origins. The term and definition we use today is coined by the global peasants movement, by the name of Libya Campesina.

16:06 - And it means to the right of peoples to define their own food systems, which is culturally appropriate, and produce through ecologically sound and sustainable methods.

16:17 - And my organization came out of the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, which is the World Trade Organization.

16:24 - So we work on trade issues, especially related to agriculture.

16:30 - We also challenge big philanthropy in the central term to that is what we call philanthro-capitalism.

16:40 - And it’s very relevant to being based in Seattle because the Gates Foundation is one of the biggest players in promoting industrial agriculture around the world under a guise of generosity.

16:58 - So we do all kinds of things. Sometimes it’s hard to explain, but that’s the gist of it.

17:05 - [Julianna Folta] Thank you know well, a great explanation. Emma, How about you? [Emma] Hi, I’m Emma. Is she her pronouns? I run a small farm in Carnation on Coast Salish land called Rising Sign Farm.

17:23 - Yeah, to bring in some of that positionality, I think that’s a great way to start.

17:28 - I’m queer. I’m white. I am Jewish. And I’m a transplant to the Seattle area.

17:37 - So I grew up on the East Coast. And. Yeah, that what else is there to say about the I did a lot of my politicization came through organizing with the Community Alliance for Global Justice and. My organizing and politics have really routed my farming practices and why I farm today and grow food.

18:08 - Yeah, I’ll leave it at that. Excited to be here. Thank you all for organizing.

18:14 - Thank you, Emma. Ree. [Ree Robson] Yeah, hi, my name’s Ree.

18:23 - I use them, there’s pronouns or anything is all right.

18:28 - And I’m one of the benefits hub coaches for the UW Bothell Cascadia College campus.

18:32 - So kind of a complicated situation with the benefits hubs.

18:40 - We do those benefits hubs at a few different colleges, mostly community colleges around the King County area.

18:46 - Technically part of United Way. But then we also work under departments in each of the colleges that we’re a part of.

18:52 - So Faye and I are on the, UW Bothell, Cascadia campus.

18:59 - I guess since other people have said a little bit more about themselves.

19:04 - I am white I’m from actually the Midwest and the Chicago area and kind of moved out here partway through high school.

19:12 - I went to college in the eastern Washington.

19:16 - So I kind of know the area, but I’m a pretty recent college graduate.

19:22 - So still kind of getting used to being back in the Seattle area.

19:27 - Learning about all the different organizations and stuff that are out here.

19:33 - [Julianna Fotla] Thank you. And Faye. [Faye Farreles] Hi, everybody, my name is Faye.

19:38 - I am also a coach for the UW Bothell, Cascadia campus.

19:43 - Just to go a little more into you about what we do, I know you mentioned a little bit about it, but we are essentially a part of the bridge to finish program.

19:54 - We’re helping community college and college students graduate by helping them access resources like rent assistance and food and public benefits and just, yeah, just a little bit more about that and then about myself.

20:10 - I grew up here in Washington State. I am a Filipino American and a Navy brat.

20:18 - So I’ve lived all over different places and lived recently in Brooklyn for 10 years before I ended up moving back here to be back closer to family because of the pandemic and everything and yet not regretting any part of that.

20:37 - I love being close to my family and I’m really enjoying getting to know Washington State again.

20:44 - [Julianna Folta] Thank you, Faye. It is such an honor and a privilege to have all of you here today.

20:48 - I’m so excited to hold space for us to talk about food justice today.

20:52 - So that being said, our next question is, tell us your food, justice, origin story.

20:58 - When do you first remember becoming consciously aware of a food justice issue? And how has that impacted your life and work? And what does food justice mean to you now? You can go ahead and pop corn, whoever feels like they can speak.

21:12 - Go ahead. [Emma Shorr] I can start, I think, for me, food, justice, when I think about understanding food, justice, it really I’ve been thinking about like when did my political understanding of what justice means come to be and kind of a transformation of being younger and like my family, operating from what I would consider to be a charity model around food and food access into college and yes, studying scholars like Vandana Shiva and Raj Patel and all these different people who are thinking about food in a political way.

21:59 - And then after that, through the Community Alliance for Global Justice, a lot becoming more radicalized around those politics and kind of moving out of a food justice realm and into a food sovereignty realm and thinking about what does it mean to have democracy in our food system and to be yet to have sovereignty in our food system.

22:27 - I have to that. Yeah. Community Alliance for Global Justice, Headsman, really formative in teaching me a lot over the past few years.

22:38 - I moved to Seattle in fall twenty eighteen and started volunteering with C. A. G. J.

22:44 - So since then I’ve learned a lot. But I think my food interests sparked.

22:51 - When I was 11, I watched. Meet Your Meat. Do any of you.

22:55 - I don’t know if that was like a generational thing or it basically shows the horrors of factory farming.

23:03 - I can be a vegetarian. And then I became a vegan at 13.

23:08 - And now I don’t like subscribe to any particular label of anything.

23:11 - And I’m much more relaxed. But definitely since then it’s been like peeling back the layers of injustice in industrial food systems, which is in some ways endless and.

23:25 - Overwhelming. But. Yeah, I guess as I was talking about food sovereignty, it’s really.

23:35 - A lens and a lot more about self-determination and understanding where power lies in the food system.

23:43 - And it yeah, it’s it’s a beautiful world to get involved in and lots of beautiful people involved in food work.

23:51 - I have to say. Yeah. This is an interesting question I had. You know, I don’t think I’ve really had been asked this originally.

24:08 - You know, I’m going to say that for me. I’ve I’ve been lucky. Born and raised in Seattle, I was lucky enough. My folks wanted to do some traveling.

24:17 - And so. Junior high. They pack the boys into the car and drove to Mexico in 1968 after the Olympics.

24:30 - And so for me, I think this this the first of many trips and traveling that I’ve that I’ve done.

24:36 - You know, you you move out of this sort of middle class, integrated neighborhood and you go through the US and then into Mexico and you start to see hungry people.

24:47 - And so for me, that was probably the start of this idea that there is injustice out there.

24:53 - You see folks that are obviously. And at that time. You know, the income inequality of Mexico was maybe what it’s like now here.

25:06 - Right. And there were a lot of poor people and we really, really got a chance to meet some folks and understand folks that folks really could be hungry.

25:15 - And, you know, at that age, I think I think in terms of getting into the work now and for a long way.

25:24 - But I was I was teaching biology and nutrition at the Art Institute and doing a little bit of urban farming, carrying on the fact that I like to lard everywhere. And it came really beat.

25:40 - I became aware of the connection between nutrition and health. And so that’s when I I started to realize how can I help my community here? So many years later. And part of it was to try to get more people to do grow a little bit of their own food.

25:59 - I think there’s so much health wise in growing your own food and this and in I think this is an environmental question because humans are part of the environment.

26:08 - And so how you interact with your daily life is is is is often an environmental question.

26:14 - And so how how to try to get folks to do a little more of that.

26:18 - And that’s when, you know, started talking to folks about forming an organization that might support people, especially black people, get out onto the land of Black Farmers Collective. And we we have we are now farming.

26:32 - Yes. Farm, which is one and a half acre farm or on the freeway right away in central Seattle.

26:39 - And that’s given an opportunity for, you know, it’s open to everybody.

26:44 - And we want to be inclusive. But it’s it’s it’s to develop black and indigenous leadership.

26:50 - We’re trying to have young black leadership there. And then it’s, you know, another project that we have.

26:58 - But I think is is that it definitely is connected to this this feeling, but also for justice that we’re leasing some land in Redmond.

27:06 - So now we have a four acre farm and we’ve been able to hire a young a young man to be the farm manager and to go from the academics to the actual farming.

27:16 - And so we’ve gotten a lot of support. So a lot of our products are going to and last year went to mutual aid efforts.

27:26 - Right. To try to feed people. And this year more.

27:29 - But we’re also trying to put you into that economic development. Despite that, you aren’t so many times the gardeners.

27:37 - You know, you grow food. Oh. Who do you donate to? Well, how do we how do we pay? How do we pay the farmers? I think Amma’s probably struggling with that one right now.

27:46 - So I think that’s that’s a piece of my journey from from youth all the way through to where we’re really trying to sort of make a difference on the ground.

27:55 - Right. We could talk about struggling to pay farmers all day, Ray.

28:09 - OK, so I guess I’ll go to my origin, like basically throughout elementary school, I was like a reduced lunch kid.

28:20 - I get free breakfast in the morning and I paid 40 cents for my lunch and everything.

28:26 - And I always knew, like going to the grocery store with my mom. I was unable to pick out whatever I wanted.

28:32 - You couldn’t get the same snacks as other kids. So I guess that’s like how I kind of grown up and like to this day, I’m still pretty.

28:40 - I’m always checking prices on things and whatnot and trying to get the best deal.

28:44 - But like with that being said, growing up, like, I also didn’t have an understanding of nutrition.

28:50 - I played sports and whatnot, but my mom and dad didn’t really.

28:54 - Cook as vegetables, I know. Oh, yeah. Vegetables go on up as a kid.

28:58 - I was eating a lot of like Filipino food, which was great.

29:03 - Very greasy and fried and a lot of rice and whatnot.

29:07 - But as far as like getting everything that I needed.

29:11 - Nutritiously like I wasn’t that wasn’t a thing that we got.

29:16 - And also, just because my mom was always usually home when my dad was away, we were eating a lot of fast food or like boxed food, I guess like you could say, like, would you call TV dinners? And so it wasn’t until I reached college, I really started understanding the importance of food.

29:34 - I started feeling really sick and whatnot. And it was really affecting my energy. And so I started getting into nutrition and health and fitness and whatnot.

29:47 - And that is like how it all began. And then now with the work that I do with the benefits hub, helping others and understanding that they don’t have access to the same things that other people might have and understanding the importance of eating healthy and what not to to function and to like feel good every day and whatnot.

30:08 - So, yeah, that’s basically my story in a nutshell.

30:16 - I’ve gone to La Vega, that definitely reminds me a lot of what I remember seeing and I was growing up.

30:24 - The differences between who gets to what school lunches and that kind of thing.

30:28 - And that’s kind of what I was thinking about, what the benefits have does and how well a lot of the work we do is really centered on like food insecurity for college students.

30:39 - And how do we at least get them like some food so that, you know, you’re not struggling through all your classes because you haven’t eaten today? And I guess I was thinking about really how I became aware of all that stuff that was going on while I was in college, you know, in just a few very recently, these past couple years, and kind of seeing this divide between the people at my college who, you know, had this financial support to just like, you know, go out whenever they wanted and they’d go to, like, all the nice restaurants in town and like all the sushi places I would like.

31:16 - Would you even ever go to, like, the dining halls versus the students who are stuck on this meal plan that, you know, doesn’t even, like, totally cover two meals a day, that, you know, you’re supposed to be trying to like years to support yourself while, you know, not actually being able to eat more than, like dinner and maybe a lunch a day.

31:38 - And there was a whole I know this was a really difficult time, like the start of my junior year, but they were like transferring how they did the meal plan.

31:48 - So it used to be like an all you can eat kind of situation. You go in and you just sign in once and you can take whatever you want.

31:55 - And then they transferred it to a more of like, you know, pay as you go.

31:59 - You have to pay for each thing that you’re taking with with your, you know, meal plan money.

32:05 - And it became this really tough situation where like halfway through the year, the school was having to, like, give people more money because they hadn’t actually, like, planned for anyone, you know, hadn’t worked out.

32:16 - How much do people actually need to not start starving halfway through the school year? And just thinking how poorly planned this was and how like.

32:27 - How messy it was. You know, we were supposed to be being supported by our college, as you know, 18 and 19 year olds trying to make it.

32:35 - And here people still couldn’t actually, like, afford to eat more than one meal a day, even when they’re on the meal plan.

32:45 - And, yeah, that’s just something we’ve kept working on the benefits tab.

32:51 - So. I know we had a couple slides that had some data about it, but I also don’t like derail the whole conversation.

33:02 - People have other comments. That just makes me think of how.

33:11 - I don’t know where it is disgusting. It is that one of the major reasons we want to reopen schools is because kids can’t eat, because the schools who feeds them? There’s something something twisted going on there. Super important, where catering.

33:35 - Yeah, and, you know, I like to add that, I mean, I guess we do need to thank the schools, right? Because the one part of the schools that kept going was the lunch program.

33:46 - And so folks have been employed throughout this. And I know we’re going to talk a little bit about it later.

33:52 - And so I know folks in that work in those systems and then I see different elementary schools that we worked with where not only the students but the community members, you know, they don’t ask for I. D. when when folks want to come and try to.

34:07 - And so that’s that’s been a you know, it’s encouraging that they’ve been able to step up.

34:13 - What’s at stake? But again, to Noel’s point, you know, this just says where we are in our society, that if we have a little bit of a blip, I’m going to expose it.

34:25 - Folks, not only to the rent pressure. Right. And losing your apartments.

34:28 - But actually not having enough money to buy food. Right. Which is a is becoming even a global issue.

34:36 - Right. And a lot of the issues around the world now are stemming from the fact that at.

34:43 - Income inequality and rising food prices really equals equal Tonga and.

34:51 - So I think that’s that’s a piece that that we all in our own way are trying to fight against.

34:57 - Right. Whether it’s trying to produce more food at a at a reasonable price, whether it’s trying to have a more local food, too.

35:06 - So it doesn’t have to travel so far to giving opportunities for folks to get into the system that we’re that’s one of the things where the Black Farmers Collective is to say, yes, there’s actually people of color that do farm and that they’ve been discouraged from doing that for the last certainly a hundred years, both officially and unofficially. And so how is it that we start to to have that model? Where where are the farmers are as diverse as their customers? Thank you, everyone.

In that case, we’re going to move on to the next question.

35:53 - So what strategies do you use on your farm or organization to support the causes of environmental justice and food justice? And I see Tami has also dropped that question in a chat to refer to as well.

36:25 - I, I you know, I guess I’ll go first on the oh, look at this.

36:29 - Awesome. No, I guess I’ll go first. You know, I’m obviously in a position where I need to step back.

36:37 - And so but I’ll take the first one on this and then that’ll be the last time I start at, you know, and where it’s so it’s interesting.

36:46 - Certainly the food justice about trying to get more food produced as much as we can.

36:51 - Right. You had an opportunity to grow food on this space.

36:57 - We worked really hard to grow the food and we also worked hard to grow connections for what will we do with the food that we’ve got here? Really wasn’t about trying to sell it over it. Yes, ma’am.

37:08 - It was trying to get rid of it. I remember a we make partnership organization and some folks from Uprooted and Rising said, hey, you know, we’d like to buy some food from some people, color food sources.

37:27 - And my response is, hey, well, hey, but how about when you come out and actually help us grow some of it? And so they actually came out and Vollen some of their volunteers are now part of our organization and the plant some rows of food, and then we’re able to come in Ansted and bring it to their food thing. So, I mean, I think that’s how we’re we’re trying to look at food.

37:46 - Justice is trying to grow more food and then trying to make connections and getting it out to people that need it, knowing that we can’t be the distributors but partnerships around.

37:56 - I think ours is a big way to do that. You know, I think environmentally, again, my.

38:02 - Point of view is that humans are part of that, and so we’re able to help folks eat a little bit better.

38:07 - That helps a human environment. We’re creating a space in the city.

38:12 - And I would like to invite everyone to come down, you know, check us out at Black Farmers Collective, our Web site.

38:21 - We have open volunteer times, Tuesdays and Saturdays.

38:26 - But to come out and be able to be in a space, especially if you’re living, you know, in a real urban space and connect a little bit with nature.

38:34 - And that helps the human in your environment that has expanded into more of nature.

38:40 - You get to become part of the soil, really feel that connection.

38:45 - You know, it’s good for your social, emotional health because it’s definitely stress relieving.

38:50 - And you you know, you’re weeding or planting you you’re sort of becoming something part of something you get outside of your head in order to be able to.

39:01 - So that’s a great thing. I think, you know, environmentally, it’s it’s there are a lot of environmental.

39:09 - Good environmental impacts. To a sustainable or regenerative type farming.

39:15 - Right where you’re you’re you’re building that environment and thinks, you know, when you look at a tiny little small space of land.

39:23 - You know, I don’t know how much carbon we’re gonna be able to get there in terms of that.

39:27 - But I. But I do know that if we could become a model for other folks to be able to go out there and and try that small farming and and not add pollutants and and really try to make a better sort of large environment.

39:46 - You know, I’m just excited to be part of that. I’ll jump in there next.

39:58 - So, you know, right away. King County, we basically we focus on eliminating poverty and inequality more generally rather than like environmental things.

40:07 - But we do have our campus pantry. So for anyone out there who needs food, we have the Huskey pantry.

40:17 - We have curbside pickup. We take R. S. V. P. And then Cascadia campus also has the Kodiak cave, all donation based and whatnot.

40:26 - We are there once a week and we’re trying to expand those hours or at least find a way to partner with programs like Door Dash who can deliver to students who aren’t able to come to campus.

40:37 - Basically, the way that we’re helping students is by finding them immediate resources and food solutions in the community, whether it’s our pantry or local pantries. We also have hope link mobile market that comes every first and fourth Thursday to campus.

40:56 - And that’s an opportunity for students to get more fresh produce rather than like canned beans or units or like perish nonperishable foods, hotplate, mobile market has more fresh groceries.

41:11 - And then also connecting students to public benefits like SNAP, which is basic food, also known as EBC, a. k. a. once known as food stamps and WIC, and just making students aware of how they can apply for these things, finding out if they’re eligible, what the qualifications are, and with the current state that we’re in.

41:37 - Like, a lot of the eligibility requirements have changed over time. So it’s like best to just check in with us again.

41:43 - So this is just a quick plug also to schedule an appointment with us.

41:47 - If you’re curious about learning more about these benefits, if you weren’t qualifying before, you might be qualify now.

41:57 - And so we can look into those those things with you.

42:04 - Let me think about that. Did they cover everything or even defecated? Yeah, just the all those immediate things and then getting to know people in the community, like all the cool folks here, can direct us to other sources as well.

42:23 - Totally. Also, I will say that even though we don’t have like we don’t really focus on environmental justice, we did take part as the heart took part in the sustainability fest last week or a week ago or two weeks ago.

42:38 - And we’ve kind of just tied in ways to go green and be more sustainable.

42:43 - And how that can save you money in the and how eating fresher means overall in the long run can put more money into your pocket.

42:55 - Yeah, I can talk a little bit about what we do on the farm.

43:01 - One of the reasons I love food and growing food is that it can really connect these things of environment, environmental justice and food, justice and food sovereignty because they’re like all rooted right in the land and the way we’ve historically treated land and people and continue to do today.

43:18 - So the rising sign in terms of environment practices, most all of our farming practices are trying to do better by the land than what traditional tillage systems have done.

43:31 - So if you read Aleah Pediments essay, she talks a lot about that tillage agriculture where you’re just beating up the soil by spinning it with a tractor implement and that every time you do that, you’re releasing carbon into the atmosphere that has been sequestered in the soil, which is one of the incredible powers of our soils all around us, is the power to sequester and hold carbon and to have these mycorrhizal networks that are communicating with each other and with plants and trees.

44:00 - And, you know, it’s it’s just incredible. So we don’t tell on the farm wood and we don’t use any tractor implements.

44:09 - So it’s all hand tended. And it basically means that everything that’s sequestered into the soil is staying there.

44:18 - And we’re small scale. So like Ray said, how much impact are we going to have? I don’t know. But I think if the more people, the more people who are growing food and the more people that are doing those kind of practices, the more we will have a big impact. And there are ways to do things without tillage on larger scales and growing grains and things like that, which we all, of course, love to eat and need to eat to survive. So that’s a really important part of our farming practices.

44:47 - No, we do other things like crop rotations and cover cropping and limiting our use of plastics and we don’t spray any pesticides and all those things.

44:56 - We’re trying to contribute to a to a healthier environment, which as farmers, we are already seeing firsthand the impacts of global warming and climate change.

45:09 - Yeah, it’s it’s tough. And I could go into that as kind of a separate issue.

45:14 - And then as far as what we’re doing to advocate for food, justice and food sovereignty, I think there are a lot of all of our economic practices are based around solidarity economics.

45:27 - So we have a sliding scale CSA where it’s very practical in some ways of like people who can pay more, can help subsidize people who can pay less or can’t pay at all.

45:38 - We accept EBT for that CSA. It’s also kind of like a political education project to talk to folks who can’t afford CSA’s, which, if some of you might know, have a can of a really big upfront cost.

45:51 - And generally, I think in the last few decades at least, have been seen as something that will wealthy folks only can afford.

46:01 - Which is true in many ways. So doing some of that education around, like if you can afford this, what can you afford to give? We also work with Uprooted Rising and other mutual aid organizations to donate produce that we have in surplus.

46:17 - We pay real rent, which is equal to our land lease every year because we sell in Seattle.

46:24 - So we’re also occupying too much land. Yeah, but I think of figuring out how to do all of this.

46:35 - And implemented under our capitalist system, where it’s like farm, you know, farming is such a low margin business and I feel weird thinking about myself as a business owner.

46:48 - But that’s the reality. Like, I do own a business and I am trying to make a living and then also ultimately trying to provide.

46:55 - Right now, I don’t have any employees. But that was my dream, to be able to provide a living for other folks who might not normally have access to creating those kinds of skills or having safe rural spaces to be in.

47:08 - Yeah, but how do we do that under capitalism and also provide food to folks who need it? And so I think in the long run, I think about like, what would it mean to decorative fire food system? What would it mean to have universal basic income for farmers and farm workers? And how do we cooperatives to make farm work more sustainable for.

47:33 - Individuals for that community and then also to to make it affordable for people or free for people who need to eat.

47:41 - Cause, yeah, that’s that’s kind of where my my brain dreaming goes.

47:53 - At C. A. G. J. , we view ourselves as an individual organization so much as part of a larger global movement and part of that.

48:05 - We see that social change comes from building relationships.

48:12 - And so that’s relationships among fellow organizers and peers and groups within our circles.

48:17 - But it’s also building relationships along the food chain.

48:21 - And something I don’t think I mentioned earlier is that in addition to our trade issues and the Gates Foundation program, we work with a lot of Washington based organizations at different levels of the food chain.

48:40 - Some of those are farm worker union familias. We need desperately to CTCA and community to community development.

48:49 - If you’ve ever heard of supercool also United Food and Commercial Workers.

48:54 - Twenty one you have S. W. Twenty one who works with grocery workers and other labor union sort work.

49:06 - We also partner with Got Green, who does a lot of like food security work in primarily South Seattle.

49:15 - And yeah, that’s just an example of the ways in which we show that there’s all this work being done all along the food chain and bringing people together in order to make change collectively is a primary.

49:34 - Feels weird called a strategy, but it’s something that we do that we see as a super central to making change happen at a systemic level.

49:45 - We also provide research support for. Lesser so in Washington state.

49:53 - But we have a lot of partnerships on the African continent with the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa.

50:00 - And we provide research support such as into.

50:05 - The Gates Foundation, the way that they are infiltrating many different areas.

50:13 - Maybe I’ll sense some of our reports. It’s resources for after this.

50:17 - Thank you, everybody. Hearing by regenerative agriculture and working with the soil and working with the community and student accessibility is so powerful.

50:27 - As we enter the last nine minutes of our panel discussion here, I want to ask you one last question.

50:33 - So what are some impactful steps everyone here could take towards food justice? Can jump in real quick, and I think there are so many things we all can do.

50:58 - It’s kind of hard just to start, but I think understanding the true cost of food is a good place to start.

51:03 - On a personal level, like when you go to the store and buy a box of cereal.

51:09 - Why does it cost? How much it does when you buy hamburger at a restaurant? Why does it cost that much in? A lot of it has to do with the way our government is subsidizing grain and supporting commodity crops and also supporting the meat industry through those subsidies.

51:27 - So then things like vegetables are considered specialty crops and don’t get any subsidy from the government.

51:35 - So when you go to the farmer’s market and your carrots cost four dollars instead of two dollars, that’s because those somewhere in the in that chain, somebody is not getting paid or somebody is getting paid.

51:49 - Understanding all those those many layers is a good place to start.

51:54 - Of course, that doesn’t solve the problems. Like we still probably can’t afford four dollars of carrots or many people can afford for it.

52:00 - Health care accounts that a lot of money for carrots. Yeah.

52:05 - So I think that’s a good place to start. And then in the kind of more like dream space advocacy world, I think.

52:14 - Learning about that and then thinking about like, what would the world look like when that’s not the case? So I mentioned earlier. What would it mean to be commodify food? What would it mean if farmers and farm workers were automatically paid and we didn’t have this kind of like a H-2A programing where.

52:33 - All right, end to undocumented workers who are severely underpaid and keeping our costs of food down because laborers aren’t being paid.

52:43 - And then there’s so many organizations to get involved with to advocate for change on a policy level to organize directly with farm workers on the ground.

52:51 - I think that that’s a really awesome way to get involved and think about what are the structural changes we needed to see in the food system to to really make a difference.

53:01 - And then lastly, I would just say, if you want, whatever resources you have, whether it’s money or time or energy or like certain skills, you can give those resources to black and indigenous and POC run organizations like the Black Farmers Collective, you know, like uprooted and rising familie seniors whose D. C. I.

53:21 - There are so many organizations that can use those resources.

53:25 - And I think getting involved with those on a local level is super great way to learn and to to start making incremental changes in our food system.

53:45 - Thanks, Emma. That’s a great list of things, you know, I’m gonna have to go back to the last question for two seconds, because I wanted this to shout out to UW Professor Molly Malone, who does soil science.

53:58 - And we’ve been working together testing urban soils and gardens or urban pollutants.

54:04 - Right. And here’s an environmental issue that we ask people to grow food in there at their house.

54:08 - Well, we don’t know what’s going on on the soil. And so I think that’s an important piece of environmental education.

54:17 - Is is Hoechst to really understand where their soil is and not not contribute to their problems by going there? I think that’s that’s a big point.

54:27 - You know, to that point, I think if folks are growing, they should try to reach out to other folks in conservation district, does some soil testing.

54:39 - You know you know, folks that are hungry and you have access, then maybe maybe it’s you that actually goes to the food bank and picks up the food and brings it to them.

54:51 - Right. This is a little bit of a of a thing.

54:55 - You know, I have a neighbor who, you know, we’re we’re working with German Food Service down in Columbia City.

55:02 - And there’s and there’s also some food giveaways bases there.

55:06 - And so I bring some food to my neighbor who gives it to to their neighbor, who has a lot of kids.

55:12 - Oh, just thinking about how you’re thinking about your neighbors and where there are and what resources you have.

55:19 - You know, is a way to actually be active in the foods along with the great stuff.

55:26 - You know, I’m hoping Noelle will have some good ideas about, you know, how you kids or the AJC to, you know, moving forward.

55:36 - Is there that policy and thing that we all really need to need to be at? Yeah, I just kind of echo, echo ray here.

55:47 - I know one of our big thoughts for what people could do.

55:51 - Is that like supporting your your neighbors, supporting your community. If you have people in your community that can’t go get groceries on their own.

55:59 - Or is there something you can do to share with them? Like I heard recently? And we are looking around at some of the voters, horses and the like community, the local area is there’s some people who are working on making more like what are called like the little free food pantries where it’s like, you know, someone’s corner of their garage that they’ve made and do like a little food pantry that anyone in the, you know, in their neighborhood can go to. And thinking about what kinds of things you can do like that.

56:32 - And then also I wanted to gone something like M-I kind of said something about like there are a lot of people out there who can’t afford, like, you know, those for the character or whatever.

56:43 - And I just wanted to say, you know, it’s something that we should really, like, think about those ways that you can kind of reduce those, like, stigmas about being, you know, someone who is food insecure or someone who, like, is on like public benefits to help them with their being able to get groceries and all those all these stereotypes of like, oh, well, you know, you’re lazy, you’re that kind of stuff that, you know, we can really work on spreading awareness and saying, no, it’s not someone’s fault that they’re dealing with food insecurity and we should support them instead of, you know, hurting them more.

57:24 - And then I guess kind of going towards those more like governmental policies you can think about is things like those like benefits programs like SNAP during Kofod, there’s been some changes that, you know, expanded the eligibility of these programs.

57:40 - Both are only supposed to be temporary. And it’s like we could really, really it would really be better if those policies weren’t temporary and were even more expanded so we could get more people on it.

57:50 - And kind of thinking about you can talk to you about, hey, these programs, you know, should be available to more people.

57:58 - Kinds of things. Thank you, Ari. Something so valuable to think about.

58:03 - And thank you, Ray and Elmer, for talking about ways that people can start getting involved and thinking more about their impact as it’s now almost through.

58:12 - Pam, we’re going to enter the audience Q&A. And so I believe the chat is now open for people to start asking questions.

58:25 - On one moment. In the meantime, actually, I’m going to throw up these beautiful slides that were provided that provided some useful context on food and security, so make sure my screen.

58:46 - I guess just to explain, these are some of the slides that our benefits team put together, kind of based on stats about both food insecurity for college students at a national level is as for our slide.

59:00 - And then we kind of looked into our, you know, Buffalo and, you know, Buffalo, Cascadia campus more specifically and sort of the stats about different food insecurity and our more specific communities.

59:17 - So a lot of information here, if anyone has any questions about it.

59:22 - So for you as guests. I have a question. My name is Erin and I work in UW Bothell in the admissions department.

59:36 - I’m just curious if any of the panelists here today has any knowledge about food, forest or permaculture techniques.

59:46 - And if you’re able to implement any of those on your current farm properties or lands.

60:06 - Like. So even though there is somebody who would like things and step in to help them, there’s like a mood.

60:17 - I don’t understand. It’s just like snap benefits. Sorry, everyone.

60:21 - Can we just please interrupt and ask people to send questions into the chat instead of asking them aloud so that we can moderate them and keep track of what’s being asked? And so that the panelists have a chance to answer. Thank you.

60:39 - Can I quickly speak to the last question that Julianna asked before questions come on the chat? Yes, certainly. I would just want to give a plug to join organizations like I think we’re often taught that making changes and individualistic process that you can make with your dollar, which, of course, if you have money and can make intentional buying choices that pay workers a fair wage or that you treat the soil better, treat animals better. That’s great stuff.

Or donating to the food bank like those are just those are one level.

61:20 - When you partner with other people and see yourself as part of a social change ecosystem, which I highly recommend you look at, because there’s someone whose name I can’t remember who made this really cool map, just showing that finding your your niche and what skills you can contribute.

61:39 - Whether it be art or farming or teaching, many different levels of participation are needed.

61:47 - If we’re gonna change these things, also plug to see food issues not as separate from environmental issues like racial justice, food, justice, environmental justice, gender justice, protecting indigenous treaty rights.

62:04 - All of these things are incredibly interconnected. So you can touch the world of food by getting involved in many different areas.

62:14 - And it just gets back to that statement of position. Naledi, like where do you have power in agency and where can you contribute? Knowing that that’s all. Thank you.

62:29 - Well, wonderful. Someone to go ahead and ask the first question in the chat, which is do the panelists view GMO is as contrary to the movement for food justice, slash food sovereignty? And why do you want start on this? Sure, I can start.

62:52 - Short answer is yes, they are contrary to the movement for food, justice and food sovereignty to go a little bit more in-depth.

63:01 - And I’d love to hear other folks opinions on this tomorrow or different.

63:06 - But food, justice, food access, food security is not about lack of food, which is the myth that big tech biotech company biotech companies have been pumping into us saying that we need GMOs to feed the world.

63:23 - There is enough food in the world. The issue is distribution.

63:27 - The issue is other inequities in the way our structures of society are set up.

63:32 - So we don’t need GMO corn. We don’t need GMO rice.

63:36 - We don’t need GMO bananas to feed the world. Yeah.

63:41 - And then on the other side of that, cede sovereignty is a huge, huge issue in protecting our land, our biodiversity, our environment and our ability to grow and produce food in a changing climate.

63:57 - So the more jambos we have, the more we’re patenting seeds, which are, in my opinion, a puppet should be a public and free resource.

64:09 - And those seeds are the things that are going to be regionally and locally adapted and that are going to get us through times that are.

64:17 - Already challenging and will continue to be more challenging as the climate continues to change, and so I think.

64:24 - GMO is not the answer. And I love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on that as well.

64:32 - I’ll add one quick thing. It’s even more certain like that genetic manipulation itself.

64:41 - A lot about genetic engineering is about the privatization of life and it’s about commodifying life, which gets back to his comments about being able to own seed, which.

64:56 - I personally feel is quite wrong. You know, yeah, I think as farmers to be sustainable, you need to be able to save your seeds and grow crops for the next year.

65:15 - And the diversity of seeds that we can have that we do have now can be shared and adapted to, you know, environments that that are really going to help us with. We’re changing climate.

65:31 - You know, I think, again, the idea that you have to buy your seeds every year and you have to buy the products that go with the schemes and the farmers are, you know, beholden to the large corporations, just like all of us are, you know, have to pay for the.

65:50 - So for me, the me, the worst part of it is the economics and the and the owning of this.

66:00 - And so we’re we know we can’t always buy organic seed for different things that we have.

66:08 - But we certainly stay away from from GMO crops and.

66:18 - Thank you. Wonderful. So our next question is.

66:21 - Could one of the panelists address the lack of quality in our subsidized food programs, especially what’s considered, quote unquote, healthy? Yeah, I mean, that was actually something that Fey and I have been thinking about, especially trying to add more things to the campus food pantry, because I think they kind of mentioned a lot of stuff that’s come from donations and then even what hasn’t come from donations and we don’t have a fridge in the campus food pantry.

66:56 - So now what we can keep is pretty limited. And so there is this problem that, you know, there are food like resources in the community, but they’re only going to have limited things.

67:08 - And a lot of that’s going to be that no less healthy or more like carb heavy kind of stuff that, you know, we’re God, that there are some programs that do charge that a little bit.

67:21 - So I think, like SNAP, if you are able to get on SNAP, they do actually have some like coupons and stuff or like matching, if you like, take your car to farmer’s markets.

67:35 - But if I is still a limitation of a lot of the resources that we can offer.

67:47 - Thank you. Our next question is, are any of your organizations working on preventative work and growing food for when the Earth’s surface temperature rises too high for crops, for crops to grow successfully? And I guess I’ll just.

68:17 - You know, jump in briefly, I think, you know, part of our work is to try to localize the food system so that more food grown locally and by more diverse small farmers, so that we hope that as climate change gets worse, that we can at least have a food system that’s not coupled to this much larger, larger system.

68:43 - I think if we’re if we can create some models that work locally on a local level and then how can we help people to learn how to regenerate some of the soils that have been degraded or not? You know, as well as the need for more and more local food rises and we can have the opportunity actually to fill that need.

69:07 - You know, it is something that we’re looking at.

69:12 - Yeah. I mean, if if the whole earth gets too hot to grow food, then then, yeah, our little efforts aren’t going to really mean that much.

69:22 - But hopefully, you know, we’ll be able to get ahead of of some of this.

69:26 - And then, you know, we’re lucky in the northwest to be somewhat of a climate refuge here.

69:33 - And so if we can create. And we’ll look really thought.

69:39 - Yeah, that’s a that’s a tough question. And also add that food systems contribute to some.

69:48 - I believe it’s 21 to 37 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IPCC.

69:56 - And just realizing that the way we are growing food right now is directly contributing to climate change.

70:02 - And so what we can do to grow food in a way that is actually.

70:10 - Making contributing to regeneration of the soil.

70:15 - I hesitate to use the word regenerative because it has certain connotations, but essentially that how we grow food now is determining our future.

70:25 - And if we. Just jump to Lake High Tech Solutions where.

70:32 - We’re kind of missing a step there. Thank you.

70:40 - Wonderful. So time back into our last panel question. The next question is, have any of the panelists been inspired by simply something another panelist said about ways to expand or other steps to take in getting involved? I like what Noel said about. Joining organizations, the community can make more change.

71:17 - That individual right? That’s a way to get involved. Yeah.

71:26 - To a similar point, I think everyone coming here together is showing that social change ecosystem, whether you’re working in food security on campus or you’re working on the farm.

71:39 - So many different levels are needed. And it’s not to say that one is better than the other because it’s all part of the puzzle.

71:53 - Thank you. So our next question is, how does land ownership or the lack of such land ownership contribute to food justice? And how did working the soil contribute to your sense of belonging? I could jump in here.

72:20 - Wow. Land ownership is such a complicated. Issue for me.

72:27 - Right. Because nobody. None of us. We’re all colonizers unless we’re indigenous.

72:32 - On this land and in some way. So what does it mean to you to own land? That’s a very complicated question.

72:41 - At the same time, we also live in a country where so many people have historically had their land stolen from them or forcibly removed or, you know, everything from you see how much a black lab loss has happened in the past 100 years to Japanese internment, taking away hundreds, probably thousands of farmer’s lands here in the northwest and all along the West Coast.

73:09 - So, yeah, it’s a very deep and complicated issue.

73:16 - And then from my, like, more current perspective in terms of farming, I, I personally lease land and most of the farmers I know also lease land because land is held often by large corporations.

73:30 - The Gates Foundation is like the second largest landowner in the country or something like that, along with Harvard.

73:35 - There’s like really weird people on land because there’s money in it.

73:41 - And, you know, it’s all often like white landowners who pass on land to other to their white children.

73:50 - And and keep that wealth in in the. And some white folks think continues to be asked a wall of.

74:00 - At the same time, it’s really hard to be tolerant and to not have the longevity of knowing that what you’re putting into place is a place that you’ll be able to be for at least like five years.

74:16 - So anyway, I think it’s a very. It’s a very complicated issue, and it’s something that we can have a whole nother panel discussion on.

74:26 - And so I’m curious here are folks thoughts on how it would contribute to justice under the world we’re living in now.

74:35 - And this a phone long thing. I think it’s a very good question.

74:41 - For me personally. I I. I guess I feel like I most myself when I am outside and my hands are dirty and so.

74:57 - And I feel very connected to the place in the ecosystem and being outside and working the land everyday, like you really notice when the swallows return. And that means that spring is back and you just have a very.

75:12 - I don’t know, I feel like I have a more and more attuned to the cycles that the Earth is going through.

75:17 - By working the land. Thank you, Emma. So our next question is, how can food justice also be culturally relevant to be IPU sea cuisine? How to navigate redistribution networks and food exchange? You know, where we’re I’ll I’ll try to take a stab at that, at least part of that question.

75:56 - I think. Right. We we strive to to ask our communities, what is it that they would like to eat, right.

76:06 - And that that we can grow to support those communities? I think part of part of a real food justice is not just a certain amount of calories.

76:16 - Right. And and vitamins and minerals and protein.

76:21 - Right. That’s right. But but it delivered in a Whole Foods way that that that folks can relate to.

76:29 - And we can’t certainly grow a lot of the food that our folks are are used to.

76:39 - But we can grow quite a bit or there’s or there are some local varieties.

76:42 - That girl pretty well. I mean, folks, you know, eat greens all over the world.

76:46 - And so it’s important to try to figure out what greens might be might be worthwhile for those for.

76:53 - So I think I think it’s we try to say, yeah, what is it that we did? What is it that you would like? And how can we support you in growing? All ready.

77:16 - Thank you so much. With that, we’re going to move on to the wrapping up in the audience call to action.

77:24 - So now for the audience, maybe reflect on the questions that were asked so far.

77:30 - And, you know, why is it takeaways from this experience? And what are you thinking now of your role with food justice? Here’s our main question.

77:45 - What is one thing you would like to take away from this event? Robert says, educating myself more about the issue and finding local programs to volunteer with, very good.

78:39 - Sharing my resources to local organizations and communities.

79:08 - And another person said, one take away from me is thinking about how to do these things in community.

79:13 - I find it very difficult to contemplate taking next steps on my own.

79:17 - But in connection with others, I see more possibility. Very true community is so powerful and the person says it’s a starting place for me.

79:26 - I want to do a lot more research on local farms, volunteer opportunities, farming policy and making more sustainable food choices.

79:34 - I’m also interested in researching native plants and food options that grow in the PIAN Deb.

79:45 - Another person says, I love the idea of figuring out how your nation’s talent is and the interest that can help this issue, even if it is not immediately evident how it connects to food justice. I want to do this.

79:59 - Tammy says, I have gardened my whole life by turning the soil. I would like to implement no dick agriculture into my backyard using Norriss, meeting active role models that already walk the walk through their daily actions and engagement.

80:16 - Olivia says holding myself accountable to the way my privilege impacts others experiences with food sovereignty, justice and security.

80:26 - All right. Kerry says, incorporating what I’ve learned into my current journey in understanding food, justice and the huge inequities in our food systems.

80:37 - True, Michael says, I want to give my time to some local organizations in person when it’s safe to do so.

80:44 - I will probably give money in the meantime. Good call. Says, I would love to make grown food more intentional and accessible for myself and my family while also doing more research on how to increase local offerings of fresh produce to our campus community.

81:05 - Rachel says, reframing the myth that food is scarce, but rather the limitations are around distribution and access.

81:13 - As I explained earlier. Huge. Wonderful reflections. I think we’re all feeling so inspired to make real change with our decisions and our buying power.

81:37 - And just again, reframing the way that we look at food and food, justice.

81:56 - All right. We seem to have slowed down in our reflection, so I think I’m going to just go in with some logistics right now for for a wrap up.

82:08 - Thank you, everyone, so much for coming to this event. It’s been incredible to have you all here.

82:13 - It’s been incredible to have all of our panelists here. I feel inspired. I feel energized.

82:19 - This has been wonderful. So just a few little wrap up logistic things, as we mentioned at the beginning of the meeting.

82:29 - This meeting will be has been recorded, as you know. And the recording will be available hopefully soon.

82:36 - We’ll have to figure out the logistics of that. But that will be going up on the same Web page where we put information about the event.

82:45 - I know someone is going to be posting some links in the chat. And we also have a slide with a few more resources which may come up or not.

82:58 - So. If you want to know any more about our panelists, their organizations, contact them further.

83:06 - We do have some information about how to how to find out more about the organizations.

83:12 - There also I see some people I see well has already posted something in the chat.

83:15 - So I would encourage our panelists to paste anything in the chat that they would like people to contact them by.

83:24 - We also have this. Web page again. OK, the slides up now. So here are here all of the all of the different places you can reach people.

83:37 - We also have these links for the community read spring programing, which is where the event’s recording will be posted.

83:45 - The recording will also be posted on our canvas page for those in our community.

83:49 - So anyone with a YouTube net I. D. , any member of YouTube or Cascadia can access our canvas course.

83:55 - And we’ll be posting the event recording up there, as well as the reflection questions so that hopefully people can continue the conversation if they’d like to.

84:04 - If you want more from this topic or more from community reads and again are in our community, we encourage you to join us and canvass.

84:12 - As Tammy mentioned, our reading is Black Gold by Leah Pennyman. It is wonderful and we highly recommend it.

84:18 - We’d love to see you on the discussion boards if you can manage to sometime this quarter.

84:22 - If not, that’s also fine. And if you are interested in this content, but you’re not in community reads or if you’re not in our campus community, the information is also available on the Web site, on our library Web site with information about all of our readings and our discussion questions.

84:45 - So that can still be accessed. We also have a link to a food justice resource list.

84:50 - If you’re interested in learning more about any of these topics or interested in reading more.

84:55 - Or in finding out about other local organizations and local farms that you can support or learn more about.

85:03 - That’s also in the food justice resource list. And I.

85:07 - OK, good. Michael has just posted those links into the chat.

85:10 - So there’s the canvas course, the spring quarter page, the food justice resource list and a link to our slides.

85:17 - So, again, thank you all so much for coming. And thank you, especially to all of our panelists and to our wonderful moderator, Julian.

85:24 - This was an incredible event. And I am so thrilled to have just gotten to sit here and listen to everyone talk about all these things.

85:32 - Again, I feel so inspired. Thank you all so much for coming. Thank you to everyone for presenting.

85:37 - We’ll just wrap up and I hope that everyone has an excellent day. .