Regional & National Events

e’re pleased to announce the return of our Conversations on Food Justice series with our upcoming session, “Facing the Housing Crisis: Keeping Americans Safe, Healthy, and Connected” on Monday, September 20th at 12:00pm EST.

Despite rising employment rates and the promise of economic recovery ahead, millions of Americans are still facing extraordinary financial hardship brought on by the pandemic. Americans collectively owe more than $57 billion in rent, and more than 11.5 million Americans are facing homelessness. The disproportionate impact of economic hardship on communities of color is nothing new, reflecting long standing racial inequities that create pockets of poverty across the United States.

In this session, we’ll dive deeper into our nation’s intersecting housing, hunger, and poverty crises. From housing affordability and income inequality to redlining and disinvestment in communities that leads to segregation, we’ll explore the systems and structures that contribute to housing inequality, all of which come with significant financial, educational, health, and opportunity costs for people of color. We’ll also put forth policies and practices that can move the needle on equitable housing and the redistribution of wealth and resources.

Join Seth Rolbein of the Cape Cod Fishermen’s Trust, a program under the umbrella of the Fishermen’s Alliance, and Mark Hayes of MIT Dining to learn how this project supports our local food system and fishermen, how they developed this chowder for institutional dining, and how the students, faculty and staff reacted! Whether you’re a dining director, food system advocate, fisherman, or interested in supporting regional food systems, you’ll come away from this webinar inspired by this story of innovation and collaboration.

Please join us for the launch of ActionAid USA’s new report “Bigger is Not Better: The High Cost of Agribusiness Consolidation.” In addition to sharing the findings of the report, there will be an in-depth discussion of how this consolidation impacts farmers, workers, rural communities, the food system as a whole, and the environment and how we can build a more resilient food system by investing in family farmers and acting on climate change. Following the presentations will be a Q&A session with the speakers.

Speakers:

Siena Chrisman, Report Author
Niaz Dorry, National Family Farm Coalition
Ben Lilliston, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Edgar Franks, Familias Unidas por la Justicia
Facilitated by Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau, ActionAid USA

The UN has described its Food Systems Summit, an 18-month process culminating on September 23, 2021, as a “peoples’ summit,” bringing together food producers, Indigenous communities, youth activists, researchers, and business leaders to identify strategies to transform the global food system in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Yet hundreds of civil society organizations have chosen to boycott the Summit, claiming that it lacked transparency and accountability and privileged market-based, corporate solutions to food production and distribution over agroecological approaches grounded in food sovereignty and the right to food. 

In this month’s forum, Molly Anderson, the William R. Kenan Professor of Food Studies at Middlebury College, will discuss the evolution of the UN Food Systems Summit, the concerns voiced by civil society organizations and others, and potential strategies for more inclusive, democratic governance processes that empower small producers, frontline workers, and communities facing food insecurity and malnourishment. 

One of the greatest barriers to just agriculture is equitable access to land. Through a history of land grabs and forced migration, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color have been separated from their land, worsening systemic inequities. Over the past 100 years, Black-owned farmland in the U.S. has declined by roughly 98 percent. Savi Horne, Executive Director of Land Loss Prevention Project, and Malik Yakini, Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, will talk about the impacts of land loss on rural and urban communities and what we can do to break down these barriers.

Join Northeast SARE Farmer Grant Program coordinator Candice Huber for this webinar that will review who is eligible to apply, the types of projects it funds, how to apply and more. Faith Gilbert of Letterbox Farm will share her experiences applying for and managing SARE grants.

The webinar is open to the public and free of charge. Please register early as space is limited. The webinar will be recorded for future viewing.

What happened to indigenous peoples on the lands we now call Brooklyn? Seattle? South Dakota? The United States? And what is happening now? Join us as we look back in order to move forward towards justice in this program that weaves together indigenous history and stories and shines a spotlight on today’s struggles to reclaim lost land, dismantle white supremacy, and establish indigenous sovereignty. Oral Historian Sara Sinclair, of Cree-Ojibwa, German-Jewish and British descent, leads this conversation with Duwamish Tribal Council Member James Rasmussen, Corinne Rice-Grey Cloud, social media influencer and consultant of Lakota/Mohawk descent, and Delaware Nation member Brent Stonefish. Together they look at real solutions being implemented today, lay out ways to be allies in the Land Back Movement, and invite you to be not merely a witness to injustice, but an engaged ally in making restitution for the past.

LAND-GRAB UNIVERSITIES: OWNING THE TRUTH AND SHARING THE PATH TO MAKING AMENDS

Join FINE and the New England Farm & Sea to Campus Network (FSCN) for a one-hour webinar to learn more about The Counter's investigation into prison labor in food supply chains and what that effort tells us about supply chain transparency.

Hosted by: Farm to Institution New England and the New England Farm & Sea to Campus Network

Join the USDA National Agricultural Library for a two-part event exploring the complexities of heirs' property: a primary driver of Black farmland loss in the U.S. After hearing from speakers, we will work to spread awareness around the issues, improving Wikipedia pages related to heirs' property.

In collaboration with Senator Mark Montigny, and UMass Dartmouth, The Marion Institute will be hosting the 2021 Virtual Food Summit on October 13th, from 6:30 pm - 8 pm.  
 
The Marion Institute’s Southcoast Food Policy Council will present key findings from the newly completed 2021 Food System Assessment Report for Southeastern MA. Our distinguished list of panelists will discuss the role regional food assessments play in helping support and shape food policy and improve local food systems.

How can we shift power in our communities and center the work of young leaders of color? How can the food movement intersect with the racial justice movement? Join National Farm to School Network for a virtual Movement Meeting on Wednesday, Oct.14 from 1- 2:30 pm ET, featuring young leaders of color working to transform their community, for deep conversation and action-oriented reflection on how the next generation is working to intersect the food movement with racial justice, environmental justice, economic justice, and other key justice-centered movements. A crucial step towards our vision of a just food system for all is centering the voices of our next generation of leaders. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend this free event.

NPQ kicks off the 2021-22 season of our Remaking the Economy series in Indian Country. In partnership with the First Nations Development Institute (“First Nations”), we bring three leading Indigenous economic justice leaders who will speak to their work and the challenges they face in a discussion-style format. Our panelists are:

Heather Fleming (Navajo) is executive director of Change Labs, the only business incubator and accelerator on Navajo land. Fleming works with Hopi and Navajo (Diné) citizens to create a supportive business ecosystem for Native entrepreneurs.

Vanessa Roanhorse (Navajo) is CEO of Roanhorse Consulting, a firm co-designing a character-based lending program, with a vision of redesigning underwriting to meet Native community needs. She is also a cofounder of Native Women Lead.

Lakota Vogel (Cheyenne River Sioux) is CEO of Four Bands Community Loan Fund, a community development financial institution (CDFI) in South Dakota. The CDFI she leads is redesigning lending to enable Native residents to build homes on trust lands.

Operating a direct seafood business requires a wide range of skills and expertise. In many cases, seafood harvesters that participate in direct marketing also need to purchase additional permits, equipment, and insurance. These factors make direct marketing significantly different than selling to a middleman. To help new and established direct marketing businesses achieve their goals, the Local Catch Network is teaming up with Ecotrust to offer a cohort-based accelerator. 

Scale Your Local Catch (SYLC) is a nation-wide, producer-centered business accelerator developed to strengthen local and regional seafood systems by addressing challenges associated with direct marketing and by building the knowledge, skills, and networks needed for direct marketing seafood businesses to scale up their operations and increase their capacity and viability for long-term resilience. 

Register for the information session on October 15th from 1-2pm ET to learn more about Scale Your Local Catch. During this time, we will provide an overview of the program and address questions. 

Now in its 13th year, the Food Sovereignty Prize is given annually on or around World Food Day to grassroots organizations advancing food sovereignty – the right of all 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. It stands in contrast to the World Food Prize, which perpetuates the myth that we can produce our way out of hunger.

This year’s honorees, FENSUAGRO and Eastern Woodlands Rematriation, have been growing food, defending territory, sharing knowledge and building power in the face of state violence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and mounting climate chaos.

Join us in this Community of Practice – a space to explore and learn together about what it could mean to decolonize our work around networks

Always wanted to set up a food pantry on campus, but feeling overwhelmed on how to get started? Created a food pantry but not sure where to get the continued funding or staffing? Food pantries can be helpful for combating food insecurity on campus yet establishing one can feel daunting without the right buy-in, infrastructure, and support. Join speakers Nicole Reilly from University of Vermont and Annie Ciaraldi from UMass Lowell to learn strategies for effectively establishing your food pantry and sustaining it for the long term. From marketing to interdepartmental networking, establishing critical partnerships on campus and in the local community can greatly help your food pantry.

Join fellow travelers from October 25 through November 19 to practice "the art of being fully human in a time of crisis"

Four weeks to connect, share gifts, learn, and support one another in our work and our lives

Farmworkers and other agricultural laborers, such as those working in meat processing and packing facilities, are on the frontlines of toxic pesticide exposure and other human rights violations. Farm work is one of the most dangerous professions and continues a legacy of agricultural injustice and racism in the United States. When we participate in an industrial agricultural system, we participate in the oppression of farmworkers. Join us as we hear from Araceli and Elisa, two farmworker women, and Lariza Garzón, the Executive Director of the Episcopoal Farmworker Ministry as they share their experiences and ideas for creating change.