The Food & Farm System We Need and Deserve: A Webinar Series
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the huge cracks in our highly consolidated industrial food system, proving it's far less resilient than the diversified, regional operations it replaced.
Now more than ever, it's time to transition to a food and agricultural system that works for everyone - for farmers, workers, eaters and the land. Our food and farm system belongs in the hands of more diverse base of farmers and workers, not under the control of a small handful of giant corporations.
We're honored and excited to be hosting a four-part webinar series to dig in on this important topic. We hope you'll join us online to learn alongside our allies across the Midwest region who are fighting alongside us for a better, more equitable food and farm system.
May 14 — Episode 1: “Workers”
Featuring:
Axel Fuentes — Board Member, Food Chain Workers Alliance; Executive Director, Rural Community Workers Alliance (RCWA)
The Food Chain Workers Alliance is a coalition of worker-based organizations whose members plant, harvest, process, pack, transport, prepare, serve, and sell food, organizing to improve wages and working conditions for all workers along the food chain. The Alliance works together to build a more sustainable food system that respects workers’ rights, based on the principles of social, environmental and racial justice, in which everyone has access to healthy and affordable food
Axel and RCWA are at the center of an ongoing lawsuit on behalf of workers against a Smithfield packing plant for poor working conditions during the Covid-19 crisis.
Navina Khanna — Director of HEAL Food Alliance
HEAL’s mission is to build our collective power to create food and farm systems that are healthy for our families, accessible and affordable for all communities, and fair to the hard-working people who grow, distribute, prepare, and serve our food — while protecting the air, water, and land we all depend on.
May 21 — Episode 2: “Environment”
Featuring:
Shona Snater — Bridge to Soil Heath Organizer, Land Stewardship Project (LSP)
The Bridge to Soil Health Project works with crop and livestock farmers and other professionals that view soil as a long-term investment. LSP acts as a bridge between emerging soil health information and local farming practices, thereby uniting a community of farmers as the Soil Builders’ Network
May 28 — Episode 3: “Eaters”
Featuring:
Claire Kelloway — Reporter and Researcher, Open Markets Institute
Claire is the primary writer for Food & Power, a first-of-its-kind website, providing original reporting and resources on monopoly power and economic concentration in the food system. Her writing on food and agriculture has appeared in ProPublica, Civil Eats, Pacific Standard Magazine, and more.
June 4 — Episode 4: “Farmers”
Featuring:
Tim Gibbons — Missouri Rural Crisis Center (MRCC)
Every day MRCC fights to preserve family farms and independent family farm livestock production, promote stewardship of the land and a safe, affordable high-quality food supply, support social justice and economic opportunity, and engage rural Missourians in public policies that impact their farms, food, families and communities.
This is a free event.