Food Justice

In today's food system, farm workers face difficult and hazardous conditions,low-income neighborhoods lack supermarkets but abound in fast-food restaurants and liquor stores,food products emphasize convenience rather than wholesomeness, and the international reach ofAmerican fast-food franchises has been a major contributor to an epidemic of "globesity."To combat these inequities and excesses, a movement for food justice has emerged in recent yearsseeking to transform the food system from seed to table. In Food Justice, RobertGottlieb and Anupama Joshi tell the story of this emerging movement. A foodjustice framework ensures that the benefits and risks of how food is grown and processed,transported, distributed, and consumed are shared equitably. Gottlieb and Joshi recount the historyof food injustices and describe current efforts to change the system, including community gardensand farmer training in Holyoke, Massachusetts, youth empowerment through the Rethinkers in NewOrleans, farm-to-school programs across the country, and the Los Angeles school system's eliminationof sugary soft drinks from its cafeterias. And they tell how food activism has succeeded at thehighest level: advocates waged a grassroots campaign that convinced the Obama White House to plant avegetable garden. The first comprehensive inquiry into this emerging movement, FoodJustice addresses the increasing disconnect between food and culture that has resultedfrom our highly industrialized food system.

Robert Gottlieb is Emeritus Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy and founder and former Director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. He is the author of Reinventing Los Angeles: Nature and Community in the Global City (MIT Press) and other books.

Anupama Joshi is the Executive Director and Cofounder of the National Farm to School Network, a project of Tides Center (formerly based at the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College).