Food X: Food, Justice and a Thriving Planet

We all consume stories about what food means: sustenance, community, ritual, nourishment, income or pleasure. But sometimes our food stories are about the absence of these things. Even when the stories are ripe with abundance, they can be distanced from the reality of how food gets onto our plates and into our homes, hearts and memories. That’s why I’m excited to invite you to our second annual Food Justice Film Festival. Taking place online Sept. 16–19, it features four films that tell underrepresented stories about our relationship to food and how it’s grown.

For the Tejano community in the Rio Grande Valley of San Antonio, Texas, food is memory, culture, identity and history. The traditional comida cosera (home cooking) is so different from corporate Tex-Mex food, which doesn’t at all resemble the fragrant art of Tejano Mexicano cuisine. The roots and stories of Tejano food are discussed in Truly Texas Mexican, one of the films featured in our festival.

Environmentally harmful food production in the United States promotes the idea that red meat is a staple of the all-American diet, even though voracious beef consumption causes enormous greenhouse gas emissions and is a major driver of climate change. Our overproduction of meat reverberates around the world, accelerating climate change impacts like soil aridification and biodiversity loss, disproportionately impacting people of color.

The powerful new film The Ants & The Grasshopper follows Malawi activist Anita Chitaya as she travels from Southeast Africa to California, the White House, and everywhere in between helping Americans recognize and repair the disastrous food system they’re inflicting on the rest of the world. In doing so, she helps farmers connect more deeply to the food they grow as they begin to understand how it affects global food production.

Those of us are who aren’t farmers can be removed from the reality of how food is grown. We may not know how farmworkers are exposed to heat and pesticides and horrific working conditions, or how the most vulnerable communities, including child workers, are exploited to produce our food. But the film The Harvest/La Cosecha is a good way to learn.

The urge to connect to our food is strong. Many of us do this by planting gardens or cupping seeds in our hands for a lingering moment, knowing the magic they hold to become food. Seeds are historians that encapsulate the songs, stories, medicines and memories of our cultures. But the industrialization of agriculture has shrunk seed diversity, making us vulnerable to crop disease, food shortage and real crisis. Our seed savers — small champions rising against the captains of industry — are doing heroic work, as explored in the film SEED: The Untold Story.

These four films, all featured in our upcoming Food Justice Film Festival, make connections between food, the environment and social equity.

How to Participate in the Food Justice Film Festival

Sign up for a free festival pass to watch these inspiring films anytime Sept. 16–19. Space is limited, so grab your free pass today. Films are accessible only by creating a free account and signing up.

Check out the Food Justice Film Festival website for trailers, interviews, and other links to free films. During the festival we’ll also share panel discussions with activists and filmmakers on the website.

Meet Frances Moore Lappé

I’m excited to offer you a chance to engage with noted author and scholar Frances Moore Lappé in a live Q&A on Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. EST to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her revolutionary book Diet for a Small Planet. We’ll chat about food advocacy, planetary health and cooking. The new edition of her book is available Sept. 21. Sign up for the webinar now.

I hope you can join me this month in our food justice programming.

Write to me with your questions at EarthFriendlyDiet@BiologicalDiversity.org.

For the wild,

Jennifer Molidor, Senior Food Campaigner

Population and Sustainability Program

Center for Biological Diversity