This month’s Food X is brought to you by the Center’s Population and Sustainability Senior Media Specialist Kim Dinan. Kim will introduce you to a new U.S. Just Food Transition Roadmap, a collaborative effort by the Center and World Animal Protection US, with input from more than 20 other U.S.-based labor, environmental, public health, and food advocacy organizations.
And don't miss the opportunity to take action below.
Building Power for a Just Food Transition
The U.S. food system is at the heart of the most urgent issues of our current political crisis, from violent immigration raids to the slashing of funding for nutrition programs that lift children out of poverty and increase access to healthy, sustainable food.
But even as we confront these immediate threats, we need a roadmap: a strong vision for what kind of future we want so that oppressive forces don’t define it for us.
The Center’s new U.S. Just Food Transition Roadmap lays out a shared vision of how the United States can move away from the factory farm model — and overproduction and high consumption of animal products — to an equitable and sustainable food system that supports food workers, farmers, families, and wildlife. This roadmap for a “just transition” is part of a larger movement rooted in a deeper understanding of how justice for people, animals, and the planet are all interconnected.
The roadmap lays out a framework for farmer, labor, environmental, health, and animal advocates to join forces in transforming our food system. It identifies the types of policies that are needed, such as increasing corporate accountability and shifting finance away from industrial animal agriculture, to guide us in supporting worker empowerment, local production, and healthy, green plant-rich diets.
It begins by mobilizing advocates around a shared vision that puts the common good ahead of corporate profits. Then it identifies local, state, and federal policies aimed at closing the loopholes that currently let corporations exploit workers, animals, and the environment, laying out steps to reject false solutions and increase support for community- and worker-led models that protect people’s rights and expand access to fresh, nutritious food.
It’s not always easy to fight for a paradigm shift when we’re defending our basic rights and bedrock environmental laws. But that doesn’t stop the just transition.
We aren’t starting from scratch. Communities of color have been building this from the bottom up for generations, demanding food justice and workers’ rights. Advocacy groups, including the Center, have been fighting to stop factory farms from devastating the health of people and wildlife.
There are already successful models across the country of worker-led programs and worker-owned food coops, local policies that increase access to healthy and sustainable foods, and food-policy councils that engage local leaders, farmers, and workers to create a food system that benefits us all.
Support the Just Transition
As we celebrate Earth Day this month, we can support the just transition in our daily lives through the food we eat, where we buy groceries, and the community values we embrace. Here are a few more ways to join the movement:
