Food Justice Movement

The Food Justice Movement is described as a grassroots initiative emerging from many communities in response to food insecurity and economic pressures that prevent access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods.. Food justice is also a social justice movement as it "demands recognition of human rights, equal opportunity, and fair treatment" Crucially, food justice informs "an analysis that recognizes the food system itself as a racial project and problematizes the influence of race and class on the production, distribution and consumption of food" . Food justice also relates to topics such as farm labor work, land disputes and topics of status and class. Often, issues of environmental justice, public politics and advocacy as well as social and cultural dynamics are involved in the large conversation of food justice. Moreover, it centres the voices and experiences of communities of color and low-income communities that are most often rendered invisible in the dominant narratives surrounding the food system . Food justice is also closely connected with Food sovereignty. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948, Article 25 states that, "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medial care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations states that the right to food is "The right to feed oneself in dignity. It is the right to have continuous access to the resources that will enable you to produce, earn or purchase enough food to not only prevent hunger, but also to ensure health and well-being. The right to food only rarely means that a person has the right to free handouts."

The Chocolate of Peace is a part of the food justice movement. It is the work of a British-Columbian team who believe in transformative power. They are a group of victims of the armed conflict and have been using grassroots for twenty years to create peace. However, the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC-EP guerrilla is hard to make negotiations with and even though the Community's efforts are noticed in international human rights circles, many Columbians are unaware of the peace movement.

Research and theory

There is a plethora of research pertaining to community gardens, urban farming, and their impact on local communities. The literature tries to connect the activities of community gardens and urban agricultural projects to social, health, and economic outcomes. However, due to the overwhelming lack of diversity in the perspectives that inform the food justice movement, a new concept of just sustainability has been proposed. To address white and middle class culture dominating the discussion and priorities of organic food and sustainability practices, a more multi-cultural and intersectional approach is suggested that includes the narratives of historically marginalized communities.

The modern Food Justice movement was largely a result of the formation of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) in 1996, which was created to provide access to affordable, culturally appropriate, healthy food across all races and classes of Americans. However, a significant shortcoming of this group, was that it was composed entirely of white Americans, and accepted little input from residents of the food insecure areas the CFSC was trying to support.

See also

• Food Security
• Sustainable agriculture
• Slow Food
• Food sovereignty
• Fair Trade
• Fair Food Program
• Agroecology
• Right to food