Soul Fire Faem Summary

As a student working alongside Gardening the Community, I was excited about this Food, Work and Social Justice panel. This panel contained three individuals who have careers based around educating the community about food justice. Natalie Penniman, is a food justice educator and activist who works on Soul Fire Farm in New York. Soul Fire faem has a committeed relationshop to its community by providing high quality food and fresh produce every week. Natalie believes that understanding our country’s history is an important aspect of understanding the injustice food system. She has deep understanding of our ancestors who first came to America and began working on farms. Natalie said, “Farming began with stolen land and stolen labor.” Natalie emphasized
the issue of decolonizing. She provided powerful statisics such as 14 percent of African Americans use to own farm land but it is currently at 1 one percent. She briefly mentioned the injustice of using Mexican migrant workers for labor. These migrant workers are doing manual labor all day for little pay. Natalie wraped up her discussion on decolonizing by mentioning that getting land back starts with United States policies and how the supply of food aid affects everyone.
Nuestras Raíces is a chef, instructor, and food justice educator. Nuestras works in the city of Holyoke which is a currently considered a food desert. Nuestras goal is to change the food system in the city of Holyoke. Nuestras mentioned that Holyoke has more package stores than supermarkets. He talked about the incoviences people face in the city when taking the PVTA to the grocery stores. The PVTA that runs through Holyoke, only allows passengers two grocery bags. If families rely on PVTA for travel, how are they suppose to get enough food to feed their families? Nuestras hopes to change youth by teaching them about nutrition and cooking. He mentioned that cooking is important skill that everyone should acquire. Nuestras is passionate about having every school in America make food from scratch. He talked about the importance of non-processed food and the nutritional value students should be reciving daily. He mentioned that a person is 5 times more likely to die from bad food then any gun violence situation. Nuestras wrapped up his discussion by saying that we need to demolish the stereotype that Black and Hispanic children only work with their hands. Agriculture has many different aspects that can lead children to a variety of different careers.
Touissant represented Gardening the Community!
Touissant began talking about his work with GTC on food justice, youth, equity and sustainability. He began talking about bringing sustainiability to Springfield, in particular, the Mason Square/ Six Acres area. Toussiant mentioned that GTC is partnered with the New England Farming Assocation to bring power and justice to the community. Touissant taked about youth representing their organization by presenting them with ambassador based positions because GTC doesn’t believe in a hierarchy. Touissant discussed how youth has a voice that represents other youth and encourage others to join their cause. Touissant shared an empowering story of two youth working on a particular aspect of a farm. One male was White and the other was Black. Both youth admitted that they had made pre-judgements about one another. However, the film Hunger Games brought them together. They were able to bond over a film and break those racial barriers.
In closing. I enjoyed this panel of speakers. Each speaker was well- rounded in their field and had a lot of incredible points to make. I feel that each speaker could have incorporated more photos or videos to show the hands - on type of work they do. This event felt a little rushed, therefore, I would recommend extending the timing of this
event.