Food Justice and Municipal Government

 I have definitely seen the critique that municipal governments support neoliberal and urban planning policies that "better the lives of the urban elite" especially in the philly/greater philly area. The farmer's markets in Philadelphia are held in places like fiddlers/rittenhouse square, the most prominent parts of the city, while urban gardens (on unoccupied/abandoned lots) supporting low income and minority communities are shut down. I also see very little family owned grocery stores in philly. This is a stark contrast to when I lived in Madrid, where there were family owned grocers on almost every other block. The interesting thing was that one store wasn't trying to "do it all" like we have in America--you had a store that was selling fresh produce and veggies, another that was selling bread, another that sold meat, etc. You had the occasional chain grocery store, but it was nowhere near the corporatization of the food industry that we have here. As food prices rise in Madrid, the left wing party in Madrid has been advocating for publicly owned supermarkets to combat food prices and regulate the price-gouging of large corporations. Poland has also been considering launching a state owned grocery chain to support Polish farmers and to keep prices low for consumers. Unfortunately, I can never see something like this happening in America--anything that remotely deviates from neoliberal policies gets branded as socialism/communism (the two worst curse words you can say in American politics). 

I found it interesting that the PSRFPC rarely addresses the structural/systemic causes behind food inequality, as it seems almost impossible to me to talk about food justice without discussing this. Without acknowledging and addressing the massive wealth gap that exists in most large cities, food justice policies and planning risk falling into the trap of the gatekept, exclusionary "alternative food" critiques that we previously discussed. I also found the part about trauma related to land and the destruction of native food systems to be very interesting. Many minority groups, such as native tribes and immigrants, don't necessarily even want farmer's markets--they want access to their cultural food and heritage. 

As a regen ag major, I also really loved this quote: "we need to grow farmers who have the knowledge and desire to be environmentalist – but all that is usurped by capitalism, which is all about the most money for the least effort." Regenerative policies go against the idea of profit as being the most important aspect of agriculture. Until we move away from this idea as a society, then I doubt many regenerative efforts will take root.