Food Equity Timeline

An incredible piece of activism and research was shared at our space, check out the description below of the Food Equity Timeline:

​Many of us concerned with food and health disparities in our communities want to talk about the role that we can play in creating more just systems and fair outcomes for us all. We need opportunities to come together to reflect on the roles that policy, racial oppression, and social justice movements have had on our communities and our food system in a deeper context. At this training participants will walk along a physical timeline and explore how systemic inequities were created and reflect on the legacy we would like to leave for the future. 

The present-day inequities in the food system are the result of hundreds of years of policy and action that favored white landowners’ interests over those of people of color and indigenous people. The brutal history of enslavement, divestment, and genocide - and the powerful stories of resistance to it - are obscured by today’s mainstream historical narratives. The Race, Policy and the U.S. Food System Timeline unearths these stories with the intention of informing present day actions to improve the food system for local communities.
 
For this Session, participants were invited to walk along a physical timeline and spend some time learning about how policies, decisions, and attitudes have intentionally shaped the food landscape we find ourselves in, and to understand that there has always been resistance and resiliency throughout that history.  With this information we can ask ourselves “What is the legacy we’d like to leave for the future?”  Knowing what we know, how can we use systems thinking and policy to create a more just, equitable, and regenerative food system? We’ll invite participants to use the supplies provided to add entries to the timeline as well as to envision what a different legacy might look like.

ZOE HOLLOMAN 

Zoe Hollomon is a Community Food Justice Organizer and Community Planning Practitioner working with several local and national organizations and foundations to institute community-based planning and policies that focus on food justice, inclusive local food systems, and community economic development.  Over the past fifteen years Zoe has worked with youth and adults in Buffalo, NY, New York City, Oakland, CA, Minneapolis, MN and St. Paul, MN to engage under represented communities in the decision-making that impacts their lives. She was formally trained as an Urban & Regional Planner at Cornell University and received her Masters of Science in Community Economic Development in 2007.  In addition to working as a Racial Equity in Food Systems Policy training consultant, Zoe is also the Coalition Organizer of the Twin Cities Good Food Purchasing Policy Coalition based in Minnesota, and she teaches youth park planning and design at the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.