Blog

As the movement for healthy, sustainable, fair food expands to include visions for low-wage workers and low-wage consumers, the leadership of the movement should likewise expand.  Sustainable food advocates still struggle (consciously or not) with the politics of race and class, and like it or not, these struggles won’t dissipate simply by hiring a diversity consultant and following their prescription for multiculturalism.

To be sure, our work must be guided by critical internal reflection if we are to be effective. At the same time we must avoid extended periods of navel-gazing.  Instead of meeting for an annual hand-wringing, the sustainable food movement needs practical ideas that will move us forward while keeping our political practices in check.  One place to take action is funding.

How?  The idea is simple: Funders, kill the project model.

My proposal is informed by a decade of working alongside grassroots communities struggling for survival domestically and internationally, within and outside of the food movement.  The strategy has two basic steps:  

1)   Kill the project model.  Make long-term funding commitments to organizations and institutions that are driving community-led transformational efforts.

2)   Look beyond advocacy to addressing root causes....

As we near the close of our two-year Food and Community Fellowship, I have been reflecting on this extraordinary opportunity for personal development and the possibility that there will not be a next class of fellows. Within individuals and communities, leadership develops as an evolution of thought and practice. Just like good food or anything that grows, good leadership requires nurture and investment.  If our children, communities, food systems, cultures and nation are to grow in a more positive direction, we must find the will to invest in the development of diverse and visionary leaders.

A recent invitation to share my experience in community development and revitalization caused me to reflect on my own growth as a leader.  About ten years ago, the Mayor’s “Neighborhood Transformation Initiative” bulldozers came to “remove blight” from my block in Strawberry Mansion, north Philadelphia.   Buildings came down throughout our low-income, African American community and left vacant lots and blank plaster walls where venerable townhomes once stood.  Many of our neighbors had become anesthetized to our common condition and the deterioration around us.  Blight had become our normal but nonetheless we were activated! 

After sharing our story, I was asked how one becomes a community leader as a relatively new resident of a neighborhood.  The question made me...

‘You suffer from the oldest delusion in politics. You think you can change the world by talking to a leader. Leaders are the effects, not the causes, of changes’ – Alasdair Gray, Lanark. 

I need to make my peace with leaders. I first came across them in the education system, and was unimpressed. They were school bullies. Surrounded by admirers and aspirers, they had their cliques and cults of personality and power. Whether in the playground, or the teachers’ staff room, it seemed clear that these individuals were best avoided.

Stranger still, as I moved through the course of secondary education, were those fellow students who sought leadership not through physical violence or intimidation, but political jockeying. Although hailing from the US and set in a co-ed school, Election’s antagonist, Tracy Flick was a familiar figure in my British boy’s school.

The hack –the British term for a transparent political operative trying to climb the establishment ladder- makes my skin crawl. They embody the worst of leadership. Power hungry, manipulative, self-interested, untrustworthy, yearning to summit the establishment rather than overturn it. These are clubbable people in every sense of the word. They are the ones I imagine constituting the core readership of the books filling airport convenience store shelves, books on the habits of effective...

One of my greatest joys is watching young people bloom. In my professional life, I am a fortunate witness to this every day. I see the happiness that comes when kids plant seeds for the first time, or taste turnips that they grew themselves, and the confidence that builds in our youngservice members as they become teachers and role models for other youth.

I draw strength from these moments, because when I reflect on the world that young people are inheriting, it can really terrify me. Ecological disaster, climbing obesity rates, impending resource depletion and climate change…it’s a world in crisis. And, youth are directly impacted by this crisis. One in three children and teens are overweight or obese, and they are part of a generation that is likely to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

The work needed to reverse these trends is enormous, and requires not only a multigenerational approach, but also opportunities for young people to be part of the solutions.

I serve as the Farm to School Director atLa Semilla Food Center, a young, community-based organization in southern New Mexico that I co-founded.  La Semilla (the seed) works to foster a local food system that reflects our values and prioritizes community health. Our...