The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities (2012) by Will Allen with co-writer Charles Wilson contends that the United States has two disparate food systems, one for poor people and one for rich people. It follows a poor neighborhood whose residents in the “projects” of Milwaukee, Wisconsin turn to and benefit from urban farming. Allen won a MacArthur Genius Fellowship in 2008 for his work in food security and urban farming. The work was praised for its poignant stories of struggle and triumph mixed with practical lists and suggestions of how one can start to grow sustainable food in an urban environment.
Its themes include the role of race in food production and consumption, resilience, and sustainability. Each …show more content…
A white person’s farm was, on average, three times the size of a black person’s farm. This was largely due to loan processes that greatly. favored white people, as well as the Regan administration’s (1980-1988) unwillingness to acknowledge discrimination cases. In 1984 and 1985, the United States Department of Agriculture lent 1.3 billion dollars to farmers to expand their land. While 1,600 people received these loans, less than 5 percent were black.
The Good Food Revolution is a unique book in its evaluation of how slavery has impacted the African-American’s relationship to food. Considering that generations of African-American people were forced to grow food on plantations, the communities consequently have developed more fraught and tense relationships with the social systems around growing food.
Allen contends that urban communities can benefit from taking ownership over the growth of their own food. With more than 50 percent of the country living in urban spaces, the farmers of the future will, Allen posits, come from cities. Allen writes that there is a deeply revitalizing aspect to curating one’s own food. He notes how children who were once obsessed with candy can fundamentally change once they have the opportunity to feel the soil and watch food grow from
Its themes include the role of race in food production and consumption, resilience, and sustainability. Each …show more content…
A white person’s farm was, on average, three times the size of a black person’s farm. This was largely due to loan processes that greatly. favored white people, as well as the Regan administration’s (1980-1988) unwillingness to acknowledge discrimination cases. In 1984 and 1985, the United States Department of Agriculture lent 1.3 billion dollars to farmers to expand their land. While 1,600 people received these loans, less than 5 percent were black.
The Good Food Revolution is a unique book in its evaluation of how slavery has impacted the African-American’s relationship to food. Considering that generations of African-American people were forced to grow food on plantations, the communities consequently have developed more fraught and tense relationships with the social systems around growing food.
Allen contends that urban communities can benefit from taking ownership over the growth of their own food. With more than 50 percent of the country living in urban spaces, the farmers of the future will, Allen posits, come from cities. Allen writes that there is a deeply revitalizing aspect to curating one’s own food. He notes how children who were once obsessed with candy can fundamentally change once they have the opportunity to feel the soil and watch food grow from