Teresa K. Miller, poet and essayist

October holds multiple events important to those pushing for equitable access to food. Last week included World Food Day and the award of the Food Sovereignty Prize. Yesterday marked the first time that Feeding the 5,000 held an event in the U.S.—just a few blocks from my home in Oakland—after much successful organizing against needless food waste in the U.K. (As much as 40% of food gets wasted somewhere along the line from growing to eating, while in my county as many as 20% of residents are food insecure due to poverty.) The U.S. also has its own Food Day coming up on the 24^th.

I find food activism particularly interesting because one of the primary solutions to the broken food system—small-scale agroecology, of which permaculture is a form—also represents a major way to sink carbon and mitigate climate change. Though many distinct social and environmental causes clamor for our attention, there are points of unity and opportunities for collaboration.

Recently I’ve co-written two pieces about activists on the forefront of food sovereignty, Community to Community in my childhood home of Washington state and the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Work Committees.

Behind the charged issues these groups evoke lie truths hard to deny: We cannot have equity without peace, we cannot steward our fragile planet and future generations without everyone’s participation, and we cannot have full participation without equity.

I’d love to see you at my reading with Stephanie Young on November 7th in San Francisco. More info here.