Cultivating Community Food Resilience: Revisited

Authors: Kyla Valenti and Courtney Archambeau

In Fall 2018, undergraduate and graduate students of Dr. Angie Carter’s Communities and Research class at Michigan Tech University (MTU) researched and wrote a report on the food system in the Western UP and food systems councils. The report, entitled “Cultivating Community Food Resilience” was the product  of a partnership between MTU and the Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region, and was intended to inform the development of the Western Upper Peninsula Food Systems Council (WUPFSC) through research and community engagement. It is hard to believe that more than a year has passed since we finished drafting the report, and that more than a year’s worth of WUPFSC meetings in all 6 counties of the Western Upper Peninsula region have since taken place.

We were both students in the class and came back together to reflect on the past year, the research and writing process, and sharing the report.

Question: Describe your process of preparing the report. What was the most impactful for you personally, for the class, for the community?

Kyla: I found the process of researching for this report immensely impactful, specifically connecting with community partners. The amount of support and enthusiasm we found when we started speaking to people about this project was really contagious and I think many of us found the sense of community very affecting. Especially after having graduated and left Houghton, this aspect of the project still impresses me.

I recall experiencing a lot of growth as a member of the class, too. The gains were far more than just intellectual -- I think I have become a better community member through the process of pulling together to make this report happen. Coming into conversation with the community was the easy part of this project. The difficult part, the part that required all of us to stretch beyond our comfort zones, was the collaborative, messy work of birthing the report. I’m sure there will be many more experiences like this for folks continuing this work!

For the campus -- I’m sure I’ll touch on this more when I talk about presenting to the Food Systems and Sustainability (FS&S) class. All of the MTU students I’ve met and talked to about this project and other community food systems topics have had such thoughtful, hopeful responses. I think that this report can serve as a little bit of a touchstone, a synthesis of much of the work that the first round of FS&S and Communities and Research students have done. Every time I look at the report, I am struck by all the elements that made their way in -- from the literature we were exposed to during the first round of FS&S, to the problems, ideas, solutions and values that our partners and community brought to the table. So future students will find a lot of information and ideas, and they’ll have a snapshot of food resilience/security at MTU at a time before any of this work, or their work, was carried out. And they’ll hopefully see themselves in the vision of the students who came before them.

Courtney: The research for this project was interesting and impactful to me in a variety of ways. Not only educationally, but as a community member as well. It was really nice to interact with the students on campus and community members as a whole.  I know that personally, all the people I came in contact with during this project were enthusiastic about the project and interested in what we were doing. It was in a sense, a feel-good process.

As a student, I grew immensely during this project; both as an individual and as a team member. We learned how each other worked, what our strengths and weaknesses were and where to improve. Presenting at the Social Science Brown Bag Lunch and the Western UP Food Systems Council Meeting at Zeba Hall in L’Anse, MI in December 2018 helped with my presentation skills which is huge both educationally and professionally. Attending the Western UP Food Systems Council meetings has given me the opportunity to connect with community members through the area, and learn about who they are through networking, sharing and brainstorming.

I believe this project helped our campus and community in a very unique way. Everyone loves food. Having conversations about food, how it is grown, the problems we encounter and how we can solve those problems. For the people who participated, they were able to express how food affects their life, whether positive or not. When starting this project, I was amazed at the number of people who are food insecure in our local area. No one should be without good food. It is my hope that doing the research and helping start the Western UP Food Systems Council, that we might be able to conquer some of the problems in our area.

Question: You’ve shared the report in a couple different forums, including WUPFSC meetings, classes and an academic conference. How can this report be used differently by different audiences?

Kyla: Yes, come to think of it, those presentations all differed quite a lot. During the final week of the semester in the Fall of 2018, we shared our newly minted findings and research process at the second Western Upper Peninsula Food Systems Council meeting. During the spring, a couple of us came to Dr. Carter’s Food Systems and Sustainability class to talk about the project, findings and methods and to exchange thoughts and inspiration with other students concerned and passionate about community food systems. More recently, this work was presented at the International Symposium of Society and Natural Resources (ISSNR) in June, 2019.

After having either seen or participated in all of these presentations, I can confidently say that there are many different ways this report can be used and shared. It seems like each presentation, meeting and conversation has led in different directions and evolved the project further. For academic audiences, the conversation may have more to do with research methodology or may focus more on the theory informing this work -- more generalizable information that could be applied to a wide array of projects in any number of communities and places. But with members of our own community, the conversation tends to be very different -- it easily verges more toward concrete ideas and steps, acknowledges real people, local cultures, and tangible resources and connections. When we presented to other students, I recall experiencing a moment where I realized I’d need to shift from one gear into the other -- from the academic gear, into one that was much more specific and personal. The Michigan Tech students I’ve spoken to and worked with have a strong connection to place and deep concern for their community, their school, and their impact.

Courtney: Sharing our research has probably been the best part of the project, next to all of the interactions of course. Sharing what we have learned on different levels was thought provoking and inspiring. The research and methodologies have been shared with students, faculty, and community members; each having their own sets of questions. When sharing with Dr. Carter’s Food Systems and Sustainability Class, their main focus was how we conducted our research and what we thought of our findings.

I think that “Cultivating Community Food Resilience” can be used in a variety of ways and be helpful to different types of groups. As I stated earlier, we have presented our work in a multitude of ways to a multitude of groups, and Kyla stated that each presentation, conversation and read-through has lead to different conversations and impacts.

Question: What are some of the next steps for the WUPFSC?

Courtney: One of the main things that needs to keep happening is the WUPFSC meetings in each of the six counties across the Western UP region. Food summits and community programs would also be beneficial so that community members know what is happening and or how to process foods in a variety of ways.

Kyla: What were once “recommendations” are now actualities. Ideas that once belonged to the future are now accomplishments. An example of this is that when we met with community partners last year, one of the key things that folks kept bringing up was that creating partnerships within the community was critical to supporting a strong local food system. “Building partnerships” ended up becoming one of our key themes, so several recommendations for the WUPFSC were built around that. And I have to say, checking back in with the WUPFSC, I am so impressed by just how far they’ve taken those initial recommendations. When I looked at the website after several months, I was amazed by all the resources compiled for that particular purpose: building partnerships. A “networking” page. Lists of community gardens. Funding opportunities. A calendar of local events. This is one area where even from a distance I can tell that the WUPFSC has done a tremendous job. And like many of those who participated in our project, I am optimistic that many of the “next steps” will grow from those partnerships!

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Kyla Valenti is a 2019 graduate of the B.S. in Social Sciences (Law and Society) program at Michigan Technological University. Though deeply attached to the UP, she currently resides in Silicon Valley, where she is working to advance her career as a social scientist and mental health practitioner.

Courtney Archambeau is a 2006 graduate of the B.S in Social Sciences (History concentration) program at Michigan Technological University. She is currently a full time employee of Residence Education and Housing Services at Michigan Technological University while pursuing her masters degree in Environmental and Energy Policy.

Our Power, Today and Every Day: International Day of Rural Women

This blog is re-posted from the Women Food & Ag Network Blog

Authors: Ahna Kruzic and Angie Carter, Women, Food and Agriculture Network Board Members

Tuesday, Oct. 15, marks International Day of Rural Women. It’s fitting that this day falls in the middle of the Global Food Week of Action (Oct. 13-20); after all, women farmers and farmworkers produce and process more than half the world’s food. 

In the United States, women own or co-own roughly half the agricultural land in the United States; 52% of restaurant workers are women, and 36% of farmers are women. We know that women are integral to food production, processing, and preparation in the U.S. and globally, and we see that women are leading efforts to transform food and farming toward a system characterized by sustainability, health, and justice. 

However, this transformative work is hard. We’re up against a food and farm system that simply doesn’t work for us and our communities. From hunger and malnutrition, to gender-based discrimination and violence on the job, to unpaid and underpaid labor, the data paints a grim picture of women in food and farming: structural, gender-based oppression, or patriarchy, impacts the way we eat, work, farm, and live. 

The building blocks of food and farming: Inequality 

In the U.S., a tremendous racialized and gendered wage gap persists. Consequently, the distribution of malnutrition and food insecurity is inequitable as well. For every dollar a man earns, Black women are paid 70 cents, Latina women are paid 63 cents, and white women are paid 84 cents; meanwhile, female-headed households are roughly 25% more likely to be food insecure than their male counterparts. 

All the while, women farm operators earn 61 cents for every dollar a male earns—and that’s controlling for work time, farm assets, farm type, age, experience, and location. Similarly, women food chain workers face both a racial and gender disparity: for every dollar earned by white men, Black women earn 42 cents, Latina women earn 45 cents, Asian women earn 58 cents, Native women earn 36 cents, and white women earn 47 cents. Further, transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming people face additional discrimination and violence. The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) reports that 1 in 4 people has experienced bias-driven assault, with rates higher for trans women and trans people of color.

And this inequality isn’t an accident; it is part of what makes the modern industrial food system work. Today’s economies were built via the exploitation of people, nature, and communities—the theft of Native land that was later plowed and tilled and the enslavement of human beings stolen from across Africa to provide agricultural labor are only two examples. 

Today, the exploitation continues. From disparate food and farm wages to sexual reproduction and the maintenance of households—women’s labor, and in particular, the labor of women of color, is not equitably valued in our industrial food system. Ultimately, our unpaid and underpaid labor subsidizes the profits of the multi-trillion dollar industrial food system. 

Our power

Despite the challenges we face, we are engaged in the work of real change—feeding our communities and changing power relations to transform our food and farm system to one that prioritizes care rather than exploitation. This International Day of Rural Women, we’re inspired by the people we know doing the transformative work we all need. Together, we are fighting for fair wages for food system workers, transitioning land from conventional to organic, demanding protections for women farmworkers, calling for farm policy that addresses climate-related impacts of agriculture, creating spaces for LGBTQQIA farmers, building support for reparations for Black farmers, developing policies to protect each other from pesticide spray drift, demanding Indigenous land sovereignty, and mentoring the next generation to continue this important work.

This groundswell of revolutionary solutions exemplifies the future of food and farming, and we are creating these changes through our communities, together. Women, Food and Agriculture Network knows our experiences and knowledge are powerful. For example, our Plate to Politics program empowers rural and agricultural leaders across the country to put their visions for a healthier food and farming system into action, through advocacy, activism, and policy leadership. Through our Women Caring for the Land program, we’re bringing women landowners together to increase the adoption of conservation practices that protect our soil and water. Harvesting Our Potential trains women to be farmers through on-farm mentorships. A recent participatory research project in Iowa’s most agriculturally polluted watershed illustrated the power women have in creating change on the land. Our research shows that the networks these programs create are paramount to shifts in power, be it in farm decision-making or agricultural policy. 

This International Day of Rural Women, we’re grateful for all the people transforming our food and farm system. Today and every day, together, we will continue to build and nurture the relationships that are catalyzing real change, right now. 

To learn more about Women, Food and Agriculture Network and how you can become a member of our nationwide network of changemakers, click here.

By the Community, for the Community: Co-creating pathways to local food system sustainability

This blog is re-posted from the MTU Sustainability blog

Author: Jack Wilson, Sustainability Science & Society Major

Sustainability is about more than the development of systems designed to sustain themselves. It’s also about practicing radical forms of democratic process to develop human and more-than-human communities built on dense networks of socioecological relations that allow for individuals to co-create the systems that they call home.

This feeling of home is something that has inspired me to get deeper into my work on local food system sustainability. After my first year at Michigan Tech, I transferred from Geophysics to the new Social Sciences interdisciplinary major Sustainability Science & Society. In this major, I work with a framework that studies sustainability beyond the perceived duality of human and environmental systems. Ultimately this duality is artificial, and it’s necessary that we begin perceiving human systems as embedded in and interdependent on one larger interconnected biogeophysical system that is sustained through a network of reciprocal relations. Over the last year and a half, as I’ve become more familiar with the system of relations that comprise our local food system, I find that this feeling of home grows within me.

For those who aren’t familiar, a food system can be broadly defined as all of the patterns, processes, and networks which facilitate the flow of food, from its inception to its consumption. When I tell people here at Tech about what I study, they usually respond with some variation of “really? You study the food system here? What food system?” In some sense, they’re not wrong in saying so.

The Keweenaw region today produces an incredibly minute amount of food relative to that which is consumed, so we rely mostly on imported food from the fossil-fuel intensive conventional global food system. Because we rely on food grown in distant lands by the hands of unknown people, many of us don’t know how unsustainable our food system actually is.

It didn’t used to be this way. The conventional food system is actually a relatively new phenomena in the context of this land’s human history. For centuries the Anishinaabe people derived sustenance from many of their more-than-human relatives in the region, such as fish and rice. While many Anishinaabe people still have these relations, the colonization that has occurred from the 19th century into the present has created structures of power which hinder the ability of communities to develop and maintain sovereignty over their food system. This history is vital in helping us conceive of how a more sustainable food system might be possible. While the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) considers the entire U.P. food insecure, we can look to the Indigenous communities for knowledge about how we might actually find an abundance of food in the waters and forests of this land.

In the 2018/2019 school year, I received funding through a Portage Health Foundation Undergraduate Research Internship Program (URIP) to conduct ethnographic research studying how local farmers navigate the challenges in our local food system and identify as opportunities for improved resilience. This work was inspired and informed by classes I had taken in the Sustainability Science & Society program, including SS 4700 Communities & Research, SS 3110 Food Systems & Sustainability, and SS 4211 Ethnographic Methods. When I asked one farmer what they wished the broader community knew about the farming in the Keweenaw, they said, “I just wish they had a better understanding of what is possible.”

This public misunderstanding of our food system seems to derive from the general lack of awareness about our local food system and its potential to support a more sustainable future. For example, when I ask people what they think about the possibility of developing a sustainable local food system in the Keweenaw, they often are quick to point out logistical challenges such as “we have too short of a growing season” or “we live too far north” or “the soil is too poor.”

While it is true that our growing season is short relative to other places, I’ve learned through my research that local farmers are using cold storage technologies to allow for the preservation of vegetables for months into the fall and winter season. While it is true that we live very far north, farmers have shared with me that there’s actually a number of places throughout the Keweenaw that have significantly extended growing seasons because of the way Lake Superior acts as a heat sink and regulates the climate, thus extending the season further into the fall. Further, these farmers have shared a number of technologies like low-tunnels and hoop houses which also allow for the season to be extended. Finally, while it is true that there are many places throughout the region with low amounts of organic matter in the soil, many of these farmers are working to build healthy soil over time through regenerative agricultural practices.

When that farmer told me they wished people had a better understanding of what is possible, I thought about how limited my own understanding was before conducting this research, and how that hindered my pursuit to uncover solutions to these sustainability challenges. The solutions that farmers shared with me speak to the vast reservoirs of ideas and solutions already existing in our own communities.

I will continue to pursue these questions through a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) in the summer of 2019 and another URIP in the 2019/2020 academic year under the continued supervision of Dr. Angie Carter. Through my research, I’ve also become more engaged in our community, working at Metsa Hill Farm and volunteering with the Western UP Food Systems Council and Food Not Bombs. It’s through engaging in this research and these dialogues that we can begin to develop a more holistic understanding of these systems and tailor our system interventions in a way that ensures we are working towards a world of justice, equity, and sustainability.

Jack Wilson interning at Marble Mountain farm during Summer 2018, an organic vegetable and herb farm in Happy Camp, California

Introduction and summary

Over the last year, the Western U.P. Food Systems Council has become an emergent and evolving collaborative that is a grassroots coalition with a focus on equity and justice in our local food system.

In October of 2018, we received support and applied for initial seed money from MSU Center for Regional Food Systems to pay for Council meeting costs and website. The initial grant cycle at this time ran from October 2018 - April 2019. This seed money paid for the first four meetings and this website domain for posting information about the local food system, its Council, and other community resources. The Western U.P. Food Systems Council has been meeting bimonthly in every Western U.P. county to identify the strengths and challenges in our local food system and how we can support equitable growth and collaboration. Previously we’ve heard from community members in Houghton, L’Anse, Ironwood, and Watersmeet. In these conversations, we are learning how excited people are to engage in food systems work, while also learning about local Interests and challenges different communities face.

Michigan Technological University students (Community Based Research Methods) present their findings to the Food Systems Council

Since receiving the seed grant, we have been funded through the 2019 Regional Prosperity Initiative. This state grant through the regional planning agency, Western U.P. Planning & Development Region, which secures 25% of an assistant regional planner to:

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Michelle Jarvie with MSU Extension teaching the youth to identify ostrich fern fiddleheads

• Identify and apply for short/long-term funding sources for local/regional food projects

• Build relationships within local food systems to support future projects;

• Co-create programs that are desired by our community; Thank you to those that have co-created projects already - Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Natural Research Department, Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Michigan Tech University

• Support and coordinate several student research groups (MTU & U of M)

• Organize and support meetings in every county (October 2018 - December 2019)

• Utilize part of the funds to contract researchers to facilitate community food systems assessments.

We are seeking knowledge and local collaborators in building a more resilient food system in the Western U.P. . Many folks have been working in this space for a long time and we want to hear their stories. It’s an honor to learn from you all and work together for a food system that serves the people.