Food is life.

I don’t mean this strictly in the sense that food gives us the ability to survive by providing us with energy to carry out everyday tasks, though that is certainly true and important. I mean this in the way that so many people live for food, if they are lucky enough. Personally, (and I feel a bit ashamed to admit it) when I wake up in the morning, the first things I think are 1) coffee and 2) what am I having for breakfast? After breakfast, I wonder what’s for lunch and even dinner.

However, until recently I didn’t think much about where that food came from. While I always tried to eat healthily and organic, prices and general convenience made me lazy and I tended to grab whatever was quick, cheap, or a combination of the two.

But on March 13, I attended a conference in New York City courtesy of Just Food, an organization that “empowers and supports community leaders to advocate for and increase access to healthy, locally-grown food, especially in underserved NYC neighborhoods.” I honestly did not know what to expect when I walked through the doors of the conference building, but what I saw and learned changed my views on food for the better.

If I were to sum the conference up in a few words, those words would be food justice. But what is food justice and why should you, the average consumer, care? Let’s start from the beginning, as in the beginning of your food.

The United States used to thrive on the agriculture business. However, come the turn of the century, the government, like with most things, took control of the country’s agriculture. Many families who had relied on farming as their livelihood had to sell their land and find some other means of making a living.

Unfortunately, the communities hit hardest by this were the African American and Latino communities who had done a majority of the farming in this country at the time. Forced to move off their land and find other jobs, many families struggled and became impoverished in the process.

Flash forward a few years to today. The government still controls the food industry with an iron fist but they are not practicing sustainable agriculture. Instead, they are more focused on producing as much food as possible, in the shortest time frame possible, and in the cheapest way possible. As a result, much of the food you find in grocery stores, though labeled organic, may not have been grown or harvested in quite the way you may think they were. Additionally, we suffer as a result because, more often than not, that food lacks the nutrition necessary for everyday life as a direct result from the way it was grown.

To top it off, there are still many communities around the country who do not have access to this “fresh, wholesome” food as a result of the way the government distributes it. Walk through any low-income community and you won’t see fresh fruit stands or grocery stores packed with affordable fruits and vegetables. You’ll see a McDonalds on one corner, Burger King on another, Wendy’s down the block, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken somewhere near by.

While these chains provide affordable food, that food is in no way wholesome or healthy for those who have to eat it, sometimes everyday, due to lack of access to fresh food and lack of money to travel and pay for fresh produce at a grocery store. And let’s not even get started on how the meat in that burger was raised and slaughtered. That’s a story for another time.

Food justice aims to change all of what I have mentioned above. Through organizations like Just Food, those active in food justice strive to provide poorer communities with fresh fruits and vegetables by organizing and caring for community gardens and bringing farmer’s markets within reasonable travelling distance. Not only does this help those who wouldn’t normally have access to this type of food get all the necessary daily nutrients, but it benefits those who have decided to take a stand against the government’s factory farming methods and once again build their livelihoods on farming. And this is a beautiful, beautiful concept! It bridges the distance that many Americans have with food. Instead of eating a banana from some unknown farmer in Guatemala, it enables consumers to know that their food has come from a local farmer who they may have actually met at the farmer’s markets and may be on a first name basis with!

Food is important. It helps each and every one of us navigate our daily lives and there is nothing better than sharing a meal with friends and family. However, in today’s world we have distanced ourselves from the source of our food. It’s time to change that. So next time you need groceries, instead of heading over to the nearest store, look online at websites such as LocalHarvest.org and see if there are any farmer’s markets near you. Not only will your body thank you, but so will the thousands of other people who rely on farming as their way of life. It’s time to think local and strive for food justice!