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Food justice recognizes food as a human right and seeks to address the structural causes of inequity throughout the food system. The movement’s goal is to foster equal access to nutritious, culturally appropriate food, fair treatment of food and farm workers, and opportunities for all communities to shape their own food systems.
According to the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, the struggle for food justice has never been more pressing. Despite sufficient food production to feed the global population, one in four people worldwide are not food-secure.
Women produce approximately half of the world’s food and constitute 40 percent of the agricultural labor force, according to the United Nations. Yet research shows that women often lack secure access to land and natural resources and remain underrepresented in agricultural decision-making.
In the U.S., 38 million people, including 12 million children, lack reliable access to nutritious food. Food system workers are twice as likely to experience food insecurity as workers in other industries. And Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities experience disproportionately high rates of food insecurity. Black children are three times more likely than white children to be food insecure. Indigenous communities are two to three times more likely to face food insecurity than white communities.
Ericka Huggins, a human rights activist, educator, and former Black Panther leader as well as Devita Davison, Executive Director of FoodLab Detroit, emphasize that current food inequities reflect historical systems of colonization, racial discrimination, and economic exclusion. “History informs the present,” Huggins says.
The modern food justice movement emerged during the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s, catalyzed by the 1962 Greenwood Food Blockade. Amid broader efforts in Mississippi to suppress Black political participation, Leflore County ended a federal program that supplied winter food to 90 percent of local Black sharecropping families, leaving over 20,000 people without a vital food source.
Community members organized, and students successfully petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reinstate the program. These communities’ mutual aid and solidarity underlined the connection between food justice and political participation.
The Black Panther Party built on these efforts by launching its Free Breakfast for School Children Program in 1969. The initiative expanded from a single church to at least 45 sites serving thousands of children each day. Although law enforcement efforts ultimately dismantled many of the Black Panther Party programs, they helped build public support and ultimately drove increased federal funding for school meals.
At the same time, movements to further labor rights, environmental health, and racial justice were gaining momentum. The United Farm Workers (UFW), led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, organized agricultural workers in the 1960s, securing rights for tens of thousands of farm workers, including higher wages, restricted pesticide use, and requirements for clean drinking water and rest facilities.
In 1987, the United Church of Christ’s Commission for Racial Justice published a report, documenting that hazardous waste facilities were disproportionately located in Black and Hispanic communities, revealing the connections between structures of racial injustice and environmental inequities.
Realizing the interconnected nature of these issues, the food justice movement expanded in the 1980s and 1990s beyond food access to encompass labor conditions, racial justice, and environmental protections.
Organizations today pursue food justice in many ways. Some expand access to nutritious food through local agriculture. Urban Tilth has established over 60 community gardens in California, while Just Food connects farmers with New York markets.
Other prioritize food sovereignty and self-determination in the food system. The National Black Food & Justice Alliance strengthens Black-led food systems, while Soul Fire Farm in New York offers reparations and land back initiatives and programs that train aspiring Black and Latinx farmers.
The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance seeks to restore and reclaim Indigenous food systems through education and advocacy, and the First Nations Development Institute helps Native communities strengthen local food economies. According to historian Dr. Frederick Douglass Opie, “One of the most offensive things someone can do to you is deny you a place at the table.”
Other organizations focus on worker justice. Coalition of Immokalee Workers organizes to improve wages and working conditions, the Food Chain Workers Alliance advocates for workers across the food supply chain, and Restaurant Opportunities Centers United promotes better workplace conditions in restaurants.
Going forward, food justice advocates highlight that the importance of acknowledging and addressing the structural barriers that have shaped food systems for generations, and questioning how change is pursued. Rather than asking what can be done for communities, the movement encourages governments, nonprofits, researchers, and philanthropies to work with communities by supporting locally led solutions and sharing decision-making power.
“We cannot free ourselves until we feed ourselves,” says Devita Davison.
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