Video Resources on Food Justice and Farming

Food System TransformationNutrient Dense Food Food Justice, Equity, and SovereigntyRedesigned Local/Regional Food SystemsOnline Videos

History of Land Losses for African American Farmers

  • https://youtu.be/cHiDSMKpkRg Farming While Black. In a keynote at NOFA VT, Leah Penniman, of Soul Fire Farm, presents a history of ongoing loss among black farmers, from slavery through Reconstruction and from Jim Crow to the present day. 40 minutes 
  • https://youtu.be/zvQJP8QP-Ng Leah Penniman’s 2020 keynote for NOFAMass traces the historically important role farming has played in the lives of black people, from the secreting of seeds by kidnapped Africans to the present day longing for land.  51 minutes,
  • https://youtu.be/kMHUs7arFEI Forgotten Farmers: African American Land Loss. This is a story from the Huffington Post  about black farmers losing their land with emphasis on the government policies involved in that loss. 11 minutes 
  • https://youtu.be/HKbgiCWhLTs Black Farmers, Land Loss and the Racial Economic Gap. A concise talk by Natalie Baszile about the history of land loss. 16 minutes
  • https://youtu.be/ldLiR794DsQ  How Black Americans were Robbed of their Land. An Atlantic magazine journalist focuses on one family’s viewpoint on a landmark lawsuit against the USDA over government policies that directly resulted in land loss. 15 minutes
  • https://youtu.be/t_cWnov_6_E   How Southern Farmers were forced from their land. This news report by PBS briefly discusses the USDA lawsuit. 8 minutes.
  • https://youtu.be/e2zRvzq1WHk  Why Aren’t There More Black Farmers in the US? This Aljazeera news story involves a panel of three people including a party to the USDA lawsuit discussing this question. 25 minutes
  • https://youtu.be/71WZnsqSUoQ Why are all the Black Farmers Vanishing? This brief  Aljazeera report discusses the USDA policies that robbed black farmers of their land. It includes an interview with Leah Penniman.  7 minutes

Food Sovereignty

  • https://youtu.be/8lh1ejD_GWA Hunger, Covid 19 and Racial Equity Two panelists, Parker Gilkesson and Melanie Pang, look at hunger and food insecurity and why it has increased in BIPOC communities. 75 minutes
  • https://youtu.be/vPD220WCrLU Food Justice: Building an Equitable Food System–2021. A Panel, consisting of Karli Moore, Sha’Von Tarrell, KIbibi Blount,and Alex Epstein, discusses food sovereignty and other problems for BIPOC farmers, including indigenous peoples, with credit, issues of invisibility, and other issues. 81 minutes
  • https://youtu.be/ydZfSuz-Hu8 What is Food Justice? this 2013 Ted talk by LeDonna Redmondis an excellent overview of the issues. 12 minutes 
  • https://youtu.be/pmYrwsSX9Ow Food Justice: A Vision Deeper than the Problem. Amin Steele uses a story telling method to give a bit of history while touching on the intersections with other societal issues.  13 minutes

Exploitation in our Food Systems

  • https://youtu.be/MTS9FdddXDY Our food system hurts: living with migrant farmworkers. In this TED Talk, Seth Holmes, a white Physician/anthropologist, speaks about his experiences illegally crossing the border imbedded with Mexican immigrant farm workers and his observations of the physical tolls from stress and overwork. 15 minutes

Food Apartheid

  • https://youtu.be/IUeFtaujl7E  Malik Yakini on Food Apartheid. He distinguishes between apartheid and food deserts very succinctly. 3 minutes

African American Farmers Resisting

  • https://youtu.be/a2Rv5l9hvGc Leah Penniman – Farming While Black – EcoFarm 2020 Keynote. Leah Penniman gives a  hands-on discussion of farming.  40 minutes
  • https://youtu.be/8oI4yg2Zg1E  Free The Land, Shirley Sherrod. This is a compelling interview with the woman who founded New Communities Inc, in Georgia. She talks about her experience of land dispossession and racism and her struggles to save land for Black people. 25 minutes