The Unbearable Whiteness of the Local Food Movement

On the white farm imaginary & how not to be an Alice Waters about these things.

Oct 19, 2022

Farmers near Windsor Locks, Connecticut, 1940 / The Library of Congress

There was a time when it seemed the answer to the systemic problems of our food system—so-called "food deserts," the lack of vegetables in the American diet, the increase in farmland devoted to monoculture crops like corn—was simple: put in a farmers market. In 1994, there were just under 2,000 farmers markets in the United States; today there are over 8,600.

Of course, it is not that simple. There are so many barriers to accessing farmers markets for low-income BIPOC people in particular, the number one being the cost of buying fresh produce, so I am glad for the expansion of programs that give farmers market vouchers to low-income senior citizens and WIC Program participants, or double the value of SNAP dollars spent at farmers markets.

But that is not what I am here to talk about today. What I want to talk about are some of the invisible barriers that can transform farmers markets, CSAs, and other local food marketplaces into exclusionary spaces for people of color. I point these out as someone who believes deeply in supporting my local food system, but who grits my teeth whenever I hear a (usually wealthy, usually white) person talking reverently about "eating local" in a way that clearly implies anyone who doesn't is making a grave, selfish mistake.

This is where you can insert your Michael Pollan quote of choice. Or here's one from Alice Waters from last year:

We need to eat fewer animal products, and know where every bite comes from. I have beautiful eggs in my refrigerator right now, in every color, and I feel comfortable with that because I know the chickens are being raised right. Knowing where animal products come from is vitally important.

Oh, Alice. Can you just…?

Look, I know you aren't that out of touch. You wouldn't go up and lecture someone who is buying eggs from Walgreens with their EBT card about how they should be sourcing their eggs from a nearby chicken sanctuary—but this is more nuanced than just not being clueless about your privilege. Let's dig into some of the unspoken reasons why the local food movement feels so…white.

The White Farm Imaginary

Not everyone gets excited about the idea of "going back to the land," especially if that image is linked to generational trauma—the emotions and pain, maybe subconscious, that can disconnect Black, Indigenous and other people of color from what sociologists Alison Alkon and Christie McCullen call "the white farm imaginary."

You probably know what the white farm imaginary is. It holds up the small, land-owning, family farmer as the agricultural ideal. It romanticizes an agrarian lifestyle that for most of American history was available only to white people, and ignores the painful history and unjust present conditions of people of color working in agriculture. As Alkon and McCullen describe it:

This imaginary ignores the justification of Native American displacement by white homesteaders, the enslavement of African-Americans, the masses of underpaid Asian immigrants who worked California’s first factory farms, and the mostly Mexican farm laborers who harvest the majority of food grown in the USA today. Therefore, it is quite possible that the romantic notions of yeoman farmers and rural culture do not resonate with many people of color whose collective history recalls the racism and classism of America’s agricultural past and present.1

Support farmers! Eat local! Farm fresh!

These exhortations can be less convincing if seeing white farmers reminds you of the over 11 million acres of land lost by Black farmers since 1910, or if "local" makes you think about the violent dispossession of your Native ancestors from their land, or you know that the farm-fresh produce was likely harvested by people from Mexico who look like you, but who in many states do not have basic labor rights such as the right to minimum wage, overtime pay, or the right to unionize—exclusions which were explicitly due to racism, by the way.

Universalism

This idealization of a past that did not exist for BIPOC people in the United States often combines with what geographer Julie Guthman calls "universalism," which is the tendency to assume that white people's values are normal, correct, and shared by all.2 Here are some of the values embedded in local food universalism:

Locally grown produce tastes better.
It is worth it to pay extra money for local food.
It is morally preferable to pay a local vendor rather than a faraway corporation.
Being able to talk to the people who grow your food makes you feel safer about what you are eating.
Buying local food makes a political statement.

None of these statements are objective fact; they are all deeply subjective, reflecting what Alkon and McCullen call the "affluent, liberal habitus3 of whiteness" that characterizes farmers markets. This often results in a belief that if people were simply educated about the benefits of eating local food, or shopping from the farmers market, they would suddenly realize these values were true and change their behavior.

I don't know about you, but many of those values actually are values I hold for myself, and there is nothing wrong with that. Because I also understand why it might not be worth it to pay extra for local produce that must be purchased at an inconvenient time and place, will go bad faster than canned or frozen produce, and requires additional work and skill to prep. You can't "vote with your fork4" if your grocery budget allows only one candidate on the ballot: the cheapest and most filling. There is nothing magical about the properties of local food that transcend the realities of people's lives.

I do believe there is a way to live by the values I keep around supporting my local food system, while not imposing those values upon others, or shaming people because they don't share them. For me it starts with supporting farmers of color and BIPOC-led food organizations first, because the only food future I want is one that puts Black and brown people front and center. Black farmers, ranchers, and food producers in particular have the barrier of hundreds of years of systemic racism in land access, the USDA, banks, philanthropy, and more, and I don't know how much my little CSA subscription is doing to help, but it makes me feel slightly better. (See Value #3.)

But the truth is we can't buy our way to a better future, so I also get involved with the local food system in ways that don't just involve spending money: joining local food policy councils, volunteering on campaigns to pass legislation that supports local food (Coloradans, vote YES on Prop FF!), and finding other ways to connect with people working to build a more equitable and sustainable future. (Many of whom, I should note, are actively antiracist and are also looking to disrupt the unbearable whiteness of the local food movement.)

I also see hope and promise in any project that seeks to reconnect BIPOC people to the land, because that connection can be healing and empowering. Earlier this year, I talked to JaSon Auguste of Frontline Farming, a BIPOC-led farming nonprofit in Denver, about the power that can be found in rebuilding that relationship, He said:

There’s so much trauma and pain around the land for a lot of people. But when the land calls you back to heal, it lifts you up. It kind of centers you, and it provides that healing. So many people come back to the land.5

Let’s put away our wallets (and our judgments) for today. Meet you back on the land, when you’re ready.

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?