FEEDING THE MOVEMENT
Locally, regionally, and nationally, we’re working in community, collectives and partnerships to coalesce our efforts to expedite the work of shifting power to community and building sovereign food systems. Through our research and convenings, we’re educating and shifting the narrative, advocating to ensure community voice is included. We’re here to break down silos, connecting food access work with food systems, healthcare, policy, agriculture and more, redefining the standard for best practices in our community, and pushing back against the status quo.
Click here to learn about our mission for transformative research
FED COLLECTIVE
FED is a new model that centers the core values of Fidelity, Equity, and Dignity (FED) in the Food as Medicine (FaM) field. Created by Benjamin Perkins (Upstream Impact Consulting) in collaboration with DAISA Enterprises. Wholesome Wave and the Yale Griffin Prevention Research Center (PRC), FED is based in community-led design – centering the participation and lived experiences of program practitioners and community members. A Collective of now 6 organizations, called the FED Collective Hub, have been working together extensively for three years, laying groundwork for multiple avenues to practice and disseminate FED initiatives, practical applications of FED principles, and shifting power to communities in interventions.
CH serves as the Lead FED Collective for equitable systems change. The FED Collective includes six other BIPOC-led community-based food justice organizations throughout the country, all innovating in the Food as Medicine (FaM) field. This partnership was formed in 2021 to research, develop, test, and develop a community of practice around the Fidelity, Equity, and Dignity Framework (FED) for the produce prescription field, with the CH as a core member of the FED Collective. The partners recognized (2021 PRx National Fieldscan research) an important gap in the FaM field – that while produce prescription programs were burgeoning around the country, program operators were calling out for racial equity models and tools, and that the BIPOC organizations closest to communities most impacted were under-represented in the important policy advocacy bodies.
The FED Collective and its partners are designing multiple research projects to continue expanding the FED framework and operationalize its principles for mass use across research.
This research project will capture how an ecosystem of organizations led by Black and Indigenous People of Color are individually and collectively working towards creating a Black Farmer Commons. The working mission of the ecosystem of organizations is “to shift power and ownership to Black farmers in New York State by cultivating community, resources, skills, and learning to ensure thriving Black farmers drive policy and advocacy, hold capital and land, and control markets.” The research project seeks to answer: “Can an ecosystem of organizations led by Black and Indigenous people of color (BIPOC) providing educational, financial, social and operational support creating new ownership and economic pathways for Black farmers’ collective success?”
SARE
Reclaiming Power and Ownership to Create a Black Farmer Commons in the Northeast.
OUR FOOD IS MEDICINE
Produce Prescription programs (PRx) and Food as Medicine efforts have created exciting buzz in both the food systems and health sectors, gaining presidential attention (the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health) and significantly more private and public funding. There are growing efforts to embed these models into state and federal health policies, holding great promise to improve nutrition and health in low-income communities around the country.
However, the dominant narrative surrounding FAM has been making the business case, while ignoring the structural discrimination that is a fundamental driver of health inequity, including patterns of disinvestment and structural racism that have significant and lasting impacts on the health and wellbeing of BIPOC communities. Community-driven solutions often go unvoiced and unheard when in fact those within the community will be most affected by this national movement. Despite the evidence that SDOH goes beyond accessing healthy food, there is an emphasis on treating individuals as patients that must prove that they are ‘sick enough’ to access food through PRx prescriptions or MTMs. This further perpetuates the problem of putting the onus on individual behavior as the main driver for health outcomes.
This webinar series is in response to the thought piece written by CH Founder Dennis Derryck, “Who Owns the Narrative Food as Medicine?” and seeks to reframe the conversation and include community voice in the national Food as Medicine movement.