Malik Yakini, co-founder and Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, speaks about food security within the larger context of building power, self-determination, and justice in a landscape of white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy. It could be seen as a liberation struggle, one to free people oppressed by the corporate capture of their food supply and its corresponding colonization of their consciousness. I read his goal that they regain control over their nourishment, culture and community through local production and distribution systems that reconnect people both to the land and community. Detroit is where he has put into practice what he learned from mentor Will Allen, founder of Milwaukee based Growing Power, and the many years of social justice agitation, community organizing and work as a high school principle.
Malik also contributes to the international food sovereignty movement that seeks to check the destruction of indigenous food and cultural production by multinational corporations in the Americas, the Caribbean and Africa.
He is on the leadership team of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance. His talk highlights a model program that links black urban farmers in need of land and food producers with Black Churches who often have both land and commercial kitchens that can bypass the endemic lack of access to capital.
Navina Khanna is founding director of the HEAL Food Alliance. for the past 15 years she has worked to create more just and sustainable world through transforming food systems. Based in Oakland, California she is an educator, community organizer and policy advocate.
Chicago Food Policy Action Council info@chicagofoodpolicy.com
Detroit Black Community Food Security Network http://www.detroitblackfoodsecurity.org
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