by Lauren Bailey, Director of Garden Programs
This year, we have all considered the essential worker like never before — the nurse, the grocery clerk, the bus driver. At The Nashville Food Project, we're beyond grateful for the many food chain workers—all those people growing, processing, packing, cooking, delivering food— within our agency and beyond it. COVID-19 has, in some ways, highlighted professions that can often receive little to no recognition.
This lack of acknowledgement became clear for me, recently, as I was talking with a gardener who works in a meat-packing facility. He talked at length about the stresses of work and the burden of being in a leadership position while being short-staffed and concerned about COVID-19. Then he said something that has stuck with me. He felt like his situation, his struggle was invisible to others. And it’s true, isn’t it? The countless hands that go into making our food system are often unseen.
As food writer Alicia Kennedy reminded readers recently, we must continue to "write about the realities of the food system and those who labor in it….People will ignore or forget that which is unsettling or upsetting. The stories must be told relentlessly." So, I’d like to propose a challenge for us. Can you join me in acknowledging and learning about the many hands that are a part of this work and working for a better system?
To the farmers who showed us what it takes to make our favorite Thanksgiving dishes happen and who continue to get food to our tables (United Farm Workers)
And those fighting for fair wages (Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program)
To the BIPOC farmers like Soul Fire Farm and Sylvanaqua Farms and many others who sharpen our analysis of what it takes to manifest a sustainable and just food system
To the Indigenous people of the US fighting for food sovereignty
To those working in meat-packing and other processing facilities that have faced unsafe conditions before and during COVID-19
To the countless line cooks, service staff, chefs, dishwashers, drivers and grocery store clerks
We know this is not a comprehensive list. Who is missing?
We share our gratitude and acknowledge you, your labor and your fighting for a better system.
I have recently come to understand just how important it is to point to the larger system we exist in. We, at TNFP, cannot untangle ourselves from this. And at the same time, we are trying to build, in our corner of the universe, spaces and practices that value people, their experiences and their knowledge.
This summer, I was harvesting Thai chilis with a few other staff and gardeners for our communal garden produce bags. We all knew this task would take the longest as the small chilis made a tedious task. We could take this on at a slow pace, and this was something that made me curious about the pace of larger commercial operation as many farmworkers are still paid by units harvested versus by the hour.
When I asked if anyone had any experience harvesting chilis in bulk, a gardener who grew up in Burma/Myanmar said that in his community all the grandmas would come together to harvest chilis so they could talk and laugh and sing together. And that’s an image I’ve seen often in our community gardens, at the Growing Together farm and of our staff working together. It’s an image of dignity. Dignity that comes in cultivating relationships with each other and the Earth, and the dignity and power of growing your own food.
It is time that we complicate the narrative of our food system. Food chain workers and Indigenous land stewards deserve dignity and justice. There are a myriad of solutions and a collective of folks building those out—whether they are fighting for fair wages and safe working conditions, the rematriation and sovereignty of Indigenous lands or shifting power and access to land as is proposed through the Justice for Black Farmers Act.
I’m on this journey of learning and action, connecting our work with the broader food system. What solutions are you seeing? Whose work would you like to uplift? Will you join me?