Our current food system is embedded with challenges to our social justice and equity, ecological sustainability, health and economic security. This is evident in every part of our food system, from agricultural production to distribution to food access. Our workshop session will look at how we bring diverse food system actors together for a collective action approach to change the food system. We'll see how food systems change work happens locally, nationally and even internationally, with a grounding in racial and gender justice to ensure that we are moving towards an equitable food system where everyone can thrive.
Track and Session Info
Track:
Equity, Social Justice, Food Sovereignty
Session:
F | 3:30 pm
Date and Location
Date:
Wed, Sep 25, 2019
Day:
Friday
Presenter(s):
Dr. Samir K. Doshi
Title:
Dr. Samir K. Doshi
Presenter Affiliation:
San Mateo Food System Alliance, Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF)
Bio:
Samir K. Doshi, Ph.D. is the Network Manager for the San Mateo Food System Alliance, which seeks to improve the vibrant and interdependent food system to be more environmentally sustainable, economically resilient and socially just across the county's urban and rural regions. Samir is also a Race and Technology Fellow at Stanford University's Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society, where he is researching the impact of digital technologies and the AgTech field on farm labor and farming communities. Prior to his current work, Samir has served in senior roles at the World Wildlife Fund and in the Obama Administration on the White House Task Force for the Ebola Response as well as a Senior Scientist for the USAID’s Global Development Lab, where he oversaw programming on data for decision making, agile development, and community feedback/accountability systems for humanitarian and emergency response. As a trained Systems Ecologist specializing in soil systems, Samir is a former Fulbright Senior Scholar and has held teaching and research appointments at the University of Cambridge, Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and the Santa Fe Institute for Complex Systems.
Kristyn Leach
Title:
Kristyn Leach
Presenter Affiliation:
Namu Farm
Bio:
Kristyn Leach runs the organic Namu Farm in partnership with the restaurant Namu Gaji in San Francisco, owned by three brothers with a Korean background. Since 2012, Leach has grown vegetables and herbs, particularly heirloom Korean produce, for the neighborhood bistro. An avid seed saver, Leach practices traditional peasant farming methods popular in her birth place. She began Namu Farm at the Sunol AgPark, home to small-scale farmers growing crops on the urban fringe. In 2018, Leach moved her operation to Winters. Her Second Generation seed line is a collaboration with Kitazawa Seed Company, a 103 year old business based in Oakland. She is a member of the Asian American Farmers Alliance and active in community efforts to empower farmers of color.
Dr. Rupa Marya
Title:
Dr. Rupa Marya
Presenter Affiliation:
Do No Harm Coalition, UCSF
Bio:
Rupa Marya, M.D. is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and the Faculty Director of the Do No Harm Coalition, a 450+ member strong group of health workers and students dedicated to ending racism and state violence. At the invitation of Lakota health leaders, she is currently helping to set up the Mni Wiconi Health Clinic and Farm at Standing Rock in order to decolonize medicine and food. She has been the composer and front-woman for the international touring group Rupa & the April Fishes, a project that uses music as a way to explore the intersection of society and disease, now acutely felt with climate change. Her music, sung in 5 languages stitching together musical idioms from around the world, was described by the late Gil Scott Heron as “Liberation Music.” Her remarks on race in medicine have been seen by over 12 million people on NowThis. She was born to Punjabi parents in Ohlone Territory, now known as Mountain View, California and grew up between India, France and the US. When she married regenerative farmer Benjamin Fahrer and became a mother, her understanding of human health took a deep dive into ecology. She is currently writing a book with author Raj Patel, examining the impact of colonialism on the health of our bodies, the health of our societies and the health of the planet.
Dr. Vandana Shiva
Title:
Dr. Vandana Shiva
Presenter Affiliation:
Author, Scientist, Warrior, Mother
Bio:
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned scholar and tireless crusader for economic, food, and gender justice. Dr. Shiva was trained as a physicist, and later shifted her focus to interdisciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy. In 1982, she founded an independent institute, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology which was dedicated to high quality and independent research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times in close partnership with local communities and social movements. In 1991, she founded Navdanya, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seed, and to promote organic farming and fair trade. In 2004, in collaboration with Schumacher College, U.K., she started Bija Vidyapeeth (Earth University), an international college for sustainable living in the Doon Valley in Northern India. Time Magazine identified Dr. Shiva as an environmental “hero” in 2003 and Asia Week has called her one of the five most powerful communicators of Asia. Forbes magazine in November 2010 identified Dr. Vandana Shiva as one of the top Seven most Powerful Women on the Globe. Among her many awards are the Alternative Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Award, 1993), Order of the Golden Ark, the UN’s Global 500 Roll of Honour, and The MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity in 2016.
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