I was reminded by this story today, BUSTED: Democrats Snuck $1 BILLION For ‘Racial Justice’ In Farming Section Of COVID Bill …of an email I wrote to the Michigan State University College of Agriculture & Natural Resources in September, 2020, about a seminar series titled Race, Food, & Land.
One suspects the CANR seminar owes something to this 2014 WKAR (MSU’s PBS station) short video on food security and sovereignty. WKAR’s presentation is very unassuming, including none of the Critical Theory espoused by, shall we say, more activist websites.
This link to the CANR seminar announcement is from the Wayback Machine, so it might load slowly. In any case, I have reproduced the relevant section at the end of this post.
The Race, Food, & Land seminar is an example of what oozes out of our Universities to become billion dollar CCP virus porkulus. Seems more in line with the Reparations demands than anything to do with the pandemic. But, never miss a chance to feign virtue for votes using other people’s money.
Anyway, here’s the letter:
RE: Race, Food, & Land Series- September 24th
The description of this seminar is confusing.
The idea that “Across the United States black farmers and black communities face major barriers related to farmland acquisition and achieving food sovereignty” may well be true, but “food sovereignty” here seems to be the idea that black people should only depend on other black people, in Michigan, so as to eat.
It occurred to me that I was misinterpreting the term “food sovereignty.” So, I looked it up. What I discovered is typified by complaints about colonialism, anti-capitalist screeds, appeals to climate change (a intersectionalist irrelevancy), and anti-GMO hysteria. Altogether, it seems to intend to promote the tragedy of the commons via a splintered collectivism.
I’m all for people making their own decisions, and being left to live with the consequences. This means, (contra ‘food sovereignty’) that eating is not a “right.” Eating without working has been proposed, even tried, but it does not seem to work out.
To be sure, colonialism was problematic. Certainly, neither the United States nor capitalism are perfect.
Still, emphasizing the past and complaining about the country and economic system that have raised more people into immense wealth relative to the days of the Raj is utopian folly.
Food sovereigntists blame both starvation and obesity on market based free trade, but I found no explanation, policy suggestion, or description of how their proposals solve this.
Food sovereignty may be well intentioned, but the implementation would prove far more oppressive than the current, hard won economic conditions we experience, while hurting the supposed present day “colonized” the most. “Food deserts” are to be converted into boycotts of non-POC farmers?
I’m unsure how the acquisition of farmland relates to the (emphasis mine) “past, present, and future projections of race relations in Detroit.” That is, I’m wondering what Detroit acreage “Black/African-American farmers in Detroit,” are unable to acquire. And how many of them have tried to purchase what I would have supposed to be non-existent for practical purposes.
I couldn’t help but think about the result for farming, and eating, in South Africa and Zimbabwe as a blacks only food sovereignty experiment your seminar may wish to examine.
Maybe a seminar on turning blocks and blocks of blighted Detroit real estate into arable land could be a topic for a future seminar series? That would at least make your current seminar relevant to its description.
As a supply chain issue, I get why local resources are important, though clearly we all also benefit greatly from global food supply. Leaving aside the fact that no Michiganders of whatever surface melanin content have local food sovereignty in the purchase of bananas or pineapples, I still can’t understand the racial focus this series advertises.
Why is it that a white man growing peaches near South Haven, or a brown man growing tomatoes in Florida, or a yellow man growing rice in California, can no longer be trusted as much as a black man growing apples near Benton Harbor to supply foodstuff to people whose color none of the trading partners know, or care, about?
Such a contention is just as racist as if I insisted that all watermelon and fried chicken eaten by blacks in Detroit be produced within 50 miles of the 8 Mile corridor. By black farmers.
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Seminar description from CANR:
Race, Food, & Land Series- September 24th
September 24, 2020 6:30PM – 8:30PMZoom Webinar
Contact: For more information, please contact —- —— at ——-@msu.edu or 517-nnn-nnnn.
Across the United States black farmers and black communities face major barriers related to farmland acquisition and achieving food sovereignty. These issues often go unseen and need to be discussed. MSU Extension and MSU Tollgate Farm will be facilitating a three-part lecture series to highlight the past, present, and future projections of race relations in Detroit and how race has impacted land acquisition and food sovereignty. Each session will consist of a team of MSU Extension facilitators joined by panelists from across the Detroit food systems landscape to share their lived and learned experiences. Registration fees, minus the cost of stipends for the panelists, will go toward initiatives that support the needs of Black/African-American farmers in Detroit…
September 24th, Envisioning the Future of Food and Farming in Detroit:
Articulate action items that can support the work of grassroots organizations within Detroit tackling the issues of food, land, and racial equity.
Envision what needs to change, grow, or “be weeded out” to bring forth food sovereignty in Detroit.