A group of high school and college-aged food activists recently gathered in Philadelphia for a national conference, Rooted in Community. Attendees met for four days of workshops, after which they crafted a document calling for "food justice" and healthier food production and delivery systems in the U.S.—the Youth Food Bill of Rights, which was unveiled during a protest on Independence Mall.
The preamble to the bill states: "We the youth, declare, state, and demand the following rights for people around the world with an emphasis on equality. We demand healthy, organic, local, human, affordable, sustainable, and culturally appropriate food for all people and especially low-income people of color, and low-income people in our communities, and low-income people that are the most oppressed and hurt by the current food system."
While I agree with many of the goals of the document, there was irony in the time and place of the food activists' gathering. Just a few days earlier, an Inquirer article, "West Philly grocer struggles as eating habits are slow to change," profiled the plight of a family-owned, neighborhood produce market struggling to survive in the face of local indifference. "I always dreamed of this as a black-owned business in a black neighborhood, employing young black people from the neighborhood and helping this West Philadelphia community that I've spent my whole life in," Arnett Woodall told the paper. He sunk his life savings into his store, West Phillie Produce, which opened in 2009. The store is now in danger of closing.
"Only a few people on this block support this store," Woodall told the paper. "It takes a long time to change people's eating habits. I'm only still open because of my construction and landscaping businesses."
The youth food activists might do well to give a thought to the plight of Arnett Woodall. No strategy for food justice should ignore the need for personal responsibility and educating individuals to make good choices for themselves and their children. No amount of food gatherings or proclamations will make much difference without it. While you can promote choice and access, you cannot legislate what people choose to put on their fork.
Those on the left tend to stress things that are done to people; those on the right, things people do to themselves. While, in my view, liberals do a better job of embracing the call for personal responsibility than conservatives do the call for human rights and universal justice, liberals could do a still better job of acknowledging, and factoring in, the critically important need for individuals to make smart choices. Including this in a manifesto like the Food Bill of Rights would make a lot more people take it seriously.
