This week on Nourish by MN350, volunteer host Rory Coleman discusses the Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill with fellow Food Systems volunteer and author of the bill, Marita Bujold. They are joined by MN350’s very own Sam Grant, who discusses MN350’s campaign to support the bill, as well as MN350’s mission to address climate justice in the food system, transportation and divestment from fossil fuels. The Headwaters Bill is a visionary piece of legislation that will create and maintain a decentralized food web economy across the state: a source-to-table model that's actually designed to meet the demands of food, water and climate. This wide-ranging conversation explains the many ways in which the publicly-funded industrial food system fails our communities - extractive of the earth, and destroying the health of ecosystems and communities - especially communities of color. Marita and Sam offer examples of North Minneapolis community members and organizations whose work has shifted food policy, and given people access to land and healthy food. Together, they put forth a vision in which, through investment in rural and urban communities, it is possible to create a food system that can sequester carbon as well as a point of connection and healing across Minnesotan communities.
Organizations Mentioned in this episode
North Minneapolis Farmers Market
Homegrown Minneapolis Food Council
Full episode transcript available here.
This week on Nourish by MN350, volunteer host Rory Coleman discusses the Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill with fellow Food Systems volunteer and author of the bill, Marita Bujold. They are joined by MN350’s very own Sam Grant, who discusses MN350’s campaign to support the bill, as well as MN350’s mission to address climate justice in the food system, transportation and divestment from fossil fuels. The Headwaters Bill is a visionary piece of legislation that will create and maintain a decentralized food web economy across the state: a source-to-table model that's actually designed to meet the demands of food, water and climate. This wide-ranging conversation explains the many ways in which the publicly-funded industrial food system fails our communities - extractive of the earth, and destroying the health of ecosystems and communities - especially communities of color. Marita and Sam offer examples of North Minneapolis community members and organizations whose work has shifted food policy, and given people access to land and healthy food. Together, they put forth a vision in which, through investment in rural and urban communities, it is possible to create a food system that can sequester carbon as well as a point of connection and healing across Minnesotan communities.
Organizations Mentioned in this episode
North Minneapolis Farmers Market
Homegrown Minneapolis Food Council
Full episode transcript available here.
The Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill
Tuesday, January 26th, 2021
Rory Coleman 5:42
Hello and welcome to Nourish by MN350! I’m your host, Rory Coleman, and we are coming to you from the original homeland of the Dakota and Anishinaabe peoples, or what is now known as Minnesota. In this episode, we're going to be talking to Marita Bujold and Sam Grant about the Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill, and how it will help us create a successful, sustainable, and just food economy. So, welcome to our guests. Marina Bujold is an artist, community activist, founder of the Just Food and Water Initiative, and author of the Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill, which would establish a framework for an inclusive and resilient food economy in the face of climate change. We're gonna be hearing a lot more about that in this episode. Welcome, Marita. Thanks for coming. Thank you.
Marita Bujold 6:29
Glad to be here.
Rory Coleman 6:32
Sam Grant is a longtime Minnesota educator and social justice organizer. He's got a passion for agroecology and food systems that in his own words, quote, ”keep us in right relationship with the earth”. And he's also our current Executive Director here at MN350. Thanks so much for taking the time, Sam.
Sam Grant 6:50
Thank you, Rory. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Marita. I’m very happy to be in circle with you.
Rory Coleman 6:55
Yeah, I think this is going to be a really great conversation.
So before we kind of jump in more to talking a little bit about the Headwaters Bill, the focus of our episode, I'd like to ask you guys to talk a little bit more about yourselves. So Sam, do you have anything to add about how you got into this work? What your vision is for MN350?
Sam Grant 7:19
Well, in very general terms, I was raised in a social movement family. And so while I thought I was gonna go to college, to become a medical doctor, because I think a lot of families from BIPOC communities, their parents want the kids to do better and have great economic stability. And when I went to college, I realized that being a medical doctor didn't fit my soul. And I had to find a different way to be of service to the planet. And so because I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Linus Pauling, who had done this great work on trying to find natural solutions for cancer. So I'm finding natural solutions for the human cancers of racism, hetero-patriarchy, and predatory capitalism. So that's my life's mission is to solve those three puzzles, simple, simple work, should be done.
Rory Coleman 8:16
I hope you do finish up by tomorrow, that'd be really great. If we could just get those out of the way. That's great. Marita, could you tell us a little bit more about yourself? Is there anything I forgot to mention? Maybe you could tell us a little bit about how you got into writing this bill and writing policy and working with MN50. Um,
Marita Bujold 8:42
So I think I came to activism, kind of naturally, but not necessarily intentionally. So, you know, actually writing this bill was a consequence of the study that I did for Arts in leadership. Because in that study of the global food economy, what one discovers is that our current food economy is determined really by the Farm Bill from the United States. And once you realize what that Farm Bill affects - the changes that make to our landscapes across the world, the decisions that are being made which affect communities, really, in every part of the world - the only conclusion that you can draw from that is that we need a different Farm Bill. Because those effects are the following: food and water scarcity, extraction of natural systems, water, forests, depletion of soils, loss of communities that actually know how to grow food, all of the incredible biodiversity that actually helps feed our communities. All of these things are affected by the policies and the trade deals that are made with the Farm Bill. And, and this isn't a conclusion that I drew, my only just me. Lots of people could see that. So if that's the conclusion you draw, then your question for all of us is, why don't we have a Farm Bill or something similar that actually helps us have the food economy that will sustain life, and also help us be the stewards that we need to be? Once I decided that we needed that I thought, well, based on the research, I'll write something that really would help us, and started to talk to people about that bill that I wrote. Once I started having those conversations, I happened to meet other activists, who then directed me, eventually to North Minneapolis, and the activists that are operating in that landscape. It's so important that we actually listen to the leaders on the ground in our local communities. It's really important that we hear those voices especially when they are saying look: there are needs here that are not being met. Our communities don't thrive because, you know, where the investments to make sure that we actually have access to healthy food? How can this really be a driver for our own community's economic health and well being as well? Leadership for that was already happening in many places. And it's so important that we listen to these voices. One of the key ones was Roxanne O'Brian. And Roxanne's work was not in food, but in fighting against an industry that's operating right there in North Minneapolis. But the work that she was doing was much more than simply opposing a polluting industry, it was also about creating conditions in her community that would make it possible for people in that community to thrive, to have the tools that they needed to be healthy, and thrive. And that work that she was doing with many different community members really was about saying, “Enough. We have a voice, and we know what we need. We need this place to be a place we can live and thrive.” And it was Roxanne, who said let's get representative Fue Lee on board for this. And he represents North Minneapolis. But, you know, it was supported by other people who were already working in their local community there to create a healthy food system, Michael Chaney, and Catherine Fleming from Project Sweetie Pie. And folks at Appetite for Change. And they're just lots and lots of different people who are already very working very hard to make sure that the whole community had a food system that worked, and that this was a key part of creating an overall economy in North Minneapolis that would help their community to thrive.
You know, there are lots of different pieces to the story of how this came about. But that critical moment of somebody saying yes to it, in North Minneapolis, made the difference.
I mean, it was a lot about really finding somebody who was wanting to take this on. That's why having Sam take a leadership role at MN350 is so critical because of his own background and food. And you know, food justice is really key.
Rory Coleman 11:00
Right? That's awesome. Well, let's talk about injustices and creating a more sustainable future, maybe let's zoom out for a second because you know, we have the opportunity of having Sam here with us. And maybe we could talk a little bit before we dive into the food systems team and the Headwaters Bill; talk about MN350. What the mission is. What the vision is. And then maybe we can talk a little bit about how that relates to headwaters into food systems.
Sam Grant 11:33
So MN350 emerged, following a 10 10 10 event that Bill McKibben and 350.org had organized. And so A lot of folks in the Twin Cities region kind of mobilized and did actions that day. And so very quickly, MN350 from that event emerged in 2011. And it recognized at the start, that there were two very critical things to do. One was a fight for divestment from fossil fuels. And two was an active campaign against any continuation of fossil fuel infrastructure in Minnesota. So the demands of the climate justice movement, keep the grass Keep the gas in the grass. Keep the oil in the soil and the coal in the hole was kind of like a mandate at the beginning of MN350 in honor of what social movements all over the planet were saying were critical necessities for a convivial future for all relatives of all species on Mother Earth. And so over time, we evolved from focusing on divestment and stopping line three, to this broader campaign of building a more robust approach of looking at this holistically and thinking about many different aspects of climate change. And since we say, the climate justice movement is a movement of movements, through which all other movements come together, And MN350 decided well, we should be responsive to all of the different challenges that are up for people in Minnesota and connect them all to these core fights in divestment, stopping line three, and then promoting solutions. So we have active work going on on 100% electrification, of action going on on clean cars and clean public transit, active campaigns going on on a climate majority which is trying to move a to a future in Minnesota in which you don't get to be a legislator in Minnesota unless you follow the science and fight hard for the well being of planet and people. To be a legislator and not fight hard for those two things ought to be impossible. And yet, we've made it too easy for people to get into office and defend the destruction of the earth and well being of people. Beyond ludicrous. It's a structural violation for those stopping those things is part of our work. I got into the food systems work because I came to MN350 with a passion for agro-ecology. I've been working on sustainable agriculture and agroecology since 1985. And I wanted us to invest more energy in what I think are the most critical avenues for solutions to climate change. So I'm excited. Right now our industrial agriculture system is a massive contributor to climate change. I think agroecology and bottom-up solutions, delivered democratically, and ecologically through people, is one of the most beautiful ways to love the earth, love ourselves, and nourish our bodies and futures with healthy food and healthy relations. So when I came in and had the chance to meet Sarah, and Sarah said, we need to have some policy framework that helps us really deliver on this vision. I said we got to meet Marita. And so here we go.
Rory Coleman 14:44
Right. That's a great segway. So Marita, how about you tell us a little bit more about the headwaters bill about what you hope it'll do
Marita Bujold 14:58
Oh, With the Headwaters Bill we'll create and maintain a food web economy across the state that is decentralized; a source-to-table model that's actually designed to meet the demands of food, water, and climate. So the key thing here is that it is a design or a specific purpose. And the ultimate goal really is health and well-being for our communities, economically, and ecologically, with a legacy that we can actually count on for future generations. And right now, we have no infrastructure to support any kind of local system that helps us actually have healthy ecosystems and healthy communities. This bill provides that infrastructure, with all the things that we need to make sure that we can build our capacity to actually do this task, as well as maintain it. And in doing so, continue to do that ongoing research that has been part of indigenous food systems for thousands of years. Where they, essentially, everything that they ever developed in all systems around the world, really remains food security, you know, essential to our food security today. All of those tools, all those seeds, all those plants, all that understanding, that they generated, is still critical to our food security. So this bill, and the program that it creates, is modeled after that understanding. And we need to be able to do that and need to have the tools to be able to do it. And finally, I will just say that, really, the key thing here is that this is about bringing communities together to be able to do this. So food and food security, food sovereignty, and all the diversity in our communities, that we need to actually have everyone be able to participate and benefit from a food that actually brings us together across urban and rural spaces, across generations. And, really invites in the diversity of cultures and understanding that we need in order to do this well.
Rory Coleman 17:34
You mentioned infrastructure, what you think is lacking? Could you talk a little bit about what you mean, when you talk about infrastructure for something like a food system? And maybe what we have now, and why it's not good enough.
Marita Bujold 17:49
So right now we actually have a public-funded industrial food chain. And that is a system that is designed for the industry to be able to work, right. So it has the infrastructure, that's the public funds from our public Treasury, the policy that comes from the Farm Bill, and combined with trade deals that allow that system to be effective. So that commodity system that's been created has all that infrastructure in place. That powerful combination of policy, public money, and trade deals. And then all those pieces together, drive and fuel the success of this system. Now, if we actually fund it, if we actually had the policies in place to create the local food system that we need that, as Sam talks about, really respects and understands the importance of our natural systems that help sustain our lives, we could in fact, have a long term successful system. In fact, there's plenty of research to show that once it is funded, once it is really recognized, we could remove the greenhouse gases, 90% of them, by really investing in a system like this. So the bill provides the technical and financial resources to create the system that will deliver. And what we know is that the current system does deliver, but all the wrong outcomes. A by-product of the industrial system is that wherever crops are grown with fertilizers that are contaminants, you have contaminated water. That's just a byproduct of it. It's extractive economically. So we are extracting water at a rate that is unsustainable from our underground aquifers. Many of them around the world are distressed, some of them will be gone in just a few decades. None of this system is sustainable. And it's also not actually providing nourishing food for our communities.
Rory Coleman 20:27
I want to circle back to something you said earlier, you mentioned about how all about bringing communities together. And I think you've given a good framework for why the funding is important; why that sustains the system that we have now. But it seems like there's also work that has to be done, outside of, legislative processes to actually do that community-building work. Sam, I want to ask you about what that work looks like, and how we make sure that works together with the legislative process of the Headwaters Bill; to make sure that there's actually community support, and that this is community engagement, and that this is serving the people that we needed to serve.
Sam Grant 21:18
So I want to speak about this from the context of structural racism, and the intersectionality of food injustice and racial injustice. So we just think about North Minneapolis, the community where I first met Marita, because she was actually doing something far more ambitious. She wanted hospice, the Federal food bill, and replaced it with a bottom-up food bill for the entire country. And it just so happened that because of the organizing we were doing in North Minneapolis at the time, I think it was Roxanne O'Brien, who talked to her and said Well, we could work with you and connect you to Lee, our representative. And we could just do that right here, while you work on the long term campaign to change the whole federal policy framework. And so thank you, Roxanne O'Brien, thank you, residents, in North Minneapolis for providing hospitality to Marita’s vision and providing an anchor for it to grow and blossom and provide this opportunity MN350 to now connect and then further strengthen this ripple ecology. So in North Minneapolis, we have a community that, according to federal standards, is considered both a food desert and a food swamp. People in North Minneapolis are opposed to pathological descriptions of their community. It's a community full of amazing people who have a lot of different talents and capacities to contribute to nourishing healthy food systems and healthy living ecosystems. So residents in North Minneapolis began coming together in 2008. After a food assessment was done, which demonstrated we don't have access to healthy fresh food in the neighborhood. What are we going to do about it? Two years later, Northside Fresh emerged in North Minneapolis now anchored by Appetite for Change. Appetite for Change was founded by three women, two of whom were African American leaders in the community. One of them, the mother of a young man, who on a walking tour was walking down Broadway Boulevard and were counting all of the establishments where you can get trans fat and cholesterol, and the number where you can get healthy food. Healthy food was 0. The bad food was 35. And so the son who was 16 years old at the time says, You know what, we're spending a lot of our energy complaining about what's wrong, I think we ought to just say what we need. And what we need is to have our own healthy food establishment right here in the neighborhood. And nobody can stop us from doing those things. If we choose to be creative, we can create that commitment from the son, encourage the mom to make a commitment to push for it. And that led to the development of Breaking Bread Cafe, which was an amazing anchor for both great healthy culinary cuisine, run by people within the community, a social enterprise to train people in getting involved in healthy food enterprises, and then a social meeting place, a lubricant for the social and political capital of the neighborhood. Amazing on many, many levels. Numerous farmers who had begun growing food in the community in 2011 sold produce to two Breaking Bread Cafes. One of those folks involved in that early work who was actually the co-creator for a brief period of time with Northside Fresh along with me, Yvonne Nolan, has been coordinating and anchoring the North Minneapolis farmers market on Broadway. I think since about 2013-2014 she's been anchoring that farmers market. So there's a lot of infrastructures that has developed within North Minneapolis led by people within the community. They're working against a number of constraints. One constraint is in the city of Minneapolis, which has a homegrown Council, which says local food production in urban environments is the highest and best use of urban land. And yet, people who want to grow food in North Minneapolis have to take out a lease on an annual basis to get access to land to grow food. And that's ludicrous. If you want to build the soil, so you can have healthy produce, you have to have a long term agreement. The city needs to change its policy. So anybody in the city, Minneapolis, is listening, please go ahead and do that tomorrow. So we can move to the next level of this work. Please just go on and get that done. And whoops, congratulations, let us thank you, instead of calling you and harassing you, you don't want to, we want to say thank you. That's all we ever want to say. So please just get that done. We need that done yesterday. In addition to that, there's a long history.
Because of racism in this country, which is violent on so many levels, it's unbelievable. When a grower of color decides they want to get their food featured in a local market. The strenuous effort they have to take up to get access to a local market is beyond belief. Even when a market vendor wants to do the right thing and wants to include them, the way the infrastructure is set up. It's set up in a way that privileges existing privileges. So I got several black farmers who got trained up in permaculture and agroecology to go to some of our local coops and say, Hey, we're growing food, we'd like you to begin to feature our products in all the clubs that we love to we've got a waiting list of three years. So get on our waiting list. How is that going to help me get a sustainable enterprise going right now? It's not. So there's something about the way that our market works against the community that we have to heal. So, Rory, I'll close by going back to the question you were asking about communities up. I really believe it's critical for us to think about how can we begin to have relationships within and across communities where we say, as Earthlings, we're committed to living our lives in a way that nourishes the earth, nourishes all human beings and co-create a healthy future, we can do this in part by changing our relationships with each other through the food system. So if I have access to land, and you have access to money in your pocket, we form an exchange relationship through a community-supported agriculture strategy, so that people who live in communities are directly supporting farmers and communities. And I think these direct democratic associations of producers and consumers around food, energy, water around electricity, are all things that we can do and must do as part of the strategy of demonstrating our level of responsibility as democratic Earthlings to a healthy future. Mm-hmm.
Rory Coleman 28:05
That's great. Well, see, I'm not sure what to do here, because I have more places to go. But if we're taking a break in just two minutes, you know, we can hopefully get this out. I don't, I don't want to get us started on a long thought train and then have to cut us off in the middle. So should we get a break early list of infrastructure? All right. Let's see, if you want to go to break early. You can? No, no, if you got something you can fit in before the break, I would, that'd be perfect.
Sam Grant 28:32
All right. So, Marita, we're going to trade-off here. It's like in jazz music, you do trading, I'm going to name a few things we need in terms of infrastructure, then I'm going to put my hands up, and then it's your turn. And then you can say a few things to put your hands up, then it's my turn again. So among the infrastructures that we need is one consciousness of people that we have the opportunity as Earthlings to reclaim our relationship with food. Number two, we have a lot of people with historic knowledge from their family backgrounds, about growing food wealth, and they don't have access to land to grow food well. So we need people who have control over land, to give up that control but land back into the commons and allow communities to have direct democratic control of their land base so that people can determine where within community landscapes, they want to do food production. And if we do those two things, and then three, we also train up a whole lot of people in becoming more healthy in their foodways with plant rich diets. And number four, we also help people become more effective practitioners of soil health and healthy food production. Those are things that get us on the way.
Marita Bujold 29:39
So there are a number of practical things that the headwaters bill would do that would support those very things. And because the land, of course, is key. If you don't have access to land, you're not going to be cultivating food. Also, we need to make sure that the resources are there so that anybody who actually wants to To participate in a food web economy has resources, whether they're doing that cultivation, or whether they are actually in a community kitchen in our neighborhoods, preparing that food, preserving that food, making sure that we're harvesting whatever is being cultivated, wherever that is, there are resources in the bill to make sure that all of those things can happen. We're talking about a food system that actually is effective at eliminating waste while making sure it generates all that we need to bring into our communities in the spaces where we actually live and eat and care about each other. And in addition, because if you're not hearing this, that means employment, not simply having somebody do that as a volunteer. So this is going to be common, essentially, economy, work, people are employed to make sure that from source to table, every part of the system works really effectively. And as pointed out, it has to be inclusive, it has to open the doors to people who, as North Minneapolis has been trying to do now these many years, actually create a system that works for the communities that have been excluded. And make sure that we capture the knowledge that they have generated over a long period of time, or revive that knowledge. There are just so many amazing foods that are actually linked to cultures. And many of those have been lost along the way. Or they're in such small, you know, so few people know them anymore, because we've been pushed into that industrial system and dependence on it. We need to revive those two. I hope that answers the question.
Rory Coleman 32:03
That's great. That's great. All right. Well, I think it's a good place to stop for a minute, we're just gonna take a brief station break, and we will be back very soon. Awesome.
Rory Coleman 34:53
So welcome back, everybody. Just a reminder, this is the Nourish podcasts from MN 350. And we are speaking today with M DS, Executive Director, Sam Grant, and activist and artist Rita Bujold. and author of the headwaters community food and water bill, about that bill. So in the last segment, we talked a lot about community building about what's kind of wrong right now with our current system and the way that it's built to hold us back from developing a more just regenerated food system. I think I'd like to jump in and talk first about the last segment about, you know, the Minneapolis kind of regulations that state that, you know, urban growing, farming is actually like priority number one for land use. But in actuality, the system is not set up to make that the truth. How do we make sure Marita with this legislation, that it actually helps the people in the communities that are most in need, communities with food deserts? communities are? How do we make sure that the legislation actually acts in the way we need it to, and doesn't become another one of these rules and regulations that was maybe made with the best of intentions, but doesn't actually work out that way?
Marita Bujold 36:34
So, really, this is about systemic change. This bill is written to acknowledge that, first of all, there's no common understanding of our food economy as it is today. Everywhere I went, talking with elected officials, at every level of government, right down to city councils, and neighborhood councils, up to the highest level, we don't have a common understanding of where we are now. Nor do we have an understanding of what is possible, what we could do if we actually invested in creating a system that is just resilient, locally adapted, and inclusive, so truly designed for everybody to participate and benefit. You know, if you stop and think about it, it's not really a strange notion that everyone would have access to food, everyone would be able to be healthy, that that we would be communities defined by our well being in our health, instead of by the kind of disparities that we experienced now, in every part of our economy. So this bill really is written so that the financial resources and technological resources would be provided in every space in every community, so that it will bridge communities between urban and rural, to a common purpose. wherever you live, you can become part of this web economy and be truly connected economically, you know, very much economically, as if you know, this is the house we're going to build together, right? Where the economy comes from. The Greek for that comes from that idea of our home. So it goes beyond just how are we sourcing our food? How are we preparing it? It becomes that thing that connects us to a common purpose that we have to create healthy ecosystems in order to live healthy lives. And that we have to rely on doing that work overtime, handing on that legacy, over time, teaching our children about this so that it's the full culture that embraces this idea. And it is embedded in our communities. There are actually resources in this specifically to create what I've been calling Sister cities, sister counties within our state could be across our region, even where the neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul, for instance, are connected specifically to another county where we have farms that have been established, that can bring food into our local communities are preserved care that a cook here and we're sending young people who have learned in their communities here, out into those rural spaces, to revive those spaces as well. Well, to start that exchange that helps us be fully connected to a food economy and ecology, you know, ecosystems that are healthy, where we're all working towards the same purpose. Mm hmm.
Rory Coleman 0:00
Sam, I'm curious to ask you because, uh, you know, you're a community organizer it seems to me is really around bringing people together into communities and kind of coalition building, but also really focused on this kind of local. What are local needs? What is local knowledge and bringing that out? What does it look like to imagine a future that is, is, and work for a future? That is both kinds of hyperlocal people are focused on their communities, but also trying to connect people with, you know, others who are maybe far from where they live, you know, connecting somebody who lives in North Minneapolis with somebody who lives way up in northern Minnesota and gets them working together in one movement. One vision?
Sam Grant 0:58
Yeah, so I'm more of a pluralist in terms of vision, I'm not really sure we'll ever land on one common vision holistically with a very high level of coherence, you believe in interculturalism. And I really do believe that if we ask people this question in your local region, what's hurting folks the most. And as you think about what's hurting folks in your region the most and you less Listen to me share stories about what's hurting me the most in my region. If we compare notes, we might see some patterns in common. One of the patterns in common is that whether you are a farmer in southeast Minnesota, or a single mother, in a poor community of concentrated poverty in the Twin Cities metro, you might find that you're both losing in the current industrial food system. And you've been conditioned to point the finger at each other. All those farmers have created a hijacked system that benefits them but hurt us and the farmer. We're not getting any benefits, right? Money, the whole point of your finger at me.
You know, it's you guys all who are, you know, acting dependent on, you know, the welfare system that's really wrecking our economy and rural economies, because there's this drain of all the money going into the urban bias. And the mom, who's the single parent in the inner city says, Well, I'm not on welfare, because that's been chopped down to a point of being completely irrelevant in terms of having a quality life at all. In reality, I work 16 hours a day. So I might work more hours. And farmers who work 12 to 14 hours a day I'm doing 16, buddy, I gotcha. So you have this illusion that we're not working just as hard as you were working just as hard or harder. We have more in common and devices, what would it look like for us to cancel the urban bias? No, you know, the rest of Minnesota. In order for that to happen? There has to be a change of hospitality. Right now, if I talk to folks in bipoc communities about whether they're open to realizing Minnesota, a lot of people say no, I've gone out there before and I never felt well. So I am hoping that some folks who are leading in rural Minnesota are listening, and they want to say out loud, I'm not okay with that reality, I want to be part of the solution for that I really think that we have to heal our relationship with the land and heal our relations with each other. And I think a healthy generative process from the bottom up around food provides us with an avenue to do that. So if you look at Southeast Minnesota, there's a number of cancer clusters rising up. So we're wrecking the groundwater. And we're polluting the groundwater with you know, nitrogen, phosphorus with all of these harsh chemicals. People are using fly phosphate and everything else on the land. And the farmers who are growing the food under this hijacked industrial food system that's taking away the health of their bodies, their communities, and the land simultaneously. They have an amazing opportunity to be a critical resource for healing our relations. As those farmers at all scales begin that journey. Some farmers are realizing my kids have watched me break my back on the land and they don't want to break their back on the land. So we have a whole lot of land it's about to become available. We don't have enough people who want to keep that land under healthy production, ready to move out to the rural countryside because of the hospitality we generated around who is part of those local living cultures. I want us to affirm a more common vision of the future of Minnesota. It says our demography in Minnesota is changing. We don't want all of the people of color who are becoming a majority in Minnesota over the next several decades to be trapped in impoverished inner-city communities. We actually want them to have access to opportunities to be vital contributing members in communities across the whole state. They revitalize local Commercial strips that revitalize local living cultures and their kids become important ambassadors for the future of regions. we all win when we all honor and celebrate each other. As we honor and celebrate ourselves. I think the future we have to fight for in Minnesota is a future of health and regenerative human relationships. And I think food which we all have to have every day of our lives to live good lives, provides us with a critical resource to do that agriculture right now contributes 30% or more to greenhouse gas emissions. A reader talked at the beginning about Vandana Shiva who's also a person I'm a great fan of Montana Chivas analysis actually says the food system is contributing about 47% to greenhouse gas emissions when you look at it more holistically. So right now, it's contributing enormously to the problem. If we all recognize that in the next 10 years between 2020 and 2030, we have to heal our relationship with the food system, and recognize that if we do that, we can have food be a net sequester of carbon instead of a net source of carbon. So we want it to sink carbon, instead of sending carbon up to the atmosphere. There are ways to do that. There's some complexity in the science of that. The food system team has some great agroecology scientists on our team. We're about to bring in a couple more. We're really, really rocking on the science and we invite everybody else in Minnesota to follow Sarah Riedl is absolutely amazing hospitality as the leader of our food systems teams, come join us in a meeting and find out how you could actually participate in this evolutionary process of finding a way to love the land, love your own body and love each other towards a healthy future. fighting climate change can actually be fun. If we work together democratically and interculturally. It does not have to be depressing. We're letting depressing solutions exist, we just have to be solutioners instead of complainers.
Marita Bujold 7:00
If I can follow up on some of the wonderful things that Sam just said, If you asked me really about how this bill would benefit rural spaces, and actually, research shows that if we invested in our rural communities, and we have been diving in rural communities in so many ways in this country. And they're talking about the research shows that worldwide if we did invest in real faces, and allow communities to actually restore healthy ecosystems, and cultivate their food in a way that is building health, rather than, as Sam alluded to, creating pollution, destroying the health of the people and the ecosystem itself, we could capture as much as 90% of the greenhouse gases that are emitted. Sorry, I have a bird clock. This is what happens when you record at home, my dad. That's why it's still on the wall. Anyway, um, so you know, the, if we really look at our rural spaces, there are some wonderful things that are happening, where people are actually looking at how to come more sustainable, how do we, how do we generate the kind of communities that you really want to live in and make sure that their economies are designed to create health and well being? We're hoping we will be doing a broadcast soon about the Finland food chain, if you haven't heard about them, check them out on the web. They are creating a system there, which really looks at how do you have a local food system that benefits your community where the dollar circulates in that community? Because you are from source to table, we've created a system that works. And it's built out of the idea that this is true, possible because they look back into history and said, You know this happened before you lost track of it. sidetrack by these other things, and by these investments and dependence on an industrial system. Yeah. Well, they're not the only example in Minnesota, but they're one to look at.
Rory Colman 9:39
Well, that's a great reminder that you know, these things we know they're doable because we used to do them and we just got to get back to that knowledge. We're going to take a real brief break, and then we will be right back. All right.
Rory Colman 10:26
Should we get back into it? Go for it. All right. Welcome back, everybody. This has been Nourish podcast by MN 350. And we're just finishing up our conversation here with Sam Grant and Merida Bujold, about MN350s work and the headwaters bill, talking about a really positive inspiring vision for what our food system could be. what that would mean for our relationships with each other with the planet. And with the food we eat, which everybody really loves. So just got a couple of minutes left here, I just want to ask what can if our listeners are feeling revved up like I am by this conversation and really want to help out what can they do to help out with them and 350 with the food system, CMS specifically with the headwaters bill, asked Marita first and then give you a chance?
Marita 11:22
Well, really, the reason this bill is going to go anywhere is because MN350, creating a campaign to pass this bill, the first thing that anybody can do, in hearing this can say, Well, I'm going to pledge my support for it. And mn 350 has a website, you can find the bill there and you can sign up to support it. And then you can tell all your friends and neighbors, your colleagues at work, everyone to pledge their support. So that was one thing. Now if you're somebody who wants to get involved, as Sam mentioned earlier, MN350 has a food systems team. They have a podcast team that's helping with this. There's a number of ways in which you can get involved. And there's if you check the website, then you can figure out a way to put your energy and your actions into those supporting it. Great.
Rory Colman 12:28
Sam, do you have any other ideas about how our listeners could get involved with the food systems team?
Sam Grant 12:37
I want to honor the way that Merita just expressed it as energy. And I want to honor Sarah Riedl, who once she found out about the headwaters bill because she had said Our team has looked and we haven't found any policy that really resonates with us at a deep place. That gives us a way to go forward. But once Sarah saw that this bill actually gave her what she was dreaming, we would figure it out down the road, she said you know what I want us to concentrate our energy on this. So she's the one who said, let's make this our priority to work with Marina to concentrate our energy on this specific bill. And she got all of the people on the food system team under her leadership. And then also the great animating work by Lisa Chu, who is the welcomer for our food systems team has really built up a powerful team that is flooding Marita with energy to support her in fighting for this bill. So if you think about what Einstein said about energy equals mass times a constant squared, Marita, and Sarah, along with the food systems team have provided that demo of democratizing energy. And so I want to encourage the rest of the people in Minnesota to consider how are you investing your democratic energy in a way that nourishes the health of the land, and people simultaneously? I think if you begin to do food justice, food sovereignty and food systems work, you'll notice there are opportunities for you to make an amazing contribution that's delicious to your own body. Also delicious to your spirit. So once you go inside your spirit and check it out, you're gonna say why didn't I think of that yesterday, I'm in, I'm in, I'm coming. I'm here. So go on our website, you'll find a lot of opportunities to plug in the food system team meets every other Thursday there on the website. Once you have a chance to get the infectious taste of Sarah's intoxicating leadership, you're not going to want to leave the team. Come on in, check it out. And I guarantee you're going to stick because it's a good home for everybody who is dreaming of a way to move health forward on the planet.
Unknown Speaker 14:36
And I can concur with that and they the people that are already there are talented and energetic and bring lots of skills so you'll be in good company.
Rory Colman 14:47
Right on. Yeah. Hopefully, after this great conversation, our listeners will feel inspired to join us soon if they haven’t already. Thank you again to our great guests for this episode. Among many other things, Sam Grant is the Executive Director of MN350 and Marita Bujold is the author of the Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill.