This week on Nourish by MN350 volunteer host and author of the Headwaters Community Food & Water Bill, Marita Bujold, welcomes LaChelle Cunningham and Erin Rupp for a conversation that reveals the connection between the essential labor of bees and the racially-just, resilient food economy we need to nurture health and well-being of all our communities.
LaChelle is a chef, educator, and the founder of the Healthy Roots Institute who began her culinary career by launching Chelle’s Kitchen in 2012 and soon after was recognized for her creativity and social justice work as the founding Executive Chef of the Breaking Bread Café in North Minneapolis. In 2018, LaChelle began building the Healthy Roots Institute with a mission to focus on healing and social justice through food education, culinary arts, and entrepreneurship.
Erin is an educator, beekeeper and founded Pollinate Minnesota in 2015 to connect community members of all ages to the science, policy and media story of pollinator decline. Throughout the conversation, a common thread emerges: the direct link between the health of pollinators and the health of our communities, and the crucial need to create a robust, just food economy designed to nurture and maintain that connection. This is the economy created by the Headwaters Community Food & Water Bill. MN350 Action is actively promoting this bill as a strategic climate solution.*
Listeners will not want to miss this compelling conversation with LaChelle and Erin-two remarkable leaders whose stories reveal invaluable insights that we need understand to create the just, resilient food economy we need to care for bees and people.
* MN350 Action is excited to announce that the House Select Committee on Racial Justice Report to the Legislature recommends supporting the economic resiliency program created by the Headwaters Community Food & Water Bill. (Environmental Justice. p.43)
Full episode transcript available here.
This week on Nourish by MN350 volunteer host and author of the Headwaters Community Food & Water Bill, Marita Bujold, welcomes LaChelle Cunningham and Erin Rupp for a conversation that reveals the connection between the essential labor of bees and the racially-just, resilient food economy we need to nurture health and well-being of all our communities.
LaChelle is a chef, educator, and the founder of the Healthy Roots Institute who began her culinary career by launching Chelle’s Kitchen in 2012 and soon after was recognized for her creativity and social justice work as the founding Executive Chef of the Breaking Bread Café in North Minneapolis. In 2018, LaChelle began building the Healthy Roots Institute with a mission to focus on healing and social justice through food education, culinary arts, and entrepreneurship.
Erin is an educator, beekeeper and founded Pollinate Minnesota in 2015 to connect community members of all ages to the science, policy and media story of pollinator decline. Throughout the conversation, a common thread emerges: the direct link between the health of pollinators and the health of our communities, and the crucial need to create a robust, just food economy designed to nurture and maintain that connection. This is the economy created by the Headwaters Community Food & Water Bill. MN350 Action is actively promoting this bill as a strategic climate solution.*
Listeners will not want to miss this compelling conversation with LaChelle and Erin-two remarkable leaders whose stories reveal invaluable insights that we need understand to create the just, resilient food economy we need to care for bees and people.
* MN350 Action is excited to announce that the House Select Committee on Racial Justice Report to the Legislature recommends supporting the economic resiliency program created by the Headwaters Community Food & Water Bill. (Environmental Justice. p.43)
Full episode transcript available here.
Marita Bujold 01:31
Hello. I'm your host today for Nourish. My name is Marita Bujold. We are fortunate to welcome two visionary leaders whose singular work is helping communities pursue a path forward for healing and well being. They are LaChelle Cunningham and Erin Rupp. LaChelle is a chef and educator and the founder of Healthy Roots Institute. She began her culinary career by launching Chelles’ Kitchen in 2012, and soon became known for her work as the founding executive chef of Breaking Bread Cafe in North Minneapolis. There she received many accolades for her food, creativity and social justice work. In 2018, LaChelle began building the Healthy Roots Institute with a mission focused on healing and social justice through food education, culinary arts and entrepreneurship. Chef LaChelle, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Our second guest is Erin Rupp. She's an educator and a beekeeper and founder of Pollinate Minnesota. Erin has been a beekeeper for the past 10 years. She founded Pollinate Minnesota in January of 2015 to connect students and teachers of all ages to live honey bees, and to the science policy and media story of pollinator decline. Welcome, Erin, thank you for being here.
Erin Rupp 03:11
Thank you so much for having me.
Marita Bujold 03:14
We wanted to invite the two of you to offer a platform to tell your stories, and then relate your work to the mission of MN350, in particular, the food systems team. So as our listeners may know, MN350 is actively advocating for a just, regenerative, and resilient food economy. We're confident that in sharing your experiences, our listeners will gain valuable insights about how that food economy would operate, and what's needed to make it successful. So let's get started. LaChelle, you created the Healthy Roots Institute. And on the website, it says “We work to build a food economy where there are flourishing food restaurants and businesses, especially run by African American entrepreneurs, that truly support the people behind them.” Could you tell us more about the food economy that you envision?
LaChelle Cunningham 04:22
Absolutely, I think that when it comes to the food economy, we're really talking about,food in the food system, and where food comes from and where it goes, but ultimately, who has the benefit in that situation? where does the power lie? And that has a lot to do with individual people being in power. So, a lot of the work that I do centers around educating people about food, and the business of food. And also thinking about how we can successfully run restaurants. As a chef and someone in the food industry that's what I think about. And here in Minnesota, the local food system, and food industry, there have been few African American-owned restaurants, especially in recent years. And it's been hard for people in my community to really be successful; the restaurant industry in general, is a hard business. It's hard for anyone really to be successful, especially now with COVID-19, which has impacted the industry in itself. And so because of the community I'm from, and the people that I work with, and seeing kind of the struggle of trying to be successful in this industry, that's really white male dominated, as far as who gets the accolades, and who gets the attention and exposure in the industry. There's a lot of stuff to unpack with that. I do a lot of consulting with businesses. I teach a food business class for food entrepreneurs. And it's very diverse, predominantly people of color. so I see the different challenges, it has to do with access to capital, and access in the economy, to really build, and there are a lot of barriers. Specifically, when I talk about my community, the African American community, there is a lot of trauma, historical trauma, which shows up and plays a role. We are trying to do business in a system that's really built on a lot of systemic racism, and different barriers to economic advancement. There are a lot of layers there. In the work that I do, it's around education, but there's a healing piece of that in the empowerment, and the ability to,take that education and then, as a business person or professional in the food industry, and incorporate that into your day to day life to make a difference in your life and ultimately, the community as a whole? That is really what I focus on—letting people know what the landscape is. This is a hard industry to go into, if you're gonna take this on you really have to be equipped with all of the business acumen and the resources but also like, the passion and the resilience and the gumption to take it on. Knowing that there's going to be a lot of barriers up against you. Because that's what the industry is, but also because of all of these other elements in society that make it difficult.
Marita Bujold 08:15
You've definitely unearthed a number of things that we need to talk about, right. I'd like to give Erin a chance to tell a little bit about what she's doing too. And then we'll return to some of these things. Because we've got to look at a lot of these things, but thank you for getting us started. Erin, you launched Pollinate Minnesota 2015. But you're wearing lots of hats. A number of them. You're a teacher, a beekeeper, an advocate for pollinators and pollinator habitats, and, perhaps most importantly, a self-professed bee lover. So tell us how your life became so connected to Bees.
Erin Rupp 09:00
Well, first of all, I just want to share how honored I am to be on this episode with you LaChelle. It's like very cool, and humbling. And thank you to Minnesota 350 for this incredible series and the work that you're doing. Yeah, so I came to bees and beekeeping through teaching, and teaching through doing, so have been an informal science educator for my career. And I found that through the work of beekeeping, so I was working at the Bell museum teaching with bees and really wanted to teach with everybody in beekeeping suits working the hive together. There's some liability if you put forty 2nd graders in a beekeeping suit, not one right in 40 beekeeping suits. And the University wasn't interested in that so I started my own thing and worked within a small company, the Bee's Knees for three years before branching into two organizations. I like being a beekeeper. I like hanging out with bees. I like the inherent bravery that is in that experience,and it's bravery that's not tied to our identity at all. You're hanging out with something that can sting you. That isn't really that dangerous once you learn their biology. But that is a way to overcome fears. This year, before the pandemic, a fifth grader told me that she had had two fears her whole life: death and bees. And now she just has one which is phenomenal, right? And these days, to build bravery in a way that is not tied to who you are. There's so much bravery that black people, Bipoc folks, transgender people have to have. I'm a white cisgendered woman, right? I'm called on to be brave in some circumstances, but not just living my life. Doing this work with bees and beekeeping suits, it's a thing that I get to be around all the time when the pandemic isn't happening. But also, pollinators are declining, insects are declining, it's a really tangible way into the need for food system reform. And I love that part of it too. And I also love that as youth we're expert in who pollinators are, and the relationship that insects have with plants. We learn about it, here in Minnesota, around first through third grade. And that's really powerful. And it means that the conversations and lessons that I have with second graders are not that different from the conversations I'm having with legislators. And I started that advocacy work in 2013. When working with the Bee's Knees, we had a pesticide kill at one of our colonies and whirled into the Minnesota Capitol two other beekeepers experienced that kill at the same time, so mobilized and got two laws passed, which is like a crazy first data point for what policy change looks like. And that was in 2014. And both of those laws have been changed to not mean as much. But it's a powerful way into the need for food system reform. Another access point for people.
Marita Bujold 12:07
I'm remembering that, Erin, on your website it says this: “We love honeybees, not only because their accidental labor is critical to our access to healthy nutritious foods and the sustainability of our food supply. but because their work highlights the interdependence of life in ecosystems.” And that interdependence of all life is the driving principle of the economy that's created by the Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill, and the climate solutions that MN350 are actively pursuing. So I think it'd be important for us to talk about how that's so important in the work of helping communities be healthy and have access to foods that LaChelle is doing and also creating those landscapes that are going to be healthy to produce food. So Erin, can you tell us how the health of people is really connected to the health of the pollinators?
Erin Rupp 13:19
A lot of what we eat comes to us from plants that have flowers. So we have this statistic that you may have heard that a third of everything we eat is pollinated by honey bees. And that's because we eat a lot of things that come from flowers. We eat a lot of things that come from plants that aren't pollinated by animals. So corn and wheat and rice and other grains are wind pollinated. So don't rely on an insect pollinator. But you know, most of where the nutrition comes in, in our diet,is from fruits and nuts and vegetables. Those are insect pollinated things. And with monoculture, the way that we're growing,we rely on one species of bee: the apis mellifera, the western honeybee, or European honeybee. Oh my goodness. Maybe I'm getting the common name of apis mellifera wrong, which is very embarrassing. Anyway, there's one species that is the one that we make honey from that is responsible for pollinating our food system, even though we have an incredible diversity of bees that I think we're going to talk about later. Nutritious food isn't accessible in our current food system for everyone. And if we lose pollinators, we'll still have strawberries, but we'll be paying people not very much to do the work of moving pollen into stigma, to grow strawberries, to grow our fruits. And so the justice implications of losing this favor that bees are doing—and doing accidentally because they need food, they gather nectar and pollen from flowers—is intense.
Marita Bujold 14:55
So I'm hearing that the labor of bees is really critical to us having truly nutritious, healthy food. And the diversity of ecosystems is critical to that as well. I do a lot of cooking, and I love hearing about the diversity of foods that have been available in communities and cultures for thousands of years. And,I know that one of the things that LaChelle's been doing is really highlighting the need for us to have those cultural foods that are part of a whole living ecosystem, right? So maybe you could tell us more about that. And how that relates to food justice too?
LaChelle Cunningham 15:38
Yeah, absolutely. I think part of it that relates to food justice, is that we all have a food story. And those food stories come together to create this ecosystem, this culture, right? and that's growing and expanding based on the way we live today. And it's much different than what it looked like years ago. Those stories, and what happened with our ancestors and how we got to where we are now, is important. And it's even more important because of the dire state that our food system has found itself in. Now. when you look at the inner city, the urban areas, we talk about food deserts, But when I was with Appetite for Change, it wasn't so much a desert as a swamp. There was food, but it was a lot of convenience food and fried food and unhealthy options. And so that became a culture. And that actually wasn't by intention. Then you think about our food system, and how our whole economy was built in this country, the economy first being built on slavery, and then how farming and agriculture developed from there. And going into focusing on commodity crops, and pushing those commodity crops towards products to be refined for people to purchase, in stores. So that is a whole other system that doesn't lend to health very easily. People are aware that this is a problem. And so now we find ourselves trying to stay connected to the land, connected to where our food came from, those traditions, and I just think it's important that we don't lose that. But it's even more important because of where we are now in the state of our health, the state of health disparities, because when we talk about access and we talk about different cultures and different socio-economic statuses and where people are and what they have access to, and information about food, there's still a gap on an individual level about what good food is, and there's a stigma created that good and healthy food is A, expensive; and B doesn't taste good. So, there's a whole lot that needs to be dispelled about what good food is. I talk a lot about soul food, and you know, what soul food is now, the roots started in a system where people were trying to make something out of nothing, and being given rations and making something out of that. Now, you know, it's very much fat-laden and fried, but that's not necessarily where it came from. Because that's not what people had; they had to sustain themselves, they had to supplement those rations with fishing, or foraging or gardening or doing other things to sustain themselves. Now there are all of these different hang ups about food and diets, plant based, and vegan, and it’s just a little psycho. I think people think that to make a vegetable taste good, you have to do all of these extra curricular things to make it taste just as good as a steak. It's not supposed to taste like a steak, it's supposed to taste like a vegetable, and it still tastes good. Like, let it be what it is, let's not convolute it with all of these things. And I think that is just a byproduct of processed foods and thinking that when you look at a box of processed food and can't pronounce the things that are in it, we think it's got to be complicated. No, it doesn't. To connect back to your question, that issue of the culture and diversity and holding on to that. It's so important when you think about the indigenous practices, the African practices, all of the different unique perspectives that come and make up where we are now, where I am now, which is very diverse. But I think it's important to be grounded in our own cultures. And yes, you know,I'm an African American woman. If you look at my ancestry, you can bring in probably pretty much every culture in the whole world in some aspect I have in my bloodline. So I can celebrate all of that, as someone who comes from an ancestry that has the slavery piece, and that history prior to slavery, and what African slaves brought with them in the food ways and the food knowledge. And a lot of the reason why they were brought was because of their knowledge. It wasn't just because they could be strong and do these, laborious things, it was also an intelligence that they brought with them. And so celebrating all of that, and understanding and not losing sight of it, where we came from, we can pave the way for keeping that connection going into the future and reestablishing what has been lost, because a lot has been lost, a lot has been stolen, a lot has been covered up. And that's not doing us any good. So,we need to think about these systemic issues, and think about the disparities in health, in education, and economics. Food is definitely one of the basic needs and is a foundational piece that has that trauma piece connected to it, but also has the ability to heal and bring people together.
Marita Bujold 21:54
That last part of what you said, I think can be the next part of our conversation, because we need to be in that healing space. So, we should probably remind our listeners that the reason we're here really is because Nourish is all about helping us understand what it is that MN350 is aiming to do. And that is to advocate for a truly just, inclusive, regenerative food system. A system we can count on today, and that our generations from now can also count on. So all of that's linked to, of course, climate and climate resiliency. And interestingly enough, adapting to climate really isn't a new concept. It's one that's been around for thousands of years, and as LaChelle mentioned, these cultures, the African slaves who came here, they had knowledge that they brought with them, and foods they brought with them, seeds, and all of it was adapted to the places where they lived. So, here we are now trying to figure out: how do we have a food system that's actually going to be climate adapted, and capable of being able to serve all of us and provide that health and well being that we've been talking about? So I think what we want to do now is look at this holistic healing that you talked about LaChelle. Can you help our listeners understand what problems really prompted you to create the Healthy Roots Institute?
LaChelle Cunningham 23:51
Absolutely. With the Healthy Roots Institute, I focus on these three pillars: the love of food, the art of food, and the business of food, and they're all directly linked to addressing something - One, the love of food is really focused on nutritional healing and teaching about how foods can be healing and nourishing to our bodies. It is about the love of food and loving food like I love food. Oh, it's great, it feels great, nostalgic; but it's also about the love that you receive from food because that is love: to get that nourishment into your body. Two, it's the actual creative piece of creating something that someone then takes into their body. And there's a connection when you're breaking bread, or you're cooking together, there's something that's created, a connection that's not really captured in words, necessarily. It's that community building piece.The need there that I've seen is that people aren't really connected to the food - there's really a lack of knowledge in general about food. It's not a convenient thing for a lot of people. Yes, a lot of people are foodies, a lot of people like to eat, a lot of people like to cook. But in general, most people have a limitation to their cooking, like how we grew up, you probably ate about eight to 12 dishes, on a rotation in your house, you know what I mean? Maybe you grew up with a garden, that was great, but you probably still ate those same eight to 12. dishes. There's nothing wrong with that but let's maybe think of the possibilities. In the processed food industry, you can take corn, and make so many things with corn in a laboratory situation. And you can create all of these different products in a scientific way. But we can literally do that at home in our kitchens, not necessarily in the scientific way. But all of those different opportunities for flavor, textures, and things like that in food, we have those same opportunities, but we've limited ourselves and say:this is how you do corn, this is how you do carrots, and this is the one or two ways you do it. No - there are a hundred different ways that you can cook a carrot, and make the taste and the texture and the experience a little bit different. The gap is that we don't have that connection with what we can do with food to make it more enjoyable, plants mostly is what I'm talking about. But you know, people eat meat, I get it, I do too. But I know the health benefits in really exploring plants, and all of the nutrition that they have to bring. And, two, the other piece that I work on with the art of food is really the healing through the culinary arts piece. And that's really through the artistic expression through the art of it, through the work of it. And like what you're putting on a plate, and using the plate as a canvas to create art. But like what is all of the other opportunity to heal within that, right? And third is the business of food which I think is honestly the most impactful when it comes to community healing. Because that's how we heal from economic distress: through access, through economic empowerment, through business ownership, through entrepreneurship. And so, what I've really seen there in working with entrepreneurs and businesses—a lot of which are of color and African American as well—is that there are these barriers, and most of them have to do with how trauma shows up in our lives in different ways. And so, again, it's through food, right? We're cooking, but we're trying to create a business. But it's one thing to create a business, because you know how to cook. And it’s another thing to create a business because you're a business person, and you're trying to develop yourself, and have economic stability and be empowered that way.. And then we create a community- that's the ecosystem that we can build. Not everybody is going to be a food entrepreneur. Some people are going to be the workers. There are many aspects that make up the community, but specifically, when I'm talking about the food community I’m talking about working with people on all levels of food, right? And then there's a bigger food system that we're all working within, right? I'm talking about a home cook to a professional cook to an entrepreneur. But then you have an entire system of food from farmer, to producer to manufacturer, to a food maker. So there's all these pieces of the food system, and then there's the consumers themselves. So that's everyone, everybody's in there somewhere. All of these pieces of the Healthy Roots Institute are connecting to pieces of the food system in a unique way. And I really stand on that foundation of healing, because I think that's just the most important thing that we can do. And what does that mean? holistic healing, it sounds cool and jazzy, but I literally mean overcoming and breaking these barriers down and thinking about things outside of these boxes that we created. Just get rid of all the boxes. Stop it,
Marita Bujold 29:56
But I think that when you talk about the healing, too, it can be that main focus that drives everything else. So early in your testimony here, you talked about the industry of corn, that becomes part of our packaged food that's been really the hallmark of industrial food for decades now. And we know, this is not something that's connecting us and providing health. In fact, it's a serious issue. So bringing people together around food to really focus on: how do we heal, how do we provide healing, is a very exciting story to contemplate. So it's really exciting to hear about that potential. And then when I think about what Erins's doing with the landscapes and the pollinators, we really can't do what you're doing LaChelle unless we actually have those landscapes being healthy, and having those pollinators doing what she referred to as their essential work.
LaChelle Cunningham 31:05
Absolutely, I do a lot of foraging and connecting with nature and plants and that is so huge. That's the other side of it: understanding where our food comes from and how it grows; nature and bees and the pollinators that are sustaining us—how important that is.
Marita Bujold 31:31
And, and so, Erin, I'd love for you to tell us, because it's really clear that Minnesota is an industrial ag state, we have millions of acres dedicated to cropland where bees really are not welcome. They're not part of that. How are we going to help our bees be present in all of our landscapes, whether they're urban or rural. I don't think individual efforts are going to be enough, the bees in my garden are not going to be enough to make this work, right? So Erin, what kind of resources can we bring into those big landscapes? What difference is it going to make if we did that?
Erin Rupp 32:13
I mean, the reason why bees are in decline are the same. It's the history of our food system that LaChelle was talking about. This food system that's based on colonization and stolen land and stolen expertise in stolen labor continually, right? and profits not going to people. LaChelle, you mentioned just what has been lost and what has been covered up. And there's so much with insects that inherently we can't know as humans because of how they live. Erik Runquist is a butterfly restoration ecologist, maybe, at the MN Zoo. He's doing this cool work with Poweshiek Skipperlings—which is an endangered butterfly—to try to reintroduce them into Minnesota. And he's never seen them as caterpillars in the wild because they live on grasses, and they build their little home as a caterpillar in the grass. And they cover themselves with something that looks like grass, so how does a human find that, right? And he knows that that's what their life looks like—those life cycles look like—because he's collected adults and reared them in the lab. But just the amount of unknowns with these biologies draws this cool connection in that it gets us to be humble, and have humility in a way that we need. Like as a white person talking to other white people about anti racism, the need for humility is so evident. And here in Minnesota, we talk a lot about honeybees, talk a lot about pollinator decline, because we rely on that one species to pollinate our monoculture food system. And this is a species that's not from the Americas. It was brought by colonizers to the Americas. And then as white folks spread across the Americas honeybees did too, but in a different way. Honeybees have this cool swarming biology, that's part of the way that they reproduce. But this one species, Western honeybees, we have a relationship with them as humans. And so there's really incredible cultural connections around honey and around beekeeping around the world now. You know, there's a diversity of pollinators that live in every region of the world. And here in Minnesota, we have 469 different species of bee And you talked about urban areas and in a lot of ways, urban areas are better habitat for bees these days because the pesticide load is less, because you need food all year and you eat food from flowers and if there are only certain flowers, like strawberries or during the time when that sweet clover’s on the roadsides, then that's what you have, but then you're hungry. In urban landscapes, there are more people with smaller plots planting more flowers. Our Rusty Patched Bumblebee is our Minnesota State bee. It's one of our 23 different bumblebee species here in Minnesota. They were put on the endangered species list a few years ago, but we're seeing more of them in the Twin Cities metro area, in part because the U of M bee lab is here. Dr. Elaine Evans is a bumblebee doctor. She has her PhD in bumblebee research but is doing incredible community science work helping to spread information about how to find Rusty Patch who Rusty Patch is, and how to compare them to other bees. But it's also true that we have this habitat here in urban areas. We talk a lot about honeybees, again, with pollinator decline, just because as a beekeeper, I can open my hive and see if it's alive or dead. I can see how healthy it is. It's way harder for me to find the little nest of 12 larvae, that is one of our soil dwelling bees’ homes, and then see if they're alive and healthy. I would tear that whole thing apart because I'd be digging into it. And just like figuring out where to dig is so phenomenally hard. So it's not as if all of our bees that are not in the same ecosystems are experiencing the same declines, but it’s that we have more data on honeybees. And these days here in Minnesota, we continue to lose about half of our colonies every year. And we lose them because they're hungry. They don't have the flowers and ecosystems that they used to have. And there are different species-specific parasites and diseases, like the Varroa mite with honeybees. There’s also incredible pesticide exposure. There's something like over 30 different chemicals interacting in an average honeybee hive. They go to forage two to three miles away from their homes and bring back all these different things. The way that we register these chemicals with the EPA is inherently flawed and it doesn't reflect the ecosystems in which those pesticides are used. And that ties back to the history of the food system and who profits off of this food system, too. We talk a lot about neonicotinoid insecticides, because there's a whole bulk of science around them as a driver of pollinator decline. And I think in 2018, the companies that manufacture those chemistries Bayer and Syngenta, which is now Chem China, their profit was something like $4.32 billion. And it's not an exact comparison, but the median farmer income in the US that year was negative 1500 dollars. So where money is in this food system is something that we need to change, right? Because for bees and for people, there's this antiquated idea about what conservation is and saving bees for bees themselves. maybe is where people are at. But we humans are part of the ecosystem too, saving bees to save us. Save us to save bees, right? Like it's absolutely related and connected.
LaChelle Cunningham 38:15
There's people doing work like pollinators and beekeepers and we hear about this more and more, but I feel like there needs to be a campaign like “Got Milk?” We know that when we saw Got Milk, when you saw the mustache, you knew all the connotations of what that meant. It meant you need milk, because you need strong bones and teeth because you don't want to get osteoporosis. That was like instilled in our brains, right? somehow, some way. Well, we need to have the same campaign instilled in our brains as to why dude’s got bees, right? So I was thinking about that. I would love to talk with you about that.
Marita Bujold 38:56
Maybe we could go back to what you said earlier, Erin, about how you talk to legislators and you talk to second graders? Yes, often the same conversation. So maybe we have an ad featuring that. There we are educating adults that make policy and educating children who often, I think, really catch on to things pretty quickly. So that gives us hope, right?
Erin Rupp 39:25
Agreed. And that's something that I'm working on making more tangible to teachers is, if this is something that you want to be involved in with your students, how can I help to translate the legislative session to your classroom? Or, make these things that are just logistically hard to incorporate easier, just in terms of timing, like, committee hearings change, right? and then getting money for the bus to the Capitol can be a barrier, right?
Marita Bujold 39:56
Maybe we can have them zooming in this atmosphere. So we've been talking about so many things that are connected to how our communities can be really healthy, and whole, and climate ready. And that food really is at the center of that. And that you can't really have any of that unless you have those healthy landscapes also for our pollinators. And what I love about that conversation is that it really helps this community say, Okay, so what do we need to make sure that this is going to happen? And that really is the question behind the Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill. This is a bill that I wrote, which representative Fue Lee introduced, because Fue Lee is very much in favor of the environmental health and well being of communities. And the purpose of this bill really is to help us have the infrastructure we need to support a fully robust, regenerative food web economy across the state that will meet the demands of food, water, and climate today and for future generations. And it takes into account the idea that we actually have a need to have diverse sources of foods, diversity in our cultures, and all those benefits that that brings to our communities, and that it has to be inclusive, fully.
That is financial and tech, to build this source-to-table food web economy. So what that means for someone like you, it'll show that as you're working in your community, to ensure that the goals of the Healthy Roots Institute actually can be achieved, you'd be getting resources to do that. And that could be about more food businesses, it could also be about another part of that bill is about having neighborhood Commons where that food, and those workers, those people cooking and preserving food that you're teaching, they would have jobs. That's one of the key parts of this systemic approach to building this system is that somebody like you can teach somebody how to cook and preserve food, you're going to be essential. And those workers are going to be essential as we bring food back into our neighborhoods that isn't packaged, right? Because you're all about doing that, empowering people that way. I don't know if that helped.
LaChelle Cunningham 42:55
I actually had a thought about this earlier that I had lost in translation, when I was talking here, about what Erin had said about where the money is, and where the profits are going in this industry. And I was thinking about that. I was on another webinar yesterday for the Farm to School National Farm to School Network. And they were talking about how food justice is racial justice, and how they were talking about nonprofits and foundations and where they put their money, and how the money is being distributed. And even thinking about where I work, and I'm not trying to be politically incorrect but I work with the Good Acre funded by the Pohlads and the way they got their money; and then we got grants by Cargill, and so there's big foundations and nonprofits with funds, that are going to fund projects and do these different things. And what the discussion was really on in that farm to school webinar was really talking about was you keep granting and granting people money to do certain things. And it's one thing to do that, and then, you know, kind of have these grant processes, it's another thing to make an actual investment into something, right? and that there's an investment: you're vested into the success of this thing happening. And so that made me think about things differently. And then, also, when you get into something like a bill, and when you're talking about having the support and resources, that's another way to look at the same kind of concept of investing in and really thinking about those people that are making all these profits. How do we shift that? How, where does the power shift happen? That was another thing that was happening in the webinar is that we're talking about these organizations? And are you really doing the power shift work? Is power really being shifted? And since the George Floyd uprising, and everything that's happened this year, so many different organizations, pretty much every organization, is trying to think about equity and inclusion and diversity and how are they gonna, like, be different? And one of the things that was said in that conversation yesterday on that webinar was also one thing to try to hire more people of color and diversify in your staff, but what are the processes and protocols and the infrastructure of your organization? And is that continuing white supremacy or Is it not? You know, because you can still have people of color in all kinds of places of leadership and still be promoting that same structure? Right? So how are we breaking? And I think something like this bill, which is a whole nother level, a legislative level that can help to bring those resources into it. Honestly, it's time, it's past time, you know, it's due time. A lot of questions are gonna come up, but let's answer those questions about the accountability: of how all of this works, and recognizing the work that's already being done; recognizing the people and the voices that have been putting in the work who don't get the recognition, don't get a seat at the proper tables.
Marita Bujold 46:50
When I read about the work that you would like to do with Healthy Roots Institute, what I see is a model for how we can actually empower all the communities that have been left out of resources through this bill. So now we have communities that have the public funding that they need to, in their own communities, have a successful food economy, from source to table with people educated, cooking, preserving food, growing food. That's what I see with your vision of Healthy Roots that focuses on health, to bring people together around that, and even learn about lost heritage that's been kind of pushed aside or forced aside by an industrial system. So I see lots of hope in what you're doing.
LaChelle Cunningham 47:53
Absolutely. I agree. And I also think there's another piece there, that has to be somehow Incorporated. And that’s the holistic piece of this, and that is that there's a mental health aspect that has to be a part of this holistic piece, for the people in the system, in the communities, the people on all levels. There's a mental health crisis that rides along with this and that has to be a part of it. I think food plays a big part in that and can help with the healing process of that. But it has to be dealt with, especially where we're at, like 2020, and what 2020 did to all of our mental health.
Marita Bujold 48:41
So. So Erin, the Headwaters Bill also provides resources in our landscapes for precisely the work that you're doing. I mean, it provides resources to farmers to discontinue actually growing the kind of commodity crops that require all those pesticides and fertilizers. Where would our bees be, and our pollinators be, if we actually discontinued doing that?
Erin Rupp 49:06
Oh, in an incredible spot, right? Ecosystems in general would be healthier. And to touch on what LaChelle just mentioned, our mental health would be better. Yeah, I mean, the thing that the Headwaters Bill does, like funding small farmers, funding regenerative AG, those things are critical for bee health. If you have a diversified farm, you have more flowering plants, you can support more bee species there year round. That's phenomenal. If you have soil health, you don't need “pesticides, fertilizers” that we know are toxic to pollinators and are contributing to pollinator decline. And then to touch on the power shift, I mean, the power shift is the thing. Right now, the public funding that's going into the system as it is, is atrocious. Here’s an example from this bee side of the story. So as beekeepers, we lose 50% of our colonies every year. That means that if I start out with 22 hives, 24, I guess this spring, and I come out next winter with 12, that's good. That's average. And commercial beekeepers are sometimes losing more than that, like 90% of their apiaries in some parts of the state. And the way that they're able to keep being a beekeeper is through federal insurance programs, which are publicly funded. So our money is going to compensate those beekeepers for those losses that are happening because of the pesticide exposures that their bees are experiencing. So disrupting that system, getting those public dollars to the public, to communities of color, to yea, to LaChelle, to the Healthy Roots Institute. That's what the food system needs. That's what society needs. And I so appreciate this, the Headwaters Bill in articulating all those things.
LaChelle Cunningham 51:22
Absolutely. I also wanted to add on to your point, Erin and Marita, is that there's a vision at the end of this and what does that vision look like? and to your point about healthy ecosystems, us being mentally healthy, it's people being empowered, it's people growing their own food, it's people knowing what to do with the food when they grow it. It's farm-sharing on a basic community level, you know, sharing the produce, sharing the yield of our crop and our hard work and breaking bread and building together and building that community together. and that ecosystem together. That's what I think the vision is that this bill is trying to lead us to,
Marita Bujold 52:19
Exactly, and, and one key part of that, too, is that this is about urban and rural together. That is, and you made this so clear, LaChelle, talking about food, being at the center of our lives in every way. There isn't anyone in wherever you live, and in this community, urban or rural, that doesn't depend on food and water. And it all has to be healthy for us, not just today, but in order to hand down that legacy to our children. I think we're at a moment now, where the kind of visionary leadership that you provide, can help us begin to see that the future is possible together, if we are invested in that vision of a healthy life together. And then we can bring people along, move into that space, help people who haven't been able to participate, participate. That's a big part of this. And then, you know, moving together, forward together is something to celebrate, I mean, really celebrate. So I really appreciate the leadership that you bring. And I know you work in partnership with other people who share this vision, too. So the more we can connect and work together to make this happen. I think the more people are going to feel like, yeah, we have a path forward together. That's going to make a difference. Thank you very much. Everybody has to be able to participate and benefit. So our guests today, their stories, the work they're doing is all about what this bill envisions and we'd really like you to be able to learn more about the work that Pollinate Minnesota is doing, the work that LaChelle is doing as an entrepreneur but also at the Healthy Roots Institute. And so please, go to their websites and learn more there. And MN350 is specifically creating a campaign for the Headwaters Community Food Water Bill, because it aligns with their own mission of having climate solutions that we can count on for all of our communities. So if you'd like to support their work, you can go and sign the pledge at MN350.org/headwaters. And you can find other ways to be involved, especially if you're passionate about the work that LaChelle is doing, the work that Erin is doing, and many other people in our communities. Is there anything else that either of you would like to talk about? In terms of your own work?
LaChelle Cunningham 55:33
Sure, yeah, I'm kind of, like you, Erin I wear a lot of hats. So I'm at the Healthy Roots Institute; you can reach me through Facebook or Instagram, LaChelle Cunningham, and/or my website is LaChelleCunningham.com where you can learn more, I'm actually building a new website for the Healthy Roots Institute that will be launching in the next couple of months. There’s kind of a lot going into that. So I'm excited about what that platform will bring through the love of food, the art of food and the business of food. Additionally, in that work, I'm currently working on putting together some virtual cooking classes, as well as launching an online culinary training platform, and developing the food business training class offerings that I have. And in addition to that, I do work at the Good Acre. So I'm a Culinary Education Manager, at the Good Acre doing a work connected to farm to school, and I'm actually piloting a vocational culinary training program there that just launched; you can learn more about that by going to the GoodAcre.org, or looking under our programs for the vocational culinary training. And we just started our first cohort for that; you can learn more about that. We'll be opening up applications again, in early 2021, for our next cohort. So there's more information there. And then in regards to the food business, if people are interested in food business education, I teach that through the Neighborhood Development Center, and you can sign up and learn more about their entrepreneurship courses. Their site, which is NDC/MN.org, has lots of great resources for business entrepreneurs locally, in general; and technical assistance, access to non conventional loans, and other business resources. And I teach the class there in the fall and the spring for food business entrepreneurs, and so you can get more information that way. You got to kind of keep up because as soon as I get one thing going, I'm probably on to the next one. So I move fast.
Marita Bujold 58:08
It isn’t easy to keep up with all of that. Erin, what can ones do to help bees?
Erin Rupp 58:14
We talked a little bit about individual versus systemic change, right? And the cool thing with bees is that if you plant food for them in the spaces that you manage, you will feed these and you will see an increase in bee populations in your area. So plant flowers that bloom year round, leave your leaves, leave some stems from those flowers; there are lots of resources for that at Xerxes.org. And then the systemic changes are necessary too. So connect with your elected officials at all levels from your school board, to your city to the state, to nationally, and share your concern about bees. There are efforts going on in all of those spaces. There's this new national bill, Protect America's Children From Toxic Pesticides Act that bans neonicotinoid use, the chemistry that we talked about already and other chemistries that are still in use that have huge human health impacts like chlorpyrifos. It also does some work changing the way that we regulate pesticides. So when you register your pesticide with the EPA, you have to test it on honeybees and that's the only terrestrial arthropod you have to test on which means that any animal that has an exoskeleton, is an invertebrate—has no bones. If honeybees are the standard for all those things, this bill would help to change that a little bit. It's a huge flaw in the way that the EPA registers pesticides—a flaw that was designed that way, right? So, sharing the care that you have about pollinators with your community. And then if you want to connect directly with Pollinate Minnesota, we're at pollinatemn.org, and on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter at that handle. And then we teach programming for live bees for everybody in the Twin Cities metro area. We haven't done in person classes since the pandemic, but if you want to put on a beekeeping suit and hang out with bees, we'll be teaching those classes again in person when it's safe. And now that we are distanced in our lives, we're doing more virtual programming. And that'll start again in April next year. We did a live zoom with some elementary school kids last week at a Minneapolis Public School and are hoping to offer that programming to more of the country. Oh, and we’re also working on a cool grant for a virtual reality version of our class funded through Hennepin County's Green Partners Program. So I'll put a 360 degree camera in a beekeeping suit and do the class with the camera. So hopefully, it'll do the same bravery-building work that my classes do.
Marita Bujold 1:01:06
Well, thank you. You know, I can't help but think that these conversations, there's definitely a common thread through your stories that we really need to create the economic and ecological conditions that are capable of delivering health and well being for all of our communities. We need to actually create that. When we were talking about how we have regulations on pesticides that are still being used in our landscapes, even though we know that they hurt people and the land and the pollinators, we have to be asking ourselves, why? Why are we still doing this? It's a publicly funded system. This is a publicly funded system. That's not a good public investment. So, what I heard today is that each of you, as leaders, are contributing really vital local ecological knowledge and skills that are crucial for this essential economy, the source-to-table food economy that we need so that we can all live sustainably. I think at this point, understanding what you've been delving into and what you're trying to do with the Healthy Roots Institute, and with Pollinator Minnesota, is to help us really begin to move in the right direction. And that's why I am so grateful for you being here today. Because I think that our communities all need to understand how we are going to have a system that's going to work, and you're helping us understand that. So I'm very grateful to both of you for being here today. LaChelle Cunningham, founder of the Healthy Roots Institute and Chelle’s Kitchen, I've had some of that food, it's fabulous. And Erin Rupp. who's taking care of our bees and is working with second graders and legislators to help Pollinate Minnesota. And so thank you to all of our listeners. I'm Marita Bujold, and this has been Nourish by MN350.
“Nourish by MN350” is a production of MN350’s Food Systems Team. We are changing the way people think about food production, distribution, and consumption practices in the context of rapid climate change. This series is made possible by the hard work and passion of a group of dedicated volunteers.
You can learn more at MN350Action.org/podcasts.