Hey there,
Whenever someone asks me for an environmental reading list, one of books I always recommend is Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. The book discusses the concept of “slow violence” or violence that occurs gradually and out of sight; so gradual and long-term that it’s not typically recognized or viewed as violence at all. In the context of environmental and political challenges, people lacking or marginalized from resources are the main sufferers of slow violence. I felt like slow violence as a general concept - applied to what can be inflicted on both humans and the natural ecosystem - was a fitting theme for today’s brief round up.
Welcome back to Before the Cutting Board, your weekly roundup of food + supply chain hot topics to help keep you up to speed on what’s going down with your food.
If you’re new to Before The Cutting Board, here’s how it works: The “This Week” section focuses on news and current events, while the “Food Fights” section usually explores some of the interesting debates flying around the food news world.
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Without further ado, let’s dig in.
-This Week-
Food Deserts, Food Apartheid, and Slow Violence
Last Saturday, there was a devastating hate crime committed against Black residents of Buffalo, NY at a local supermarket called Tops. The mass shooting not only left 10 people dead, but it also devastated a community that had long fought to establish the Tops Supermarket as an access point to affordable and nutritious food in what had long been a food desert. Tops was the only supermarket in that area of Buffalo, where 80% of the residents are Black and low-income. In the wake of the store’s closure due to ongoing investigations, emergency food distribution centers have been set up and local community organizations are rallying to raise donations for food delivery to seniors. However, Buffalo’s Black community wants to know what long-term solutions will be put in place to restore safe and affordable food access. The nature of Buffalo’s food desert status makes clear the long-term vulnerabilities that still exist today as a direct result of racist redlining, housing discrimination, and other tools of systemic marginalization. It also calls into question the way we speak about ‘food deserts’, which many are calling for to be re-termed as “food apartheid”. Experts argue that the latter term links lack of food access to the policies and systems that created these circumstances, instead of the implication of ‘desert’ as a natural occurrence.
World Bee Day
Tomorrow, May 20, is World Bee Day. Designated by the UN in 2017, observation of World Bee Day is meant to spread awareness about the critical role that bees play in our food systems as well as supporting planetary health on a larger scale. There are lots of pollinators that our ecosystems rely on - birds, moths, wasps, and bats for example. But, over 70% of food crops globally rely on bees primarily to produce meaningful yields. In the US alone, honeybee pollination adds more than $15 billion in value to food crops every year. The importance of honeybee pollination in the US has led to the growth of commercial honeybee ‘renting’, which involves some 30 billion bees being loaded onto trucks every year to be shipped out to large scale fruit and nut farms across the West, Pacific North West, and Southeast parts of the country. As of last year, the farmers we talked to for Point of Origin told us that hives were running at about $200-$300 per hive, and an orchard requires at least 6 hives per acre. It’s such a lucrative industry that lots of nefarious and weird things happen to bees on farms - hive robberies are super common. In recognition of World Bee Day, here are some pieces on bees, beekeepers, and the role bees play in food availability:
Point of Origin has been covering honeybees all week leading up to World Bee Day in Instagram Stories
My interview with Tzvetie Garneva, who works with beekeepers as part of a rainforest conservation project in and around Calakmul, Mexico
In the Face of Numerous Threats, Bees Are Producing Less Honey and Let Them Bee from Civil Eats
Honey Trap: is there a downside to the boom in beekeeping? from The Guardian
Bee Rustlers Are Stealing California’s Beehives in Annual Agricultural Crime Spree from LA Magazine
-Food Fights-
The current topic that has been on my mind for Food Fights is still in development. Tune in next week!
That’s it for this week. If you enjoyed reading this, please forward to a friend. Even if you didn’t enjoy reading it, still tell your friends - misery loves company :)