- 4 months ago
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00:00There are a few universal truths that connect us all as humans. We need shelter, we need water,
00:13and we need food. However, I'm learning that the production of food, the access to food,
00:22and the quality of the food we get is entangled in more politics and history than I'd ever realized.
00:28I wanted people to peel away the food system and looking at through the lens of race, through the lens of land, to the lens of wealth.
00:37Why is healthy food so expensive and fast food cheap?
00:42I'm off to Canada, the U.S., Kenya, and Jamaica to understand why healthy food is so often inaccessible to people who look like me.
00:52When you have 50% of a population that is food insecure, they say a hungry man is an angry man.
00:57I'll also explore the ways that farmers and communities around the world are trying to take control over their food systems and fight back.
01:04When you hear of a bank, what's normally there?
01:07Precious commodity.
01:09Teal is a very precious commodity.
01:12I'm Amanda Paris, and I'm digging deep into Black food sovereignty for the culture.
01:22Grocery shopping has become a bit of a headache in my household.
01:26The price of food has skyrocketed in recent years.
01:29Each trip to the grocery store usually results in me asking the same questions.
01:34Why is food so expensive?
01:36And how are other families coping?
01:41Every two weeks, I come down here to do my purchasing.
01:46It's a tricky dance to make sure everything is here and gets up to the warehouse where we do our packing.
01:54And as you can see, it's a busy, busy place.
01:59Meet Zakaya Tafari.
02:01He's the executive director of the African Food Basket, an organization whose mission is to alleviate food insecurity in Black communities across the greater Toronto area.
02:10He's at the Ontario Food Terminal, the largest wholesale fruit and produce distribution center in Canada.
02:17Uh-oh.
02:19That's frustrating.
02:20The suppliers I normally buy apples from, they are not here.
02:23We focus on apples being one of the things that the kids in the household get.
02:27So we want it to be really, like, snack size and taste really well.
02:39Hello.
02:40Good morning.
02:41How much is the plantain?
02:42Seventy-one.
02:43Can I get eight cases?
02:44Yeah.
02:45African Food Basket.
02:46Oh, yeah.
02:47Those look...
02:48See how beautiful it is.
02:49Yeah, yeah.
02:50They're nice and lush.
02:51Okay, I'll take 12 of these.
02:55I don't like this box.
02:56It's looking a little moldy.
02:57Quality is, like, really critical for me because the family that we're providing are less fortunate.
03:02We don't want them to feel like they deserve less quality.
03:09Yeah, these are good.
03:10Center 61.
03:11The other skit is there, okay?
03:16We just left the food terminal.
03:17We're going to make our way up to the JCA.
03:19We're going to be packing about 150 boxes today.
03:30African Food Basket is a family affair.
03:33Anon Laloli and Danika Tafari have been tackling food insecurity since the 90s.
03:38And now their son, Zakiya, has taken the reins.
03:42I sit down with father and son at the Jamaican Canadian Association where they pack their boxes.
03:47I want to know how a project that started as a food buying cooperative has grown into so much more.
03:54So this is the 30 year anniversary.
03:55Is that correct?
03:56Yeah.
03:57Congratulations.
03:58Can you tell me the origin story?
03:59What was happening in the city then?
04:00Looking at the state of black people in Canada, we were purchasing the most expensive food.
04:06But we had the lowest income.
04:08So it started as a food buying club where there's one staff as myself and just volunteers.
04:15From the early time, I was ambitious.
04:18We started looking at food justice, looking at cooking programs.
04:21It was across the board in programming.
04:24What was it like growing up in this?
04:25I hated it because I was that kid in the corner where all the adults are discussing these big important issues.
04:30Not again food justice.
04:32And I'm in the corner trying to entertain myself.
04:36But as I grew up, I retained a lot of those conversations.
04:40I kind of started to see, you know, food matters.
04:42If we take a couple of steps back, Toronto City Council years back passed the Black Food Sovereignty Plan,
04:47which to me was a huge milestone because it acknowledged that anti-black racism played a role in food insecurity.
04:55The Toronto Black Food Sovereignty Plan was launched in 2022 and has been described as the first of its kind in North America.
05:03It outlines community-led responses to address the root causes of black food insecurity.
05:08So how does the plan define black food sovereignty?
05:11Three primary things.
05:13One, the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods.
05:21Two, the right to define our own food and agriculture systems.
05:25And three, the right to build our own institutions to advance community capacity and resilience for food access.
05:33What does food insecurity look like here?
05:36In 2022, Statistics Canada said over 33% of black households that were above the poverty line indicated food insecurity.
05:43So these are homeowners, these are professionals, these are your colleagues, these are your neighbors who by all means look well.
05:51They drive a car, you know, they have kids in university.
05:53But the reality is when they get that paycheck, and sometimes it's two paychecks together,
05:57they're prioritizing the mortgage, the car insurance, the Netflix, the internet.
06:02And then when they go to the grocery store, it's okay, what do we have left to buy food?
06:06The number's 2-1-1.
06:11We'll get you to the city and they will direct you to a food bank.
06:15We have the best boxes.
06:16It's all fresh fruit and vegetables.
06:18So we have apples, thyme, plantains, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes.
06:25When the pandemic started, it was mostly senior women and senior men calling.
06:30Now, young people, I can hear the youthful voice, young men are calling for food.
06:35Wow.
06:36Yeah.
06:37It's getting hard for everybody.
06:40It's about a black child going to school without breakfast.
06:50In the evening, without dinner.
06:55Now, a little emotional about this, but it's like nearly 50% of black children.
07:03When you have 50% of a population that is food insecure, like they say a hungry man is an angry man.
07:09When you look at crime, so there's lots of work.
07:12And that's why we're talking about black foods happening now,
07:14because we have to start defining what the solutions are.
07:18Amid a historic hunger crisis in which more than 1 in 10 Torontonians now rely on food banks,
07:24city council has declared food insecurity an emergency across Toronto.
07:28Though it's been decades of advocacy, it was only in February 2025 that food insecurity was finally declared an emergency.
07:35I wonder what impact this has, if any, on the work of the African food basket.
07:41Yes, you're declaring this a crisis, but if we know that the black community is the most food insecure,
07:47how is the black community going to be part of addressing that crisis?
07:50And that I haven't heard yet.
07:52We've been talking about black food sovereignty, but I know there's often a desire to group together communities of color.
07:56Can we talk about why it's been so important for it to be black food sovereignty and the distinction between these other communities?
08:02That's my passion. I think about it all the time.
08:05You put your hand up like I'm ready.
08:07I'm ready because the BIPOC thing is putting everybody in this Kumbaya thing.
08:11It's not Kumbaya because even some of these different people are anti-black.
08:17And no disrespect to the BIPOC people, y'all can go and do the POC thing.
08:20We need to be people of African descent coming together.
08:24Our priority is pan-Africanism.
08:27How people from Somalia, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, Guyana, wherever we as a people of African descent.
08:34We need to come together.
08:36When I go and I buy food, I don't see a lot of black people as purchasers.
08:40I don't see a lot of us as the wholesalers.
08:43We're often buying our food from other people.
08:46What we're doing with our food access program, we're going to design a basket that's going to focus on your health, your well-being.
08:52See how nice of that it is?
08:54When you confirm, can you highlight the row blue?
08:57One of the new initiatives that Sakaya has introduced to the African Food Basket
09:01is a research project tracking the impact of the food people eat.
09:05So we get 40 participants and what we had them do was do blood pressure and diabetes tests
09:11and we're giving them the boxes for nine months and they'll go back and do the tests again
09:15and see if eating cultural foods changed a little bit.
09:19It's not going to totally change it, but it had some impact on their health.
09:22I want to know more about the importance of culturally relevant food,
09:26so I'm off to an Afro-Caribbean grocery store to meet with a man with a deep passion
09:31for redefining how we understand local and sustainable food.
09:34Let me introduce Chef Bashir Mounier.
09:39There's a very familiar smell to like every single Afro-Caribbean market.
09:43It's just like the smell of home.
09:45I think it's a combination between the fresh produce, salt fish.
09:49Yes.
09:50For me, it's excitement about showcasing how vibrant and diverse our African ingredients.
09:55This is cassava.
09:57Oh yeah, okay.
09:58So it's a fermented cassava couscous.
10:00Mmm.
10:01Okay, sounds good.
10:02So we'll take the cassava couscous.
10:03What are these?
10:04They call them garden eggs.
10:06So what do they taste like?
10:07Like eggplants.
10:08They're extremely delicious and the most beautiful thing about it,
10:11we can grow them here in Southern Ontario.
10:13Mmm.
10:14This is the yellow flash yam.
10:15And then there's the dashi.
10:18So those are some of those ingredients that I find like extremely delicious,
10:22but a piece like this might be, you know, maybe more than $10.
10:26Alright.
10:27Is it worth it?
10:28Absolutely.
10:29Mmm.
10:30Do everyone have the financial means to do it?
10:32No.
10:33Um, yeah, the turmeric.
10:37Thank you so much.
10:38I'm curious about the importance of culturally relevant food
10:41in the context of food insecurity, emergency.
10:44Like, does it matter that food is culturally relevant in that kind of a context?
10:48Yeah, absolutely.
10:49Let's say you're from Burkina Faso.
10:50Mmm.
10:51Um, potatoes, they've been recently brought to the continent from the Americas,
10:56but it's not a staple in our diet.
10:58Right.
10:59So eating ingredients that are culturally relevant to us, our gene poll, it's able to kind of like
11:04remember it.
11:05Mmm.
11:06And therefore, our digestive system, the way we hold those nutrients as well, those things,
11:11they all matter.
11:12I wonder if you could define for me what are food deserts?
11:15Mmm.
11:16Food desert was a term that it was coined addressing an impoverished neighborhood that does not have
11:23grocery stores that are technically walking distance.
11:26You'll find convenience stores, liquor stores, but you will not find one single grocery store.
11:32The term food desert, it kind of implies it's a natural sequence of event that had occurred over time
11:40to make something into a desert.
11:42Mmm.
11:43But it's really not a desert.
11:44It's a system that has been designed strategically to maintain people in an impoverished neighborhood
11:50without access to food because food is always being used as a weapon as well.
11:58The kind of food environment Chef Bashir describes can be found all over North America,
12:03including right here in the Bronx.
12:06I've come to the community where one activist resisted the language of food deserts
12:11and built a community gardening movement.
12:14The Garden of Happiness was once a deserted lot, but this activist and other residents
12:19converted it into a space of nourishment and empowerment which continues to feed the community today.
12:30In order to meet the woman herself, I have to leave the city and head to upstate New York
12:34where she's relocated on her very own farmland.
12:38We need to start talking about systems that have been in place to keep people poor and sick,
12:50and we don't have those conversations.
12:52Meet Karen Washington, a pioneer in the urban farm movement, who also coined the term food apartheid.
12:59Yes, I coined that term. I don't care. People like it. They don't like it. I don't care.
13:03But it gives people the opportunity to start having those conversations.
13:08Can you talk a little bit about why it was important for you to kind of come up with a new terminology to frame this conversation?
13:14So when I heard the term food desert, I just couldn't understand why they were talking about a location where there's limited access to food.
13:25We got food. No one is talking about the junk food we have, the processed food, the fast food.
13:29They're not talking about the unhealthy food that we have, but yet they're classifying that we live in a food desert.
13:36I wanted people to peel away the food system and looking at it through the lens of race, through the lens of land, through the lens of wealth.
13:45We are in the 21st century, and people know the haves and have-nots.
13:50We know we have high incidence of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, but yet you victimize the poorest people saying that they can control and change
14:03if they give up soda and drink water instead of saying, well, wait a second. No.
14:09Hunger and poverty is man-made. Food desert does not allow you to have that conversation.
14:14Right. But food apartheid does.
14:16I can only imagine the first time you used that term in a public space, like what the reaction must have been.
14:22Yes, eyes popped open. Black folks were saying, yeah. Everybody else was saying, ooh.
14:29Tell me about how you got into this work.
14:31Maybe it was divine intervention because my relationship to food was that it came from a grocery store.
14:38When I moved to the Bronx and had a backyard, I decided to grow food.
14:41Once I got the hang of it, I was hooked. I was hooked to grow everything.
14:47So how much land is it?
14:49We have six acres that we're growing food, so we're growing okra, peppers, a lot of peppers.
14:56Mm-hmm. And our hushberries, I don't like them. I don't like the taste of them.
15:01So that's fine.
15:03Oh, let me just show you our peas. You want a taste?
15:05Sure.
15:09Uh-huh.
15:12It's good.
15:13Oh.
15:14We're getting ready to plant in the field, so our tomatoes are here.
15:21We grow all the starts for all the community gardens in New York City.
15:24All of them?
15:25All for 400.
15:26Wow.
15:28Living in the Bronx to living here must have been quite the transition.
15:31I mean, I love the Bronx, don't get me wrong.
15:33Yeah.
15:34I love the hustle and bustle of the people, but then it comes a point in time we just want to be quiet and just listen.
15:41You see, you listen to the birds, look at the sky, the mountains.
15:48When did you realize that there was a connection between food and racial justice?
15:53For me, growing up, farming had a negative connotation. Farming, for me, meant slavery.
16:00And a lot of us, that was imprinted in our mind. You know, if I was to tell someone,
16:05yeah, I'm going to grow up and be a farmer, they thought I was crazy.
16:08So that was something that you had to unlearn for yourself?
16:10Without a doubt.
16:11When I found the truth of the matter is that we weren't brought here because we were dumb or we were strong.
16:16We were brought here because of our knowledge of agriculture, and that's what clicked.
16:20Right.
16:21I feel like that's such a powerful reframing as well, too, because it reframes us as, like, experts that were brought for expertise.
16:27Like, not necessarily just as physical laborers.
16:31Karen has left me wanting to find out more from these original agriculturalists.
16:41So I am off to Kenya to meet some farmers who are currently locked in an industry-defining battle over the future of farming.
16:54Hi.
16:55Welcome.
16:56Nice to have you.
16:57I'm so happy to be here.
16:58It's beautiful.
16:59I'm in the town of Machakos, just east of Nairobi, to meet Leonida Odongo, an activist, educator, and the founder of Haki Nawiri Africa, an organization advocating for food sovereignty in Kenya.
17:19She's invited me here to meet some of the small-scale farmers she works with.
17:25This is called the Bliss Farm.
17:27Okay.
17:28It belongs to Peter Nzioka.
17:30He's a farmer, and we've been working with him since 2015.
17:34Okay.
17:35Just to try and transform the farming systems.
17:39They were trying to bring back the indigenous seeds, the indigenous knowledge.
17:46Whatever is produced here is produced in an organic way.
17:49There is no use of any synthetic fertilizer.
17:52As part of her work, Leonida helps farmers to come together, share knowledge between generations, and reclaim food systems.
18:03I'm Peter Nzioka, a member of Karni Small-Scale Farmers.
18:07My name is Petronila Ndikudavich.
18:09I'm 63 years old.
18:12I'm Catherine Patias.
18:14I am a farmer.
18:16Kalondu.
18:17She's 91 years old.
18:20She's one of the most active members of Karni Small-Scale Farmers Association.
18:25Yeah.
18:26How have you seen farming change over the years?
18:29The problem is that we don't have enough water to grow everything.
18:35Because the rains are not actually predictable during this time of climate change crisis.
18:40So there is need for us to use the indigenous seeds, which have actually been used by our forefathers.
18:48Yeah, the seeds.
18:50She's immense.
18:52They still have a sense as to the change of weather, the change of climate.
18:58If there is inadequate rain, they still grow and produce very well.
19:02They know how to adjust themselves.
19:04So there is need for us to use the indigenous seeds, which are actually doing very well.
19:08They are adaptable to the local climate.
19:11Most of the time, they are not affected by the crisis.
19:15It's incredible to hear about the power of indigenous seeds, even in the midst of climate change.
19:21Have you ever planted a tree?
19:24Ever.
19:25No.
19:26Look of disapproval.
19:29I may not be the poster child for the original agriculturalists, but I am realizing what Karen Washington was talking about
19:35when she said that we were brought over for our indigenous knowledge.
19:43Women are the food producers.
19:45They are also the custodians of seeds.
19:47That's why now we are bringing more women, giving them more information, more knowledge on agroecology,
19:52such that whatever they produce and they cook in the house is actually healthy.
19:58We are bringing back biodiversity.
20:00And when you have spaces like this one, where people can be able to see agroecology in practice,
20:06it's a space for changing mindsets.
20:08Let me pause for a moment and break down the difference between industrial agriculture and agroecology.
20:14Industrial agriculture refers to large-scale farming systems designed for the global market.
20:21Profit is the name of the game here, and the ways to get there include synthetic fertilizers,
20:26genetic modification, and monoculture.
20:29Agroecology, on the other hand, is all about applying the principles of ecology to agriculture,
20:35with the goal of creating sustainable and equitable food systems.
20:39Strategies include natural pest control, natural water management,
20:44and the encouragement of biodiversity.
20:50It's powerful to walk through this farm in Machakos and get a first-hand look at agroecology.
20:56In one piece of land, you can have so many varieties of seeds.
21:01We have bananas, we have mangoes, we have avocados, orange trees, and popos.
21:10In Canada, they call it papaya.
21:12Papaya?
21:13Yeah.
21:14Okay, we call it pai pai.
21:18This one is almost ready, and the beans are almost ready.
21:22I feel like I need to ask you what you don't grow. You need to grow everything.
21:26Yeah.
21:27So here, give nature a chance. Anything can grow. Just grow.
21:30You're not trying to control it, just let it go.
21:32Yeah, let it grow.
21:33Yeah.
21:36After seeing the lush abundance of his farm,
21:39Mr. Enzioka is bringing me to the source of it all.
21:42When you hear of a bank, what's normally there?
21:45Precious commodity.
21:46Yes.
21:47Yeah.
21:49It is a very precious commodity.
21:51As a local variety, indigenous seed, yeah.
22:00Let me close the bank.
22:01Lock it up.
22:02Bank has to be secure.
22:08Why do indigenous seeds hold so much value?
22:11At her office in Nairobi, Leonida is more than happy to explain.
22:17In many cultures in Kenya and across Africa, when you're getting married, you're always given seeds as a symbol of continuity.
22:25But we have a legislation in Kenya. We normally call it the Seed Act.
22:30What this legislation does is that it criminalizes the exchange, sharing, and selling of indigenous seeds.
22:38What was the intention behind this act?
22:40Like, why would such a law be created that makes it legal to share and exchange seeds?
22:45What I think is, in Africa, we have 30 million smallholder farmers.
22:50So if you just imagine, even if it was just one seed at one dollar, they'll get a lot of money.
22:56And so Africa is the new frontier as far as business is concerned, because they know this is a multi-billion dollar business.
23:06Farmers, when they buy seeds from the agrovert, they're always told, don't go and replant.
23:10What this means is that the farmers actually change to the agrovert season after season.
23:17They have to keep going back.
23:18They have to keep going. It's not going to regenerate.
23:20The Constitution talks about respect for indigenous knowledge.
23:24And seeds is indigenous knowledge.
23:27Right.
23:29Leonida has left me hungry to know more about how indigenous knowledge can shape farming and food culture a little closer to home.
23:36So I'm off to Scarborough, Ontario.
23:43Crosby Gitigan, that's who we are.
23:45What does Gitigan mean?
23:46Gitigan is farm or garden in Ojibwe.
23:49Okay.
23:50Meet Isaac Crosby, a.k.a. Brother Nature.
23:53He's a black Ojibwe urban farmer, educator, and food sovereignty advocate.
23:58I'm visiting his farm in Malvern, a community known for being a food desert.
24:02The farm is located within a repurposed hydro corridor, essentially unused fields under hydro lines.
24:09I'm from a small town south of Windsor.
24:12Okay.
24:13Called Harrell.
24:14We are black indigenous.
24:15We're Afro Ojibwe.
24:16So I learned all my farming and stuff from my grandparents, my father, my uncles, even my grandmother and everybody I should say.
24:21And I can honestly tell when I look at certain farms that go across the city, I can see it and I can say, oh, so that's a colonized farm over there.
24:28I can see.
24:29Okay.
24:30Tell me what are the markers of identification of a colonized farm.
24:33Okay.
24:34So to farm plots or stuff like that.
24:35Colonizer farm.
24:37It's always about clearing all the land.
24:40Clear, clear, clear, clear, clear.
24:41Right.
24:42Leave nothing behind.
24:43You're having a bunch of exposed soil.
24:45You use every single bit of that land.
24:47Right.
24:48You don't leave anything.
24:49You don't leave anything just to grow or be more native and natural.
24:52Right.
24:54There's never, ever, ever a lot of flowers on that land.
24:57Ever.
24:58If there is, they get rid of it like that.
25:00And as you can tell, you see all the weeds and everything still inside the garden bed, stuff like that.
25:03Yes.
25:04That's part of keeping everything natural.
25:05Right.
25:06You tell people that your garden should have bugs, should have rabbits, should be things to be eaten.
25:11If it's not, it's a chemical field and why are you eating it?
25:14If nature is not going to eat it, why are you eating it?
25:16Right.
25:21Can you tell me a little bit about the history of black and indigenous folks being stewards of the land?
25:26And what parts of that history you're attempting to reclaim in the work that you're doing now?
25:30Let's go back 400, 500 years when Africans were brought to the continent.
25:34Okay.
25:35And they were known as the great gardeners in Africa.
25:38The native people here, they have a contract with the great spirit about being stewards of the land.
25:43So you have those two who are unfortunately forced to be together, right?
25:48But created this beautiful relationship.
25:50Because number one, they realized they had the same oppressor.
25:53Number two, they realized they cared for the earth the same way.
25:56So they learned off each other.
25:57The runaway slaves were enslaved people from America.
25:59When they came north, they actually brought seeds with them.
26:02So back home, there's the three sisters within the Ojibwe culture, corn, beans and squash.
26:07When the enslaved people came north, they brought black-eyed peas.
26:10So that's our fourth sister, right, that we add to the beds.
26:13The city of Toronto recently declared food security an emergency.
26:16Can you talk a little bit about what your thoughts are on the state of emergency?
26:21Well, this should have been said a long time ago.
26:24We're like, okay, great.
26:25But here's the thing.
26:26What are you going to do about it?
26:27Right.
26:28Are you going to help the people get more garden plots?
26:30Are you going to free up more of this land for garden plots?
26:33Because it's a hydro corridor.
26:34And we all know hydro corridors.
26:36They're empty.
26:37Right.
26:38Right?
26:39It's prime land for farm plots, especially for the city.
26:40My hope for this space is for them to expand it.
26:43It's maybe about four or five years old, so it has room to grow.
26:47Right now, there's actually such a resurgence in urban agriculture, especially because the
26:52food prices are going up.
26:53Yeah.
26:54It's very, very important for black folks, indigenous folks, actually for all folks,
27:00to be able to grow your own food and not always relying on the grocery stores
27:04because you need to keep your money for other things.
27:05Yeah.
27:09Isaac and Leonida have sparked my curiosity.
27:11I want to know more about the difference between African food systems and how colonization
27:16has shaped the way food is produced, consumed, and even distributed.
27:20So I'm off next to a region where European colonization left an enduring mark in food
27:25and farming, the Caribbean.
27:35I'm in Kingston, Jamaica at the University of the West Indies to meet with Dr. Thira Edwards.
27:40She's a professor whose research includes agriculture and climate justice.
27:44I asked her about how agriculture developed here and the impact generations of plantation slavery had on the land.
27:52Well, before slavery had ended, a lot of the land in Jamaica was described as depleted, exhausted,
28:01because it had been continuously farmed.
28:04Season after season, there was not that allowing of the land to regenerate.
28:09This is where we have the creep of the use of fertilizer, chemicals, because you're not able to let the land just be idle, recover.
28:22And that is something which started as a legacy of the plantation period in Jamaica.
28:29When you have a small island, you are playing with a restricted hand.
28:34We're very different from, say, an African state where there is wider,
28:40vaster land to use.
28:46Dr. Edwards takes me on a drive to show me some of the historic agricultural sites on the campus.
28:52This part of the campus is now the Papine Estate.
28:55Clustered around here, where you have the estate slave village, are lots of ackee trees.
29:01The ackee was brought over from West Africa by the enslaved Africans.
29:10We then head up the mountain on a very twisty and winding road.
29:17I was just trying to keep my balance, while Dr. Edwards drove like a boss.
29:27So here's Mr. Brown. Come check out your spot. You're far.
29:30Yeah.
29:31We stopped so she can introduce me to a farmer named Mr. Brown.
29:33Are we actually going through this?
29:34Yes.
29:35Oh.
29:36Yes.
29:37Oh, wow.
29:38And then switch vehicles, because when your farm is located on a mountain, and the only road
29:42to access it was built by the farmer himself, no ordinary car can handle the task.
29:49That's a victim of the road.
29:51Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
29:53All of those slopes have coffee. That's his coffee as well.
29:58What do you mean you climbed down those slopes and planted them?
30:01Yeah.
30:03And I'm also just like a farm on a mountain.
30:06It's kind of blowing my mind also to try to think about the logistics of it all too.
30:11The drive to get here may have left me sweating and silently questioning how much I really wanted to see this farm, but the view at the top makes it all worthwhile.
30:25That's Petra Jam, that is Kingston downtown, and that's the waterfront.
30:31Doesn't seem like a bad life to work up and see all of this every day.
30:35From tender age, I love agriculture.
30:38And I wouldn't change it for nothing, believe me.
30:41But why coffee specifically?
30:43When you're doing vegetable, every day you have to be in it.
30:46Every single day.
30:47You have to reap, you have to package, you have to move it from point A to point B.
30:51And sometimes the market is overflood.
30:54Coffee is more stable.
30:56Yeah.
30:57Based on your experience and your perspectives, what are some of the biggest challenges that you see?
31:02I think we need to spend a lot more emphasis on agriculture in general.
31:07Just not coffee, but food security.
31:10How would you say that it's insecure?
31:12Like, what would you, would you say?
31:13I don't think we are producing enough.
31:15There's a great demand for food, the Caribbean food and all.
31:21So we have market all over.
31:23But we're just not producing enough.
31:25We're not producing enough for ourselves either.
31:27We are importing so much food, and we could grow our own food.
31:32Despite its fertile land and deep agricultural knowledge,
31:36Jamaica, like most Caribbean countries, is classified as a net food importer.
31:41This means that they import more than they export or produce for themselves.
31:46For example, rice was once a staple grown in Jamaica, but now 90% of it is imported from external markets.
31:53As a result, the cost of food is higher in the Caribbean than in most comparable regions, and dangerously vulnerable to global markets.
32:02I'd love to talk about the cost of importing food outside of the economic cost.
32:06Like, what is the cost of importing food on the diet of the country?
32:10Have you seen the diet of Jamaicans change over time?
32:12We have these fast food companies that have come from out of the U.S.
32:18KFC.
32:19We've been hearing about KFC actually a lot, yes.
32:23Jamaicans and KFC are a love relationship you don't want to get in between.
32:26That's what I heard.
32:27It's a big deal.
32:28Okay.
32:29Things such as ground provisions, yam, dashin, that kind of food is now sort of like a side, a special request when you go to buy lunch.
32:39You know, would you like some food with it or would you want it with food is what we would say here.
32:44There are lots of younger persons who are disconnected from traditional foodways.
32:53They're not prepared in the homes.
32:57They're not even known.
32:59What I'm starting to realize is that food insecurity is not about scarcity.
33:04It's about control.
33:06And that leads me to wonder about the wide amounts of arable land across Kenya and the continent of Africa.
33:12What is it being used for and who controls it?
33:17I've read that you've said that hunger in Africa is man-made.
33:21Can you expand on that a bit more?
33:2360% of Africa is arable land, meaning we can actually grow food in the continent.
33:28It's a huge amount.
33:29Very huge.
33:30Yeah.
33:31We have land.
33:32We produce what we don't consume.
33:33We're actually producing for Europe and other markets, external markets.
33:37We have a cut flower industry producing a lot of flowers to send abroad.
33:42There's also tea plantations taking up thousands of hectares in Kenya.
33:48The best gets exported and then this low grade is what is available.
33:52Wow. So you might be growing, but you're still not getting the high quality version of it.
33:55Yeah.
33:56Ghana produces a lot of cocoa, but Ghana doesn't have a plant that is producing chocolate.
34:02Right.
34:03We are told that the best chocolate comes from Switzerland.
34:05My question is how many cocoa bushes does Switzerland have?
34:09That is a political question that we need to be asking ourselves.
34:13Would you describe the agricultural industry as it currently stands as kind of like a form of neo-colonialism?
34:18We go to our independence, but we didn't get the power.
34:22To me is, you need to feed yourself first.
34:25You need to be food secure first before you start feeding your neighbor.
34:29There's always this push for produce for export.
34:35Like so many of us, I grew up bombarded with countless ads asking for donations to alleviate hunger in Africa.
34:42So it's incredible to realize that with 65% of the world's potential farmland, Africa has the means to not only achieve internal food security, but to also help feed the world.
34:55Unfortunately, those in power have chosen an extractive export economy and profit over feeding people.
35:02But the people are fighting back.
35:04Bonjour.
35:05How are you?
35:06Nice to see you here.
35:07Fifteen smallholder farmers from across Kenya are challenging the constitutionality of the 2012 Seed and Plant Varieties Act.
35:15The same one that makes it illegal for farmers to share, sell or reproduce uncertified seeds.
35:22Rather than settle for buying corporate owned GMO seeds every season, these farmers have taken the case to Kenya's High Court.
35:29They're fighting for the right to continue a practice that African people have been doing for generations.
35:36My lady, the petitioners before you say that it's in their culture, particularly the Kamba culture, to sell, sever and exchange seeds among their community.
35:48Yes, my lady, on the part of the respondents, the petitioners and interested parties have been very selective in reading the entire act.
35:59I pray that the court finds that the petition does not meet the threshold of unindigely and be dismissed.
36:06I'm curious about what significance this case might have beyond Kenya.
36:11If you look at the seed laws for different African countries, not just Kenya, you'll find that there's always a section that criminalizes the saving of indigenous seeds.
36:21Consistently across the continent?
36:23Yes.
36:24Yes.
36:25If you just interrogate, if you look at Uganda, Tanzania, you'll always see that there's a clause that talks about criminalizing all this.
36:31So basically, it's very important, not just for Kenya, but for the entire Africa.
36:36If you get a win in this case, it can set a precedent across the continent?
36:39Yes.
36:40That is going to be a precedent.
36:41All eyes are on this case, which could set into motion huge changes across the continent.
36:47It's incredible to me that something as small as a seed can have such a global impact.
37:01This conversation has made me think about the importance of access to land.
37:06The shift from food security to food sovereignty is a shift from access to ownership, from dependency to self-determination.
37:14And a great example of that can be found in Karen Washington's journey.
37:18Can you talk about how people get access to land, though?
37:22There is a lot of complexity about access to land because people now understand land is power.
37:28We have an aging population of the United States. The average age of a farmer is 65 years of age.
37:34And so we have organizations that are willing to take your land and put it in a land trust and put it into the hands of people that want to farm on it.
37:43Right. So for these older farmers that are ready to retire and move on, they can pass on their land to these?
37:48Right. To these different land trusts.
37:50So where we are now, we're at Rising Root Farm, our farm, but we're part of the Chester Agricultural Center that owns the land.
37:58Because I would not be here. We couldn't afford this. It would take millions and millions of dollars.
38:03And their vision is to provide land for the next generation of farmers. Unheard of. Unheard of.
38:09We have a 30-year renewable lease. Now, I'm 71. 30 years, I'll be 100. Maybe my spirit will be here.
38:16Yeah, right, right.
38:17But at least we know that the next generation will have access to this.
38:21Yes. I know there's been a framing, too, of, like, doing this kind of work as a form of reparations as well, too.
38:28Yes. And, you know, people get upset when you say that word.
38:31It's a triggering word for someone.
38:33It's a trigger word for people of power and privilege, namely white folks, because, you know, they hear when black people talk about reparations, they feel they're going to come and get our land.
38:42We don't want to come and get the land. We just want to have access to the land.
38:47And then also, let's talk about the history. Go ask your family how they got that land.
38:51Mm-hmm.
38:52Open Pandora's box and see how Uncle Jimmy or Aunt Ethel or Grandpa Joe got that land.
39:03And how that land was worked.
39:04And how that land was worked. Exactly.
39:06I'm back in Toronto at Black Creek Community Farm, the second largest urban farm in Canada.
39:17It's a place that's become a site of access for black farmers of all ages who work small plots and grow food.
39:24Hello, Papa.
39:26I'm meeting up with Chef Bashir to cook a meal, or maybe just watch since I frequently burn rice.
39:32This is my favorite place in the city, second to my home.
39:36Right.
39:37I'm super excited to show you some of the cooking techniques, ancestral ingredients.
39:42So, go in with half a cup of palm oil.
39:46Then we're going to go with our onions.
39:49Okay, so we have our onions. I have like a medium.
39:52Medium, okay.
39:53As you can see, look how vibrant the color is.
39:55Yeah.
39:56Tell me a little bit about your journey with food.
39:59Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, the land of poets.
40:02Okay.
40:03I left Somalia when I was five.
40:04I lived in Italy for about 14 years of my life.
40:07I always felt that there was a little bit of a void.
40:09There was something missing.
40:11Both as a child and later on as an adult, there was this kind of a yearning to find relevance within my own blackness.
40:17And food is really what helped me heal through this journey.
40:21I'm going to add the rest of those garden eggs.
40:23Okay.
40:24And you're saying these are basically like an eggplant essentially.
40:26Those are eggplants, yes.
40:27And we are here at the Black Creek Community Farm.
40:29Mm-hmm.
40:30And the farm is growing those eggplants as well.
40:32Oh, right.
40:33And now I'm going to add tomatoes.
40:36And once this is done, we're going to add some peanut butter and allow it to cook.
40:43Just going to let it do its own magic right now.
40:45All right.
40:46We're going to put the lid on.
40:47All right.
40:48All right.
40:49All right.
40:50All right.
40:51All right.
40:52All right.
40:53All right.
40:54All right.
40:55All right.
40:56All right.
40:57All right.
40:58All right.
40:59All right.
41:00Right there.
41:01Yes, please.
41:02I am excited.
41:03I'd like to thank the Almighty for this beautiful sunshine day.
41:08And the farmers who till the soil so we could harvest this food.
41:15And most importantly, thank the chef.
41:18I assume we could dig in now.
41:20For me, I really wanted today to celebrate Pan-African cuisine.
41:26This is a tieke, cassava couscous.
41:28So it's fermented cassava.
41:31And for your plate.
41:32I did not realize this was my plate.
41:34We made a peanut stew and eggplant tagine.
41:40This one, it's a fun take on a Kalaloo rundown.
41:45And I know that a lot of the Caribbean people, they will slap me across.
41:49Kalaloo that has been blanched and then covered with coconut milk and seasonings.
41:56There are cucumbers from the farm.
41:58There are tomatoes from the farm.
41:59We also have a watermelon, kind of like a sashimi.
42:08Mmm.
42:09Mmm.
42:10Mmm.
42:11Mmm.
42:12Wow.
42:13I am in heaven.
42:15As I'm enjoying this ridiculously delicious meal, my mind goes back to my conversation with Karen Washington and the idea of land as reparations.
42:26I wonder what ownership means when the land in question is unceded Indigenous land.
42:31One of the things I've been thinking a lot about is the connection between Black food sovereignty and Indigenous land sovereignty, especially when thinking about where we are on Indigenous land.
42:39Indigenous communities speak about the salmon.
42:42They speak about berries.
42:44They speak about it in a very spiritual way, a connection with the food and spirit.
42:51Mmm.
42:52In Africa, you have that too, but we lost some of that connection.
42:57Yeah.
42:58I feel that oftentimes, linguistically, in the pursuit of our own sovereignty, we tend to forget that we are on Indigenous land.
43:05Right.
43:06So the question is like, when I'm trying to grow food that is culturally relevant to me, do we actually intentionally add Indigenous plants and flowers to be able to maintain the biodiversity and Indigenous landscape?
43:18And when we're talking about Black food sovereignty, we're talking about our rights.
43:22Mmm.
43:23You know, my right to be on the land.
43:24Yes.
43:25My right to grow food that is a culture.
43:26My rights.
43:27But Indigenous people also remind us about our responsibility.
43:32Mmm.
43:33Right?
43:34For Black folks that are thinking about this kind of work, should they be considering Indigenous practices around the ways that you farm?
43:40If you are going to be a farmer, a gardener, you honestly should learn what the Indigenous people have been growing and doing it for thousands of years.
43:47Mmm-hmm.
43:48Learn that base.
43:49Then at the same time, I want you to teach me how you grew things in your country.
43:54Mmm.
43:55Let's find things that are equal.
43:56In exchange.
43:57Exactly.
43:58If you look on the right-hand side, there's collard greens.
44:00Can I take some?
44:01Yep.
44:02Just chop them, fry them, steam them.
44:06And the more you pick, the more they come back.
44:08Right.
44:09How important is it for you to do work across generations?
44:14It is something that I realized needed to be done, first of all, because there are a lot of groups out there that are just for older folks, groups for the youth, but they need to come together.
44:24They need to learn how to work together because they're going to survive this world together.
44:27So it's, for me, a way to teach what I know and teach them how to, at the same time, care for the Earth.
44:33Yes.
44:34As people who are often the ones reconnecting folks to so many things, what have you seen in terms of the power of food to reconnect people to their, like, traditional ways of knowing or to ancestral ways?
44:45Like, something beyond just food that you need to survive.
44:48For me, food has always been happiness and love.
44:50Right.
44:51Like, you know, from my grandmother having the big Sunday dinners to, you know, my mom.
44:55Anytime my mom cooks, she'll call me.
44:57Come and pick something up, this, that, and the other.
44:59Bring your Tupperware.
45:00And so through the work that I do, yes, we're addressing food insecurity.
45:03But we want to bring that joy back into households.
45:06The food is such an integral part of the Black community.
45:09I think that the future for the Toronto Black Food Sovereignty, it's vibrant, it's beautiful, it's absolutely delicious.
45:15Woo!
45:16No dishwashing!
45:17Woohoo!
45:18Woohoo!
45:19Woo!
45:20Mmmmm!
45:21Oh,imar!
45:22That's a great shot!
45:23Mm-hmm!
45:24Come on bombså socially and let's be younger!
45:25Are you sure everybody ever has a whiskey wszyscy?
45:29Oh?
45:30I think we're off as peine.
45:32I think, like, I think you're on board.
45:37Anything that is very interesting.
45:40You.
45:41I think it's fine.
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