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Food Justice

Though there is an unprecedented quantity of food worldwide today, over one billion people lack adequate access to healthy food. Meanwhile, industrial food systems generate considerable greenhouse gas emissions, while obesity and diet-related diseases persist. University of Michigan researchers are analyzing how food access disparities manifest in different communities, and are assessing the efficacy of current and potential policy solutions. Experts at the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative coordinate multidisciplinary approaches, while the Campus Farm and U-M Sustainable Food Program provide living, learning laboratories for U-M students to support more equitable food systems.

News and Impact

Earth Month
Earth Month puts focus on U-M sustainability efforts
Rice bags
US rice exported to Haiti may be harmful to health
Alexa White
The cost of a mango in January
Phimmasone Kym Owens
Farm away from home
concrete pipes
Suburban Detroit water unaffordability: Causes, consequences, and the need for comprehensive policy interventions
Biden signs environmental justice executive order
SEAS Prof. Kyle Whyte contributes to historic executive order on environmental justice signed by Pres. Biden
Environmental justice issues exploration graphic
Justice should be an action, not only a core value
Clients have full autonomy with the garden space and chose what and how to plant there.
Honoring foodways: Refugee-focused community garden celebrates its first year
The inaugural cohort of Transformative Food Systems fellows pictured at the U-M Campus Farm.
Fellowship provides students with learning and training to transform food systems
Kyle Whyte
Environmental justice expert selected as U-M’s first US Science Envoy by State Department
U-M School for Environment and Sustainability
SEAS launches new scholarships to provide environmental justice opportunities to students, funding to community organizations
Ivette Perfecto
Professor Ivette Perfecto highlights the benefits of shaded coffee farms on biodiversity, farmer livelihoods in Latin America
Map showing targeted survey areas in green. Blue pins are federally-recognized Native American tribes. Red pins are Kellogg project areas. Image courtesy: Kate Bauer
U-M, Farm Bureau working together to reduce hunger in Michigan
an apple orchard
Michigan Farmworker Project seeks to improve social and environmental health for marginalized population
Ford School of Public Policy
Ford School to expand anti-racism faculty, address environment and health disparities
Lesli Hoey
Interdisciplinary team awarded funds to launch the transformative food systems seminar
Students assessing an urban agricultural site in Detroit’s Lower Eastside. Image credit: Photo by Dave Brenner/University of Michigan, from Newell et al. in the journal Cities, 2022
Urban agriculture in Detroit: Scattering vs. clustering and the prospects for scaling up
Malik Yakini and Lilly Fink Shapiro
Building Black Food Sovereignty: An Update
fresh, organic vegetables
U-M Food Literacy for All talk explores relationship between food inequalities and income levels
Alyssa Paredes
All signs point to bananas
Several cows in a barn
Air pollution impacts on Latinx communities in California caused by beef production
Zahir Janmohamed speaking in front of a screen showing a news article
Zahir Janmohamed: “De-colonizing Food Journalism”
A student wearing a mask stocks shelves in the food pantry
This is how you feed potential
A masked and gloved person carrying a cardboard box of food
Coronavirus Pandemic Worsens Food Insecurity for Low-Income Adults
Elderly woman frowning at a bowl of soup
Even before COVID-19, many adults over 50 lacked stable food supply, didn’t use assistance
Leah Penniman speaking with a microphone in front of an image of protesting Black farmers projected on a screen
Leah Penniman: “Farming While Black: Uprooting Racism, Seeding Sovereignty”