The Somali Bantu Community Association works to build food justice and food sovereignty in Maine by creating opportunities for members of the Somali Bantu refugee community to grow healthy, organic, and culturally-appropriate food in Lewiston and Auburn.
In the process, the organization aims to increase food security in the refugee community, as well as provide economic opportunities for farmers.
“In our organization, most of the people who we serve are dependent on food stamps. When you have food stamps, you don’t have the luxury of going to any aisle and shopping. Healthy food was an issue for us,” said Muhidin Libah, executive director of the Somali Bantu Community Association (SBCA), during the US Food Sovereignty Alliance Assembly in Bellingham, Washington, in October 2018.
“Our organization decided to come up with this program where we help people access land and produce their own healthy food,” Muhidin added. “Our goal is to help people get overall protein and everything from their own work, including cheese, milk, eggs, and vegetables.”
For Muhidin and the SBCA, this kind of self-determination of producing food by and for the Somali Bantu refugee community is “food justice in action” and the foundation of food sovereignty. The organization operates Liberation Farms, a program that offers farmers access to a tenth of an acre of land to grow food for their families and communities.
As the organization grows, farmers also have access to economic opportunities by selling excess produce at local markets.
“We put 135 families into the field,” Muhidin said, explaining the organization’s expansion from just 20 farmers in 2014.
“We are producing more than we can consume, so we are now accessing markets; we are selling,” he added. “And now people are getting healthy food, and at the same time, selling their produce, which is creating some income. We are fighting economic problems in that way.”
Aside from food justice work, the SBCA also offers cultural and youth programming, immigration and translation support services, conflict resolution initiatives, and medical outreach in the community, among other programs.
Bantu people are an ethnic minority group in Somalia who faced discrimination at the hands of major Somali clans during the civil war, forcing Bantus to flee to refugee camps in Kenya. Some 12,000 Bantus resettled in the United States. Today, 3,000 live in Lewiston, Maine, according to SBCA.
Food Sovereignty Stories is a video series exploring what food sovereignty can look like for diverse social movements across the United States. Share this video and follow USFSA for updates!
For the Black Mesa Water Coalition, food sovereignty is one part of a broader effort to transform Navajo and Hopi communities and their economies by drawing on traditional knowledge to build sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel dependence.
“The just transition for us really came from the need to transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy, which our tribe is heavily dependent on, with royalties from the exploitation of coal, gas, and other resources,” said Black Mesa Water Coalition member Robert Nutlouis during the US Food Sovereignty Alliance Assembly in Bellingham, Washington, in October 2018. “Our call for the Nation is to move away from that type of development towards a more sustainable, regenerative economy.”
The organization, based in Arizona, formed in 2001 to confront the impacts of coal mining in Navajo and Hopi communities and tackle issues around water, natural resources exploitation, and health. Among other work, its projects have included regenerative water catchment systems, leadership development initiatives, and a “Food Sovereignty Project” using dry land agricultural techniques to produce food on a five-acre community farm.
“Food sovereignty for our community is really looking at our own traditional knowledge and the wisdom that our ancestors had developed and left for us and is still carried by our elders,” said Robert. “Really going back and seeing what this knowledge and wisdom say to us about how to revive and rebuild our food system.”
The organization also works to build cultural awareness, including language preservation efforts and education around traditional seeds.
“There has to be a cultural shift from how we see things to how we interact with our environment,” Robert continued. “The land is sacred, the elements are sacred, and we have to understand it in that way.”
Sheldon Natoni, a youth member of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, added: “It kind of gives me comfort that I’m going through the right path and I’m not being part of the extractive economy. It’s a healing property for me to become more grounded in who I am as a Dene.”
Black Mesa Water Coalition received the US Food Sovereignty Alliance’s 2018 Food Sovereignty Prize in the domestic category, recognizing its work in reclaiming Indigenous food sovereignty. Food Sovereignty Stories is a video series exploring what food sovereignty can look like for diverse social movements across the United States. Share this video and follow USFSA for updates!
US Food Sovereignty Alliance to Award Food Sovereignty Prize TONIGHT, October 10
FERGUSON, MO: The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) will award the 2019 Food Sovereignty Prize to Urban Tilth (Richmond, CA) and Plan Pueblo a Pueblo (Plan People to People, Venezuela) this evening in Ferguson, Missouri. Interested press can view a livestream, and afterwards, a video of the ceremony at bit.ly/foodsovprize2019.
The Food Sovereignty Prize honors those committed to working for social change through collective action, and highlights those confronting oppression and corporate control over seeds, land, water, labor, knowledge, supply chains, and policy-making.
WHAT: 2019 Food Sovereignty Prize ceremony
WHO: US Food Sovereignty Alliance members, allies, and interested press
As a US-based alliance of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based, and food producer groups, the Alliance upholds the right to food as a basic human right and work to connect our local and national struggles to the international movement for food sovereignty. For more information, visit www.usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org.
