“No one wants to ask for food from someone else. You want to be able to feed your children, take care of your own needs, pay your own bills.”

This story is about the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council and its 2020 Pittsburgh Food Action Plan. Direct quotes from an August 2020 interview with Dawn Plummer are boxed.

Dawn Plummer recently celebrated her sixth year as the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council where she has led a charge towards the Greater Pittsburgh Food Action Plan. This plan, a guide for country-wide large-scale steps towards food justice, has been conceived over months of meetings, round table discussions, and careful listening to community members. The Pittsburgh Food Policy Council’s guiding principles of inclusivity and community conversation have laid the groundwork for deep relationships, which, in turn, have formed the infrastructure and informed the trajectory of the project.

Food is a unifying issue: all communities need good food and safe spaces to come together, be it online for now, or someday in person. The PFPC has built a shared leadership model that is intentionally inclusive, inviting participation from activists, farmers, gardeners, bakers, restaurant owners, grocery store clerks, as well as an open invitation to anyone who eats (or otherwise needs nourishment.) On any team, campaign, or working group, they are able to bring together a multi-stakeholder coalition, holding space for the knowledge of community members, research, policy expertise, information and community organizing skills to come together and inform one another.

Photo courtesy of Pittsburgh Food Policy Council

“The PFPC has been around since 2009. We started out as several organizations wanting to come together to share in our individual missions, to try and understand the systems behind what it was that they were doing. Some of those organizations were the Penn State Extension, the East End Food Co-op, Sustainable Agriculture, Food Bank, Grow Pittsburgh, all of us were at those early stages. So while one organization worked in one area, say, urban farming, for example, or urban agriculture, knowing that food insecurity, supply chain issues, environmental and sustainability issues are all connected, really trying to just create space for those people to come together. And over time,that turned into projects and collaborations, a need to really expand that conversation (...)”

The pandemic has encouraged (and even demanded,) a mindful consideration of things we perhaps used to do on autopilot. Some of us have had to learn how to get groceries only once every few weeks instead of swinging by the local store for a missing ingredient on the way home from work, revealing the commodified nature of our relationship to food. However, for many, the commodification of food has always been an obvious reality. Food deserts exist by design in neighborhoods where resources are already scarce. The PFPC has prioritized the advancement of collective impact, that which can make the most change for the largest number of people. They not only prioritize leveraging resources, but reach the hearts and minds of those represented. I asked Dawn what Pittsburgh needs to know in order to build a more just food system. What do we need to do to increase understanding, increase sustainability, and decrease food waste? How do we address these deep disparities? What things can we work towards and hold as ideals?

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I think one piece that’s really important is for us to understand the system as a city, as a region. What are our systems? What food do we have in the region? Where can I get it? Is it affordable? That consciousness is just one piece. And when we understand what those systems are, we see their flaws, and then we can look at the root causes of why those systems don’t work. Or, when they do work! What works really well?

But at this moment that becomes all the more critical, as we look at how the food system underpins the livelihoods of our region, but also the people. We try to think about food not just as a commodity but as a human right and a dynamic system. So what does it mean to have healthy food? What does it mean to nourish your body in a way that allows it to be healthy? And allows your community to be healthy, with vibrancy, with community gardens, and things that make a place home?”

Food Day 2016, photo courtesy of Pittsburgh Food Policy Council

Racial justice and food equity are inextricably linked. The Pittsburgh Food Policy Council upholds the advancement of racial justice in their own community-based processes, in applying their resources, and time. They examine the ways in which our food system is tied to a history of the enslavement of African people and the exploitation of all kinds of people across history in order to build a food system that’s just, equitable, and sustainable for the future.

While good, healthy food may take on different meanings in different settings, food justice doesn’t stop simply with availability and abundance. Along with the struggle for a just food system comes the labor struggle, illustrating how interconnected injustice is under this exploitative, profit-driven economic system. Therefore the struggle for “food justice” cannot be understood outside of movements for economic, racial, social, and climate justice. Much of our food production involves the hard work of many undocumented workers. The state of Pennsylvania has a very strong immigrant-led coalition working on issues of equity that one might not think directly effect food production: like the ability of an undocumented person to obtain a driver’s license in order to commute in a rural farming area. Food has a way of laying bare so much of the injustices we face, connecting what we uphold when thinking of a better world.

One partner organization guiding this work is the Black and Urban Gardeners and Farmers of Pittsburgh, which is thriving within city limits and looked to as an example for other cities to follow. The Department of Agriculture’s Dr. Scott Sheely gave high praise and encouragement in using Pittsburgh as a model for other cities producing food within city limits. Plummer’s intentional efforts to involve, include, and center the perspectives and opinions of historically excluded communities has paved the way for the creation of a Food Action Plan that demands equity at every level. This has allowed for a deep and thoughtful look at vulnerability not as a weakness, but as an opportunity to provide solutions to issues like free transfers for public transportation so people can get more affordably to a reliable food source, or raising wages at part time jobs. These are not simple solutions, but they are achievable.

In this mission, they’ve seen a notable increase in both the number of people showing up and the kinds of people who are coming to the table. The digital accessibility opens doors, so they can reach anywhere from the offices of the Department of Agriculture to the home of someone who is caretaking and can listen in on their phone to the meetings.

“We’re really trying to shift the power, and shift the narrative from charity, which, right now we need a lot of charity, we need a lot of giving, People need to share when they have with those who don’t have right now. That’s just the bottom line. We need to be moving food to people who need it. But! We also need to be understanding that there’s a real distinction between charity and justice.”

The Pittsburgh Food Action Plan proposes a regional food system, rooted in collaborative, community-based decisions, that prioritizes equity and supports the health of our people, our natural resources and our economy.

It offers the framework to imagine and build a just and equitable food system in Pittsburgh. And the work of fighting for and building that food system is the ongoing work of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council. In a typical week, they might testify at City Council on issues that intersect with the food system, or bring together the regional food system’s voice around national and statewide efforts to hold legislators accountable about the issues that impact us. Continue to follow their vision and leadership by signing up for their newsletter or becoming a member of one of their working groups. You can find out more on their website: https://www.pittsburghfoodpolicy.org/get-involved