The Checkout

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Hosted and produced by two Organic food and farming lifers, The Checkout brings forward diverse voices and stories from the frontlines of our food system. Now more than ever, our food system is in a constant state of flux, radical change and crisis. From farm, retail and wholesale sector analyses to public policy, labor organizing and community struggles, The Checkout will expand the horizon for consumers and food industry professionals of what is possible and what is necessary to create a just, equitable and resilient food system.

Episode 1: Raj Patel on Food Sovereignty

Episode #1 Notes

3:30 - What is Food Sovereignty?

7:00 - What is the difference between Food Sovereignty and Food Justice?

10:00 - Who makes the decisions in our food system with regards to growing, distributing, and selling our foods?

12:30 - Why is there such disparity in food access - particularly the quality of grocery retailers - across different geographies?

16:00 - How has COVID-19 exacerbated the issues around food justice?

19:00 - Raj, please repeat that mind-bogglingly crazy statistic you just cited.

20:30 - Why hasn’t the free market solved all of our food access and food sovereignty issues?

24:00 - How does agricultural subsidies affect food pricing and, in effect, food sovereignty?

30:00 - What role do food systems workers play in achieving food sovereignty?

35:20 - What impact might something like a Green New Deal have on moving us towards food sovereignty?

39:15 - How would food sovereignty impact our cuisine and what ends up on our plates?

47:00 - The role of reparations in food sovereignty

49:40 - Raj, what’s on your bookshelf right now?

Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It, Tom Philpott

Various books from Nick Estes, Nick Estes

The Long Drop, Denise Mina

The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead

Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer

Nightmarch, Alpa Shah

The Burning Forest: India’s War in Bastar, Nandini Sundar

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Episode 2: Carla Vernón on Leadership, Equity, and Scaling Good Food

Episode #2 Notes

1:00 - What led you into the food industry?

3:30 - How did your family influence your career trajectory?

5:30 - What did you study in college?

7:30 - What were some of your initial experience working your way up a large food company?

9:50 - Did you feel like you faced additional challenges as a woman of color in the food industry?

13:45 - How do you think the natural products industry got so white? And what do we need to do to change that?

26:30 - Do you think the diversity, inclusion, and equity policies that have been applied to some procurement departments can ultimately help black farmers who have been disenfranchised?

33:30 - What inspired you to move into Organic foods?

37:45 - Under you leadership at General Mills, it embraced regenerative agriculture and responsiveness to climate change. How did you hustle that?

43:15 - What kinds of impacts do you think these progressive policies around sustainability was General Mills hoping to have?

48:45 - Are you seeing other players evolve along these same lines towards more sustainability and regenerative practices?

51:30 - How do you think large food companies are responding to a greater need for food security and food access in the COVID landscape?

57:00 - You’ve been a visible Black Lives Matter supporter at a high level in the food industry. How has this been received by your peer group in the food industry?

103:00 - Black people have been historically disenfranchised by the food system. What does a food system designed by Carla Vernon look like?

110:00 - What are three things you would recommend to a food industry leader to reverse the legacy of inequity and injustice in the food system?

114:00 - What’s on your reading list?

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Episode 3: Jose Oliva on Building a Worker-Centered Food System, Part 1

Episode #3 Notes

1:00 - What is land reform?

8:00 - What was the intention of land reform in Guatemala? What was the goal?

11:30 - When thinking about your work in the US, in the context of your family history, how do you define food sovereignty?

21:00 - How does food sovereignty and land reform fit into the present moment?

29:00 - How do you balance out the fact that people were forced to work the land here vs. the fact that land was cleared out by violence and disease?

38:45 - Let’s talk about Chicago. Tell me about your early organizing history and how the Food Chain Workers Alliance came about?

49:00 - How does the poor treatment of food chain workers affect their personal health and lives?

Book Recommendations coming in Part 2!

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Episode 4: Jose Oliva on Building a Worker-Centered Food System, Part 2

Episode #4 Notes

0:30 - Why is the Foodchain Workers Alliance relevant today?

8:00 - Why haven’t unions traditionally focused on food service workers in the past? And how are the current worker-centered efforts really moving the needle in social movement organizing right now?

13:00 - Tell us about the HEAL Alliance.

19:30 - Let’s talk about the meat industry. Tell us about your campaign around this?

25:30 - Why is it important for BIPOC folks to take part in food system organizing?

27:45 - What is your vision for a fair and just food system?

29:00 - How do you balance out the fact that people were forced to work the land here vs. the fact that land was cleared out by violence and disease?

30:30 - What’s on your bookshelf?

Fight Back

Confessions of an Economic Hitman, John Perkins

Star Wars - Aftermath Trilogy, Life Debt, Chuck Wendig

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Episode 6: Farming While Black in Austin, TX with Tiffany Washington

Episode #6 Notes

1:00 - How did you get into farming?

4:00 - How has being a veteran influenced you as a farmer?

8:30 - What role did Farmshare Austin play in your development as a farmer?

10:30 - On Battle Ground to Breaking Ground program.

12:15 - What went well with your training through Farmshare Austin and what could be improved?

15:00 - As a Black woman who has deep roots in East Austin, what is the relationship between your family history and the land?

20:00 - How has the Black community in East Austin been treated when it comes to land ownership and food production opportunities?

22:15 - On gentrification in East Austin.

24:00 - What happened to the freedman’s communities and historic Black communities in Austin?

28:00 - The history of McKinney and Mueller in Austin.

29:00 - George Washington Carver - why is he one of the most influential agrarians ever?

34:30 - Black people have pioneered many of the sustainable practices we see today - why has this generally been overlooked by the local and Organic food movement?

37:30 - Why aren’t there more Black farmers here now in Central Texas?

44:00 - How does food apartheid influence your work for what you do?

47:30 - What can be done to help support Black farmers? What’s needed?

49:30 - What’d your favorite food to grow?

53:30 - What motivates you to continue doing this work?

56:45 - What’s on your bookshelf right now?

The Black Titan, Carol Jenkins and Elizabeth Gardner Hines

Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery

Our Kind of People, Lawrence Otis Graham

Mycorrhizal Planet, Michael Phillips

The Bible

Rebuilding the Foodshed, Philip Ackerman Leist

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Episode 7: Tom Philpott On A Food System In Crisis… and How To Fix It.

Episode #7 Notes

1:00 - How did you get interested in food and agriculture?

5:45 - Say what? Tom and Errol both organized to save NYC community gardens back in the day.

7:00 - Tom, you’ve actually managed a farm - tell us about that?

12:00 - How did you end up working at Mother Jones?

16:30 - What inspired you to start writing Perilous Bounty?

19:30 - Climate change. What is the severity of the risk to agricultural communities in California and the West Coast, specifically?

26:15 - The agricultural workers and communities in the Central Valley - how are they fighting to save their communities in the face of climate change?

30:30 - How much fruit, veg, and dairy as a percent of national supply is produced in California’s Central Valley?

32:30 - Midwest agriculture - what’s being produced in these world class soils, where does that product go, and how does this tie to soil loss and pesticide/fertilizer use?

38:00 - Overproduction of food, and how this is related to lower farm income and greater concentration of agribusiness. Tell us about that.

41:15 - Monsanto or The Resnick Empire: Who’s more evil? And, how has each company impacted ag policy to their betterment?

47:30 - Contrasting these companies, why hasn’t sustainable, regenerative farming taken-off?

51:30 - What do we need to fix in our food system to avoid collapse? What practices and policies should be implemented?

56:15 - What’s on your bookshelf?

Late Victorian Holocaust, Mike Davis

The Death of Ramon Gonzalez, Angus Wright

Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser

Food Politics, Marion Nestle

Stuffed and Starved, Raj Patel

The Value of Nothing, Raj Patel

The Price of Peace, Zachary Carter

Perilous Bounty, Tom Philpott

The Monster at Our Door, Mike Davis

Ecology of Fear: Las Angelas and the Imagination of Disaster, Mike Davis

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Episode 8: David Zuckerman: Gubernatorial Candidate and Lt. Governor of Vermont

Episode #8 Notes

1:00 - How did you get interested in farming and what do you grow?

4:15 - What got you interested in politics?

7:00 - What makes Vermont politics unique, and what’s applicable to other states?

9:30 - Jobs. How do your policy ideas will ensure good paying jobs and living standards for Vermonters?

15:30 - Ag policy. What’s your policy on environmental sustainability and how has climate change impacted food production in your state?

21:45 - GMO’s. You’ve done a lot of work on GMO labelling. How does this fit into your policy platform, considering your state has such a large agricultural sector?

29:45 - Vermont is a largely white state. What would you do to protect migrant farm workers or domestic workers. How do you work to reduce racial bias and eliminate hate crimes?

34:45 - Healthcare. What’s the most sensible and cost effective healthcare policy and how would it be paid for?

37:30 - What does a resilient food system mean to you? And how are you working towards that?

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Episode 9: Alexa Delwiche, Center for Good Food Purchasing

Episode #9 Notes

0:45 - Tell us about food procurement.

4:15 - How did your experience at United Farm Workers help formulate and start your work in the Good Food Purchasing Program?

10:30 - What role did unions and community organizations play in starting the Good Food Purchasing Program?

20:30 - Could you describe the main pillars of purchasing standards under the Good Food Purchasing Program?

25:15 - How is procurement typically handled by large, public institutions? What is the norm here?

28:00 - What are examples of institutions that have embraced Good Food Purchasing practices, and what have the impacts been?

32:30 - How about school foods? What impact has the Good Food Purchasing Program had here?

35:00 - Have you received pushback from institutions food procurement policies with regards to increased prices and standards?

38:30 - How do you measure the impacts of the Good Food Purchasing Program?

44:30 - How does community activism and civic engagement play into GFPP activity on the ground?

49:00 - How has COVID-19 impacted the work of GFPP and of the institutions who participate?

55:00 - What GFPP implementation can look like a statewide or regional scale.

59:00 - How do you see GFPP standard evolving?

1:01 - Errol on Whole Foods and procurement. And was there any feedback from the private sector on GFPP standards?

1:08 - What’s on your bookshelf?

On Fire, Naomi Klein

Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey

Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser

Stuffed and Starved, Raj Patel

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Episode 10: Chris Maestro, Founder of Bierwax

Episode #10 Notes

1:00 - What is Bierwax?

6:30 - Vinyl bars in Tokyo: how do they operate?

9:30 - On spinning records whilst serving drinks.

12:15 - How did you get into craft brews with your background as an educator?

16:30 - How did you finance starting up your bar?

19:15 - What’s it like being a person of color in the bar and craft brew world?

20:45 - Is there a group or association supporting non-white folks in the craft brew space?

28:30 - What are your employment policies, especially during COVID?

35:40 - How has Bierwax been recieved by the beer and the hip hop community?

44:20 - What’s next for Bierwax?

46:45 - Who is your favorite member of the Wu-Tang Clan?

50:40 - If you were stranded on an island, what keg would you have with you?

56:45 - What’s on your bookshelf?

Star Wars, Alphabet Squadron - Alexander Freed

Star Wars, Darth Plagueis

Black Reconstruction in America 1860 - 1880, W.E.B Du Bois

The Monster at our Door, Mike Davis

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Episode 12: Lorig Hawkins of Middle Ground Farm

Episode #12 Notes

1:00 - How did you get into farming?

5:00 - How did you acquire land?

10:00 - How did you get involved with food access, nonprofits, and municipal boards?

14:30 - How do you describe the food system in and around Austin, TX?

19:00 - There is an emergence of non-white, non-hetero-normative farmers getting into farming. How do you see this changing the food system? Why do you think this is happening now?

24:00 - What’s fun and easy to grow in Central Texas? How do you decide what to grow?

35:00 - What’s on your bookshelf right now?

44:00 - How does agricultural subsidies affect food pricing and, in effect, food sovereignty?

45:00 - Lorig’s book on agriculture.

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