Labor in the Food System: A View from INFAS

Abstract

The Inter-institutional Network for Food, Agriculture and Sustainability (INFAS or "the Network"), initiated informally in 2008 and formalized in 2011, encompasses a broad group of practitioners, primarily in academic institutions, who work individually on a diverse range of topics in agricultural and food system sustainability. INFAS grew from a shared vision to expose the challenges facing the transformation of agriculture and our global food system, including the sometimes competing interests of labor, producers, and consumers in the food system. From the start, the Network was envisioned to include activists in collaboration with academics in order to broadly improve the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of the food system by spanning disciplinary and institutional boundaries, convening diverse stake-holders, and linking knowledge with action. We envision an environmentally sustainable and socially just U.S. food system. This requires that race, class, and gender no longer determine health outcomes, social status, or economic opportunity, and that healthy, restored agroecosystems and fisheries are achievable....