A Different Approach to Farming: Karen Washington on Food Justice and Urban Gardening
Watson Jones | March 3, 2023
N.Y. community organizer and food justice advocate Karen Washington spoke to a packed crowd in Warren Wilson College’s (WWC’s) Cannon Lounge Feb. 26 about urban farming, food apartheid and the importance of community action in food justice.
Washington grew up in N.Y. working with and advocating for urban community gardens. She retired from her job as a physical therapist in 2014 to be the co-owner and organic grower at Rise & Root farm — a sustainable farm in Chester, N.Y. that is “centered in healing and social justice and works to support the QTBIPOC communities of which we are part.”
“Things started to change for me back in 1985, when I moved from a high-rise building into my first house,” Washington said, describing her first experience with urban gardening. “So, you can imagine, as a person of color having a first house — I didn't have a picket fence. But I had a big backyard, and I decided that I was going to do something with that backyard. I decided ‘I'm going to grow some food.’”
Special to The Echo | Sarah Puterbaugh
Karen Washington delivering a presentation in Canon lounge.
Something Washington noticed in her first crop of garden produce was the differences between a grocery-store tomato and a freshly-grown one; “it was a tomato that changed my world.” Washington said. “Because, coming from New York, a tomato was in a package, three in a package, with cellophane — and it was pink.”
As Washington was growing food in her backyard garden, others around the city were already tending community gardens in empty lots throughout their neighborhoods as a way to combat a lack of available nutritious foods. The scarcity of good food options and the prevalence of low-quality fast food — often referred to as a “food desert” — Washington calls “food apartheid.”
Washington said that she found her way into food activism through involvement with these gardens. In 1998, then-mayor of N.Y. Rudy Giuliani decided to auction off 100 of the empty lots owned by the city that were being used as community gardens, despite the city having at least 15,000 other vacant lots at the time. This sparked active and organized push-back from activists and gardeners in these communities.
“I found my voice, because I was told that ‘you can't fight City Hall,’” Washington said. “But in fact, collectively, you can fight City Hall. And so I found my voice, and my activism, with the group of people marching and marching on the steps of City Hall, demanding to be heard and demanding to preserve those community gardens.”
New York City has at least 400 urban farms and community gardens now because of collective activism like Washington’s.
“You have to look at the resiliency of people who did not have any resources coming together to turn these empty lots into garden oases,” Washington said. “But, at the time, it wasn't about food, it was about survival.”
Through her deepening involvement with food activism in the late 1990’s, Washington said that she began to notice how many other health issues communities experiencing food apartheid also faced.
“I realized that I just couldn't focus on food alone. There were so many social issues that I was hearing in my community garden; social issues around economics, the environment, housing and health.” Washington said.
“In terms of environment — living in a city, with so many cars and living close together, we had so many people who had high incidences of asthma,” Washington said. “When it came to economics — so many people were unemployed and couldn't find jobs. And when it came to housing — the lack of affordable housing and gentrification.”
In addition to these problems, Washington noted that these communities were especially affected by food-related health problems like type two diabetes, hypertension and obesity in both adults and children. Witnessing these effects on community health pushed Washington to start to question food systems and look more deeply into the practices and realities of U.S. farming.
Washington discovered that, despite the lack of nourishing food options for people in these N.Y. communities, the U.S. in the early 1990’s had over 5 million farms that supplied about 70% of food in the system. 40% of Americans lived on farms.
“As an African-American, believe it or not, I found out that at one time, we had 14 million farms that were grown and produced by black farmers,” Washington said. “And yet today, only 1% of black people have farms.”
Washington said that much of this research generated a confrontation and a questioning of the cultural and historical narratives around black farming — a need to “peel back” the layers of the historical omission of black farmers’ identity and history.
“Understanding the fact that my people, enslaved, were brought here because of their knowledge of agriculture,” Washington said. “They were the ones that formed the cuisine that we eat, the food that we eat. All of a sudden, you change that narrative — I belong. The concept of American history that was not taught in school made me feel that I can be part of America, and understand that if I am going to be a farmer, that I have to make sure that people — little black and brown kids — understand their place in American history. And that slavery is part of who I am, but it just doesn't define me, or my people, or who we are. If I'm going to think about being a farmer, then I need to surround myself with community people, like-minded people that want to make sure that this country is based on equity. That understand that, together, we can make changes. I have to have a community of black farmers, and white farmers, and activists and LGBTQ people all around trying to make change for the better.”
Many movements that advocate for food justice, Washington noted, do little to affect real change because they do not dismantle the systems in place that perpetuate inequality through food apartheid. Washington coined the term “food apartheid” in response to the term food desert, as a way to have the “hard conversation” about the race and class disparities around access to quality foods.
“Food justice is a movement — not a passive movement,” Washington said. “If you're doing food justice, then you have to be actively working on dismantling the social injustices that you see; the social injustices around race, around poverty, around hunger, around the lack of access to land [and] trauma.”
For her work as an activist, farmer and public speaker, Washington has won many awards. In 2012, she was included in Ebony magazine’s 100 Most Influential African-Americans. Two years later in 2014 she was awarded the James Beard Leadership Award.
In 2020 and 2021 alone, she was awarded the Essence Magazine Essential Heroes Award, Thurgood Marshall Academy Community Garden Dedication, GreenThumb’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Hunter College Food Policy Changemaker Award, United Hospital Fund Distinguished Community Service Award, the Black Women Green Future Award, and was included in the Forbes “50 Women Over 50 Who Are Leading the Way in Impact.”
In 2013, Washington delivered a Ted Talk. She also delivered a speech titled “911 Our Food System Is Not Working” last year.
When discussing the meaning of land, and the importance of understanding its history, Washington said that WWC should invite members of the Native American tribes that previously lived on this land to “bless and be a part of this land” and co-exist with us on campus. Washington also called on the WWC community to invite people who may never have seen a farm before to experience the land and farming operations here firsthand.
“I hope that you share this gift with the outside community,” Washington said. “Because it's not typical to come to a college and see a vast amount of land, and you see farms, and you see gardens, and you see students that have a desire to change the world. I just hope that you open this place to so many people who have never had a chance to see what a garden looks like — never had a chance to see what a farm looks like.”
In addition to practicing real and active food justice through community action, Washington said that people must also do more to support the individual workers in food industries, and ensure they have access to land and affordable housing, and to be open to discussing ideas like land reparations.
“The urgency of growing food is no longer a local movement, but a global one,” Washington said. “The aim for cities and countries is not to grow to feed themselves, but to help build a food system in which all people are fed, and hunger and poverty are no more.”