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Food Matters Maxine Jacobsona a School of Social Work, University of Montana, USA

To cite this Article Jacobson, Maxine(2007) ‘Food Matters’, Journal of Community Practice, 15: 3, 37 — 55 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1300/J125v15n03_03 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J125v15n03_03

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Food Matters: Community Food Assessments

as a Tool for Change

Maxine Jacobson, MSW, PhD

ABSTRACT. Community practitioners have paid little attention to food insecurity, an issue that has been addressed primarily at the individual level through emergency food assistance. Addressing community food security requires an approach to practice that considers and links all aspects of the food system including production, processing, distribu- tion, and consumption. This article draws on a social justice framework to critically reflect on a Community Food Assessment (CFA), an inte- grative, systematic, and participatory approach to community practice that combines community organizing, policy advocacy, research, coali- tion building, and community development. Social work’s core values and its broad skill set make it well suited to play a key role in these ef- forts. doi:10.1300/J125v15n03_03 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

Maxine Jacobson is Associate Professor, School of Social Work, University of Montana.

Address correspondence to: Maxine Jacobson, School of Social Work, University of Montana, Jeannette Rankin Hall, Missoula, MT 59812 (E-mail: maxjacobson@ bresnan.net).

This project would never have been completed without the hard work and commit- ment of the CFA steering committee, Neva Hassanein and students, and the generous support of the University of Montana’s College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences, School of Social Work, Environmental Studies Program, Office of Civic En- gagement, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Journal of Community Practice, Vol. 15(3) 2007 Available online at http://com.haworthpress.com

© 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1300/J125v15n03_03 37

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KEYWORDS. Community assessment, food security, food insecurity, social justice, community practice

INTRODUCTION

Food security is a complex issue. In the United States, the wealthi- est nation on earth with an overabundant food supply (Boucher, 1999; Nestle, 2002; Norberg-Hodge, Merrifield, & Gorelick, 2002; Poppen- dieck, 1998), 12.4 million children live in households with limited or uncertain access to a nutritionally adequate diet (Nord, Andrews, & Carlson, 2006). According to America’s Second Harvest (2006), the largest charitable hunger-relief organization in the United States, com- munities across the nation are experiencing a dramatic increase in the use of emergency food programs. Researchers attribute these changes to a diminishing social contract, rising housing, medical, and child care costs, and low wage paying jobs (Berner & O’Brien, 2004; Molnar et al., 2001; Mosley & Tiehen, 2004; Rank, Yoon, & Hirschl, 2003; Tarasuk, 2001). The situation is equally as grim on the food production side of the equation. Approximately 3,000 acres of arable land are lost to devel- opment every day (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2004). Fur- thermore, from 1974 to 2002 corporate ownership of farm land increased by 46% (Census of Agriculture, 2002).

On the surface issues concerning access to food and agricultural pro- duction may seem only distantly related but they are inextricably linked. A comprehensive approach to addressing food security requires attention to all aspects of the food system including production, processing, distri- bution, and consumption (Allen, 2004; Feenstra, 2002). Although social work has a rich tradition of community practice as a vehicle for address- ing key local concerns (Johnson, 2004), little attention has been paid to food security, one of the most basic human needs, and what a number of scholars claim is a basic human right (Bellows & Hamm, 2003; Riches, 2002; Tarasuk, 2001). A search for the social work literature is more likely to turn up articles on anorexia or bulimia,1 which suggests social workers may view food-related issues more through an individual, psy- chological lens than the ecosystems perspective “long considered the or- ganizing framework for professional practice” (Kondrat, 2002, p. 435). The most common approach to food insecurity at the community level is emergency food distribution through charitable assistance programs. However, the idea of emergency as it relates to food assistance is quickly

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becoming a questionable qualifier as the demand for food assistance reaches levels “not witnessed since the Great Depression of the 1930s” (Tarasuk, 2001, p. 488). Food drives have become everyday practice on the twenty-first century community landscape. Tarasuk (2001) points out that these approaches “effectively frame household food insecurity as a food problem that can be addressed by giving food . . . This framing depoliticizes the issue, legitimizing [hunger] as a matter of charitable concern rather than social justice” (p. 489).

One effort to address food-related issues systemically falls under the umbrella of the newly evolving Community Food Security (CFS) movement (Ahn, 2004; Feenstra, 2002; Pothukuchi et al., 2002). The movement reflects many community voices including farmers, ranch- ers, anti-hunger activists, nutritionists, environmentalists, public health educators, and city planners. One tool used successfully by the move- ment to help understand and address local food issues is the Community Food Assessment (CFA) (Pothukuchi, 2004; Pothukuchi et al., 2002).

This article draws on a social justice framework articulated by Finn and Jacobson (2003a,b) to critically reflect on a CFA project conducted in a Northwestern state and the successes and challenges therein. The framework attends to questions of meaning, context, power, and history in shaping possibilities for community practice. It helps community prac- titioners think about food security from a social justice perspective in- stead of the charity model most prevalent today. Key terms are defined to set the stage for understanding food security more broadly. A social jus- tice approach to food security links food consumption and production, promotes people’s participation in the decisions that affect their lives, and shapes approaches that address food security as community-level change.

DEFINING KEY TERMS

Community Food Security

As defined by the American Institute of Nutrition, food security is, “. . . the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially accepted ways (without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, steal- ing, and other coping strategies)” (Anderson, 1990, p. 1560). The idea of CFS claims a much broader stroke. Hamm and Bellows (2003) define

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CFS as “. . . a situation in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice” (p. 37).

Given this broader interpretation, CFS means addressing problems of economic, environmental, and social justice created by the global food economy. It means having access to healthy, nutritional foods as re- search studies link diet and health-related problems including some types of cancer, obesity, and food borne illnesses (Nestle, 2002). It includes having a voice in decisions affecting the types of foods made available to consumers. The food industry spends billions of dollars yearly to pro- mote highly processed and packaged foods while neglecting to adver- tise the benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthy food choices (Nestle, 2002). It means gaining access to fresh foods in today’s global food economy where food changes hands an average of 33 times between the farm and the supermarket shelf (Guptill & Wilkins, 2002), and it travels an average of 1,300 miles to reach our plates (Kloppenburg, Henderickson, & Stevenson, 1996). Furthermore, it means becoming aware of the environmental costs of food transportation (Norberg- Hodge, Merrifield, & Gorelick, 2002) and the rapid loss of local, family- run farms and their replacement by “efficient,” energy-intensive, giant corporate agribusinesses (Farm Aid, n.d.; Nestle, 2002; Norberg-Hodge, Merrifield, & Gorelick, 2002) who favor profits over human, environ- mental, or economic health (Berry, 1996).

Community Food System

According to Gail Feenstra (2002), food systems analyst at the Univer- sity of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Pro- gram (SAREP), a community food system is defined as, “A collaborative effort to build more locally based, self reliant food economies–one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and con- sumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and so- cial health of a particular region” (p. 100). The goals of a community food system include improving access to fresh nutritious foods for all commu- nity members; creating more direct linkages between local producers and consumers; ensuring the stability of local farm and ranching operations based on sustainable practices; developing local policies to promote local food production, processing, and consumption; and addressing food re- lated labor issues and work conditions (Feenstra, 2002, pp. 100-101). The

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idea of a community food system integrates environmental and social jus- tice. It provides a vision for addressing CFS on multiple levels.

Community Food Assessment

A CFA is a community organizing tool for identifying food-related issues, planning what to do about them, and gathering local support to take action to address them (Pothukuchi et al., 2002). It is an integrative, systematic, and participatory approach to community practice that com- bines community organizing, policy advocacy, research, coalition build- ing, and organizational and community development (Pothukuchi et al., 2002, p. 11). CFAs vary in scope, structure, and methodology depend- ing upon location, purpose, and community goals. There are both out- come and process objectives for conducting a CFA. Outcomes include promoting community members’ participation and collaboration in shaping the food system; broadening social networks and creating co- alitions among key food system stakeholders; developing a stronger power base to affect policy change at local- and state-levels; and build- ing community leadership, organizing, and advocacy capacity through community members’ active involvement in efforts to create positive change (Pothukuchi et al., 2002). Process objectives are vital to the long- term sustainability of actions. Involvement in a CFA makes everyone more food conscious. It informs and educates as people become more knowledgeable about other aspects of the food system, how they inter- relate, and the common ground they share. This helps close the gap be- tween those who produce food and those who eat it by building shared understanding. In summary, proponents claim a CFA is a way to ex- plore and understand the food system and its implications “for qual- ity of life, food security, social justice, and other community values” (Pothukuchi et al., 2002, p. 12).

A SOCIAL JUSTICE FRAMEWORK FOR COMMUNITY PRACTICE

The social justice imperative of community food system work and the community practice skills required to engage in it begs the question, “Why has social work paid so little attention to community food se- curity?” Whitaker (1993) notes social work’s lack of presence in the anti-hunger movement and recommends creating a partnership between

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social justice and charitable giving to address the root causes of food in- security and to promote self-reliance and empowerment. Biggerstaff, McGrath Morris, and Nichols-Casebolt (2002) point to the social jus- tice implications of defining food insecurity as an individual, short term problem easily addressed through emergency food assistance alone. They urge the profession to look in to the structured inequalities of unemployment and low wages and to “become better educated about issues of hunger and food assistance and their broader public policy implications” (p. 276).

Drawing from these suggestions, addressing food insecurity requires a social justice approach to community practice that makes a strong connection between the profession’s core values and the theory and practice of social work. Finn and Jacobson (2003a,b) introduce a Just Practice Framework that articulates this link. The framework fore- grounds social justice as the organizing principle for social work thought and action. It draws from critical social theory and practice theory2 thereby making the linkage between the individual and broader social, political, and economic structures that powerfully shape and influence people’s lives but never fully determine them (Bourdieu, 1977; Ortner, 1996). These alternative ways of thinking respond to the rigid divide in social work theoretical perspectives between “overly deterministic approaches that ignore human actors and overly ‘actor-oriented’ ap- proaches that neglect attention to the structural forces that shape and constrain human action” (Finn & Jacobson, 2003b, p. 67).

The Just Practice Framework makes “power, inequality, and trans- formational possibilities the foci of concern, thus offering a theoretical bridge between the concept of social justice and the practice of social work” (Finn & Jacobson, 2003b, p. 69). It responds to complex twenty- first century challenges largely derivative of neoliberal policies that work to the benefit of transnational capital and not human beings (Harvey, 1989; van Wormer, 2004). It advocates an approach to community prac- tice attentive to the complexities of an increasingly interconnected world (Ferguson & Lavalette, 2006; Polack, 2004). And it recognizes the transfer of states’ responsibility to localities and the profound impli- cations this has for community practice (Sanfort, 2000). The framework builds on five key concepts–meaning, context, power, history, and pos- sibility and their interconnections as a guide for critical reflection and action.3 How do people give meaning to the experiences and conditions that shape their lives? What are the contexts in which those experi- ences and conditions occur and how can context support or constrain community change? What forms and relations of power shape people

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and processes of community change? How does an historical perspec- tive inform community practice by helping us understand the ways in which struggles over meaning and power have played out and better ap- preciate the human consequences of those struggles (Finn & Jacobson, 2003a, p. xxii)? How might an appreciation of those struggles help us imagine and claim a sense of possibility in the practice of social justice work (Finn & Jacobson, 2003a, p. 174)? Questions of meaning, context, power, history, and possibility direct inquiry from a “culturally, politi- cally, and historically located vantage point from which we can appreci- ate constraints and imagine possibilities for justice-oriented community practice” (Finn, 2005, p. 12). In the following section an example of a CFA is used to elaborate on the key concepts and to illustrate their use as a framework for community practice.

THE MISSOULA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOOD ASSESSMENT

The Missoula County Community Food Assessment began as a joint (ad)venture between two faculty from the School of Social Work and the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Montana who share interest in food issues and community-based participatory re- search. The approach had two primary objectives: (1) to create a steer- ing committee of community food system stakeholders to guide a CFA as a first step in addressing food system issues locally; (2) and to design and teach a course where students would learn about the local food sys- tem and community-based research by helping conduct a CFA. Nine- teen steering committee members representing a broad range of food and farming interests met monthly over the course of the 16-month pro- ject. These interests included the city/county health department, local farming and land management, emergency food assistance and state and federal government sponsored food programs, and advocates for alter- native energy, low-income families, welfare rights, and sustainable trans- portation. During the same time frame, 44 undergraduate and graduate students in environmental studies and social work entered and exited the project via two research courses, volunteerism, and independent study. Students and faculty conducted the research while the steering committee acted in an advisory, consultative capacity. Information flowed back and forth between the key participants primarily through steering committee meetings and email communications.

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Multiple research methods were used to complete the CFA. These cul- minated in two reports, a resource guide, and a two-sided poster dissemi- nated throughout the county and also placed on a Website (see www. umt.edu/cfa). Our Foodshed in Focus: Missoula County Food and Agri- culture by the Numbers, relied on existing statistical data from various governmental and nonprofit agencies to identify trends in the local food system, why they were occurring, and why this information was of im- portance to County residents. Food Matters: Farm Viability and Food Consumption in Missoula County, presented key findings from primary data collection that included 51 telephone interviews with local farmers and ranchers on the viability and sustainability of local commercial food production including assets and barriers; thirteen face-to-face interviews with farmers and ranchers to obtain a more in-depth description of the challenges and benefits of agricultural production in the county; a mall intercept survey (Hornik & Ellis, 1988) administered to 624 community residents of various income levels regarding their concerns about food; and three focus groups, two conducted with people experiencing food insecurity and one with Laotian Hmong farmers who make up 40% of the vendors at the local farmers’ market. Grow, Eat, and Know: A Re- source Guide to Food and Farming in Missoula County, provided contact information and a brief description of many of the organizations, pro- grams, and businesses involved in the local food and farming system.

Overall, the CFA was highly successful. Course evaluations revealed that students found the course workload burdensome at times, but their involvement in the CFA stretched the limits of their imaginations and their learning. Steering committee members lauded the well facilitated meetings, the inclusiveness of the process, and the productivity of stu- dents and faculty given time and financial constraints. Three major change actions occurred within six-months following local dissemina- tion of the CFA findings and recommendations: (1) the adoption of a joint city/county government resolution to increase the security of the local food system; (2) the formation of a multi-stakeholder, food policy coalition to address community needs related to food and agriculture in a comprehensive way; (3) and a USDA Community Food Solutions Grant for $200,000 to provide the infrastructure to further develop and maintain the food policy coalition; to create a cooperative community market to bridge the gap between local producers and low-income con- sumers; and to recruit people with firsthand knowledge of food insecu- rity to inform and help conduct research to identify the barriers to and opportunities for CFS in the county.

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MEANING, CONTEXT, POWER, HISTORY, AND POSSIBILITY:

A GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

So why did this project reach its objectives when other projects that follow a similar trajectory fail? What were the constraints and how were they mitigated? How does this effort inform a social justice approach to community practice? In this section, the key concepts of meaning, con- text, power, history, and possibility are used as a guide for critical re- flection and action to help better understand the interplay of forces that inform practice. The concepts will be described and discussed individ- ually for ease of understanding; however, these must be understood as mutually informing, interrelated ideas.

History: Backing Up to Move Ahead

According to Finn and Jacobson (2003a) history is much more than a chronological recording of significant events. History serves as a warn- ing device, creates linkages and connects themes across time, provides a window into how power works, and inspires us to act (pp. 46-47). Drawing on history and a historical perspective contributed to the CFA’s success. Students investigated secondary data sources on community food system indicators (Pothukuchi et al., 2002). They collected infor- mation about trends in population growth, environmental degradation (e.g., pesticide use, ground water pollution), agricultural resource base, food distribution networks, agricultural and food related productivity, food system wages and employment, food consumption, and CFS and access indicators. Everyone learned about the loss of farm land, the shift towards increased use of emergency food assistance, and declining re- liance on governmental food programs. History was a way to achieve what Paulo Freire (1970) refers to as conscientization. History painted a grim picture of the local food system as linkages were made across time and the contrasts were glaring. These new insights made it difficult to ignore the depletion of natural resources and increasing barriers to food access for low-income county residents. History helped maintain in- volvement in the project and motivated participants to act.

We learned that food production in Missoula County developed as a result of irrigation projects, the Homestead Act of 1862, and the completion of the railroad in 1883 (Missoula Planning Office, 1983, as cited in Hassanein & Hinsley, 2004, p. 11). “Although subject to sev- eral economic and climactic fluctuations during the first half of the 20th

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century, the agricultural industry included orchard fruit and sugar beet processing, meatpacking, flour mills, dairies, wool production, and more.” Following World War II, aided by the proliferation of technol- ogy, production and farm size increased. Two decades later beginning in the late 1960s, food production declined as local agriculture expe- rienced the impacts of broader economic shifts. Processing facilities closed, the number of farms decreased, and until recently, many had long forgotten why Missoula had earned the moniker “the Garden City.” The loss of working farms and farmlands is obvious to the naked eye today as housing developments become the new cash crop and sprout up around the city periphery regardless of season and weather conditions (Hassanein & Jacobson, 2004).

History also inspired community practice strategies for disseminat- ing the CFA findings and recommendations. Borrowing from the work of early settlement house researchers who used posters to display the re- sults of their community-based research studies in public places such as libraries, schools, and museums (Addams, 1910), six large power point posters were created to map out the assessment process, and the find- ings and recommendations from start to finish. For the release of the fi- nal CFA report, we hosted a well-attended public forum and used the posters to inform community members about the state of the local food system and to recruit new participants to help take action on the recom- mendations. Drawing on history helped to level the playing field and made the CFA findings and recommendations user-friendly and accessi- ble to county residents.

Context: Recognizing Supports and Constraints

Context is the background and set of circumstances and conditions that shape and influence particular events and situations (Finn & Jacobson, 2003a). Context includes “cultural beliefs and assumptions about real- ity, and social, political, and economic relationships” (p. 24). It shapes meaning, relationships of power, and it can support or constrain the pos- sibility of action.

Missoula County is the second most populated county in Montana, a state that ranks 39th in the United States for per capita income (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2006). Recent census data indicate that 95,802 people reside in the county, one of the fastest growing in the state. Popu- lation growth has increased by almost 33% in the last 15 years (U.S. Census, 2000). Between 2002 and 2004 approximately 12% of Montana households were food insecure and an additional 5% were food insecure

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with hunger (Food Research and Action Center, 2006). County poverty statistics indicate that almost 16% of residents live below the poverty line. Housing prices are high and wages are low. Since the advent of fed- eral welfare reform legislation in 1996 (PRWORA), the use of emer- gency food programs has increased significantly (Jacobson & Hassanein, 2004).

Missoula County is located west of the Continental Divide and con- sidered a political aberration according to Montana standards. Montana is a red state. Rumor has it that Missoula County had the second high- est per capita Ralph Nader vote for the 2000 presidential election and Missoula County voters were instrumental in tipping the scale in favor of a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate in 2006 with the election of Jon Tester, an organic farmer. Missoula County is home to the Univer- sity of Montana, which partially explains local politics. The University of Montana is home to the Environmental Studies Program, which has a Sustainable Food and Farming Emphasis and also hosts the Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society (PEAS). Jeannette Rankin, the first U.S. woman elected to a congressional seat was born in Missoula. The School of Social Work is housed on campus in the building that bears her name. In this historic tradition, the School’s MSW program is guided by a social justice mission. These programs and the students they draw from across the United States and Missoula County’s progressive pol- itics make for a context ripe for community food system work. It also helps explain why many CFA survey responses described Missoula County as a “food conscious place,” with a good network of programs and services to address the fall-out of the low-wage economy and high cost-of-living.

Meaning: Reaching Across Borders and Working with Difference

Human beings are meaning-makers. What differentiates us from other species is our struggle to make sense of the world and our experience in it, always filtered through the personal lenses of culture, race, place, gender, class, and other markers of difference (Finn & Jacobson, 2003a). Social justice-oriented community practice recognizes the partiality of our knowledge. This means coming to grips with the fact that everyone is shaped differently by their experiences and circumstances and there- fore, struggles over meaning are normal and how to negotiate these are key to addressing the complexities of community practice today.

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Struggles over meaning emerged in the CFA between environmental studies and social work students over differences in knowledge base and world view. Whereas environmental studies students were attuned to and understood the workings of the global food economy and the en- vironmental challenges it produced, this was a steep learning curve for social work students. Likewise, social work students understood pov- erty, classism, racism, and other barriers to food access for low-income people and these issues presented a challenge for environmental studies students. For example, hassles erupted over the nutritionally poor qual- ity of foods social work students brought to class for snacks (inability to afford the organic variety) and environmental studies students dis- covered through experience at a pilot focus group with low-income peo- ple that food choices provide powerful messages about class, race, and white privilege. Eventually, students realized they had much to learn from and teach one another.

Tensions around meaning persisted throughout the CFA with faculty and with steering committee members. Tensions were, however, never sufficient to impede the CFA’s progress. Although it is easy to talk about community food systems, it is much harder to actually be one. Allen and Sachs (1992, p. 29) claim “that while advocates of sustainability have succeeded in pushing agricultural researchers and policy makers to ad- dress environmental issues, we need to go much farther both in theory and practice in order to deal with equally important issues of social eq- uity.” The privileging of environmental issues over the concerns of those marginalized from access to food are fundamental to the struggles for meaning in CFS work and not necessarily a bad thing–“parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their dif- ferences, and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vi- sion of what is possible” (Gray, 1989, p. 5).

Recognizing Forms of Power and Being Willing to Talk About It

There are no single theoretical interpretations of power (Dirks, Eley, & Ortner, 1994, p. 7). “Power is neither some universal ‘drive’ lodged in individuals nor some elementary force transcending society and history.” Power is perhaps easiest to understand and translate to a prac- tice level through its conceptualization by Mexican women grassroots organizers. They identify power on four different levels: (1) power over is institutional and personal forms of and practices of oppression; (2) power from within is the discovery of inner strength by way of

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sharing the struggle with others; (3) power with is realized by collabo- rating with others to achieve change; (4) and power to do is taking ac- tion to accomplish goals (Townsend et al., 1999).

Power played through the CFA as a supportive force that helped pro- mote and sustain action. Collaboration between faculty, students, and steering committee members was enhanced by clarifying roles and ex- pectations early in the project. A decision-making process was discuss- ed and agreed upon that created space for the minority voice. Although faculty had control over research design decisions and establishing meeting agendas, steering committee members interjected their ideas without compunction. Students, while not participating as equals owing to the fundamental inequality of the teacher/student relationship, chal- lenged the process and questioned procedures. Power with was evident as some students maintained their involvement with the CFA well be- yond class requirements.

Media was a tremendous source of power for the CFA. The environ- mental studies faculty was adept at using media to fuel community cam- paigns and based on her expertise, the CFA became a community interest topic that made the headlines with considerable frequency. Spe- cial events such as a harvest dinner prepared by a chef (steering commit- tee member) highly skilled at creating delicious meals with locally produced foods and a public presentation updating media about the as- sessment findings midpoint through the process, drew attention to the CFA. The media introduced and educated the community about the value of local, fresh foods, the loss of farm lands in the county, and the in- creasing use of emergency food programs. The media mapped out the CFA’s journey from start to finish and made the work a matter of public record.

The CFA gained power through choices made regarding steering com- mittee representation. These were based strategically on connections to resources, to particular knowledge and skills, or to larger more powerful networks that would help provide increased credibility for the project. However, although considered a noteworthy goal by CFA proponents, there was no representation on the steering committee from people with firsthand experience of food insecurity. A typical stereotype fed this de- cision–that people with limited resources have little time or energy for involvement in community work due to their own survival needs.

In hindsight, speaking directly about power and its various manifes- tations would have fostered individual learning about the reproduction of social inequalities, the difficulties inherent in promoting low-income community members’ participation, and forced the project participants

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to understand the broader consequences of mirroring the white privi- lege and racial oppression characteristic of broader societal institutions. Participants could have learned how meaning systems collide, how knowl- edge is power, and how power can be used to replicate relationship of domination or forge new ones based on collaboration. Nonetheless, this issue planted the seed for a subsequent project that addressed the short- comings noted in this regard.

Possibility: Creating a Spirit of Hope

Possibility is the capacity to hold on to images of what has been done, what can be done, and what has the potential to exist. The idea of pos- sibility poses direct challenges to fatalism and cynicism and it draws attention to human agency, the idea that “People are self-organizing, proactive, self-regulating, and self-reflecting” (Bandura, 2006, p. 164). People’s behavior is never fully determined by circumstances: “Rather, human functioning is a product of a reciprocal interplay of intrapersonal, behavioral, and environmental determinants” (p. 165).

New possibilities emerged through ongoing engagement with the project. The CFA was the definitive springboard for the food policy co- alition, the cooperative market linking producers with low-income con- sumers, and it gave birth to further explorations into the community food system. The Finding Solutions to Food Insecurity (FSFI) project originated as a direct result of the absence of representation on the CFA from people with firsthand knowledge of food insecurity. FSFI is a com- munity-based participatory research project with two central objectives: (1) to learn about and evaluate local food policies and to improve food access and nutrition for low-income Missoula County residents, and (2) to ensure that low-income County residents have a strong voice in decisions and policies related to improving local food access and nutri- tion. The beauty and hope of CFS work is that it continually renews itself–what is not addressed on the first leg of the journey has the possi- bility of being addressed on the next.

MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT AND ACTION

Using a social justice framework to critically reflect on a CFA con- tributes in multiple and unique ways to the advancement of community practice. It challenges us to think about meanings and to examine the so- cial construction of reality and how issues are named and how naming

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can guide us towards collective solutions or maintain the status quo. It reminds us not to forget the importance of context as a supportive or constraining force in community change and to understand history as a tool that connects themes across time and inspires us to act. It makes relations of power, domination, and inequality topics that must be ad- dressed to guide the development of justice-oriented community prac- tice. Finally, it opens up the possibility for new ways of looking at and thinking about how to effect community change.

A CFA becomes both an entry point and an ongoing site for engage- ment with issues of social justice as they play out and must be attended to on multiple levels of practice. In this regard, a CFA is an important first step for introducing social work to the community food system and for engaging participants in social justice work. A CFA helps community practitioners understand food security more broadly and therefore shifts the focus of practice beyond the charity model most prevalent today.

Social justice as a core organizing principle resonates through defini- tions of CFS, community food systems, and CFA work. It reframes and refocuses food insecurity from an individual problem to a community and societal one. CFAs exemplify an integrated approach to community practice, that is, they link research, planning, policy, community devel- opment, organizing, and advocacy to the profession’s core value of so- cial justice. They embrace the political nature of community work and appreciate and recognize the interconnectedness of people and their en- vironment and how fundamental change must occur through dialogue.

The time is ripe for change–there is a growing interest in rebuilding local food economies to promote CFS, as well as the health and well-be- ing of community residents and the environment. Food should matter to social work. Regardless of our location in the Web of interrelated func- tions that make up a community food system, we all have a stake in its health and well-being. Reaching out to others and developing an under- standing of the community food system, its assets and its challenges, is the first step toward advocating for change. Social work’s theory base and its core values and broad skill set make it well suited to play a key role in these efforts.

NOTES

1. Using a database most likely to reference social work articles (Social Ser- vice Abstracts), I conducted a search on social work and food security and social work and food insecurity. Two articles were referenced for both searches. I also conducted

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a search using the terms social work and anorexia or bulimia and 138 articles were referenced.

2. Practice theory is informed by critical social and cultural theory. The term “prac- tice” in contemporary social theory does not have the same meaning as “practice” in the traditional social work sense as a series of interventions. Rather practice refers more broadly to social action carried out in the context of unequal power relations (see Finn & Jacobson, 2003a, p. 172).

3. For a thorough description of the Just Practice Framework and additional aspects of the model, refer to Finn and Jacobson (2003a).

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