Monica White: Looking Into The Past to Build Better Community-Based Food Systems

Podcast Interview with Dr. Monica White, University of Wisconsin In this episode, Dr. White speaks to the history of Black agriculture in the United States and how the lessons of the past are relevant as we look to solve current problems. She touches on how we might be able to replace a broken food system with a healthier, community-growing model. Additionally, she also digs into how we should deepen our understanding of community agency and resilience. Dr. Monica White is an associate professor of Environmental Justice with a joint appointment in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the first Black woman to earn tenure in both the College of Agricultural Life Sciences (1989) and the Nelson Institute (1970) at UW-Madison. Her research investigates Black, Latinx, and Indigenous grassroots organizations that are engaged in the development of sustainable, community-based food systems as a strategy to respond to issues of hunger and food inaccessibility. As the founding director of the Office of Environmental Justice and Engagement (OEJE) at UW-Madison, she works to bridge the gap between the community and the university and its resources by connecting community-based organizations that are working on areas of environmental/food/land justice to faculty and students. Her first book, Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement, received the 2019 Eduardo Bonilla Silva Outstanding Book Award from the Division of Race and Ethnic Minorities Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.  Interviewers: Nicole Nunoo, Ph.D. student in Agricultural Leadership and Community Education; Lara Nagle, Community-Based Learning Project Manager at the Institute of Policy & Governance