Interview With Tanya Fields: Urban Farming and Food Sovereignty Activist

Reader Contribution by Jennifer Kongs
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I had the opportunity to attend an interview with Tanya Fields, named the Eco-Warrior of the Food System, that dove into her history and how she came to be an activist in the urban farm and food sovereignty movements. The interview was held at the University of Kansas by the campus’ Center for Sustainability as part of its Food Hunger Awareness Month. For those unfamiliar with her groundbreaking projects (literally, she’s breaking ground to start food gardens in historically poor New York City neighborhoods), Fields’ current focus is the BLK ProjeK at Libertad Urban Farm, which empowers women of color by creating economic development opportunities through urban farming and local, fresh food delivery.

Fields is a working mother from the Bronx who feels she was led into her current activism through a series of “aha!” moments. One such moment was when she was on a trip to a grocery store (a trek she had to take outside of her neighborhood because no organic-food grocery stores are located nearby) with two young children in tow. Fields says she realized that the effort she had to go through to get healthy food for her family just wasn’t fair, and she wanted to help create a fair food system not only for her own family but also for her neighbors and friends.

Fields’ refreshing viewpoints challenge many preconceived notions held by food-system advocates. For example, she explained that those working in food-system change have to meet people where they are. Fields gave an example of when she has done community cooking classes in neighborhoods with different ethnic backgrounds, she isn’t able to just go in and show them how to make an arugula, blue cheese and toasted walnut salad. She needed to start with foods that were relevant to their culture and their experience, or the interest in making changes wouldn’t spark.

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