Food Equity, Power, and Justice: Academic Journal Built Environment

Featured in UBNow on October 17, 2017, and on Blogged Environment on March 13, 2018, the ten peer-reviewed articles in the issue point out three major oversights in planning practice - historical factors that contribute to food system failures are rarely confronted, marginalized voices are overlooked, and food systems aren't viewed as a lever for broader social and economic change.

Guest editors awarded two best paper prizes for early career scholars, one prize for best paper on a topic related to the Global North and another for the best paper related to the Global South. Maria Vasile and Jessica Duncan's article Engaging family farmers in creating sustainable local food systems in Brazil,  uses a case study to understand the ways structural inequities limit family farm participation in food governance. Catherine Brinkley, Subhashni Raj, and Megan Horst's article Supporting community-led practices for improving food access in the US, demonstrate limitations to focusing on 'food deserts' as problems and instead establishing supermarkets to reduce health disparities in communities of color.

The independent panel of food system planning scholars and practitioners working across the globe included:

• Molly Anderson, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Food Studies at Middlebury College (United States)
• Young Kim, National Advisory Committee Member for Growing Food Connections and Former Executive Director of Fondy Food Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (United States)
• Biraj Patnaik, Amnesty International Regional Director for South Asia and Former Principal Adviser to the Supreme Court of India Commissioners on the Right to Food (India)
• Paul Taylor, Executive Director of FoodShare Toronto (Canada)

Fail to Include, Plan to Exclude: Reflections on Local Governments' Readiness for Building Equitable Community Food Systems
Clark, Jill K., Julia Freedgood, Aiden Irish, Kimberley Hodgson, and Samina Raja
Built Environment, 2017