SPIRITUAL AGROECOLOGY : North America's First Black Food Sovereignty Plan! The AfriCan Food Basket of Toronto, Canada Suceeds in Getting North America's First Black Food Sovereignty Legislation Passed!!!!!!

I, Maria C. Whittaker, long time American and global food sovereignty activist

am so inspired by the AfriCan Food Basket, our Canadian Colleagues,

leading a beautiful intiatve for Black Food Sovereignty in Totonto under

the truly divine leadership of Xola Lololi originally of Guyana in South

America and the Carribean!!!!!!!!! Toronto has more African peoples immigrated

voluntarily to North America than any other place in North America says Xola!!!

And today thier long, consistent, community, bottom up work has resulted in

the first "Black Food Sovereignty Plan" instituted in North American by the city

of Toronto, Canada!!! "This is huge!" says Xola!!!!!

For more information: https://africanfoodbasket.ca/; https://www.facebook.com/AfriCanFoodBasket

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To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7XHWTG775GRZQ&source=url

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To contact their truly divine founder and ED: Xola Loloi, email ixola@yahoo.com; https://www.facebook.com/XolaLololi (Copy and paste if not highlighted! Please let him know his devoted collegue, Maria C. Whittaker of "Spiritual Agroecology" referred you!!!

In fact, 26 years ago Xola Lololi, founded the African FoodBasket (AFB) specifically to address Black food sovereignty concerns in Toronto.

Here in the USA, Malik Yakini, ED of the famous Detroit Black Community Food

Security Network https://www.dbcfsn.org/and one of the leaders of the USA

National Black Food and Justice Alliance https://www.blackfoodjustice.org/ gives

all credit for his work to Xola Lololi. Says, food movement Leader Yakini, "I stand

on his shoulders[.]" reffering to Lololi. Xola is responsible for our African

American communities here in the US organizing ourselves for our own

food sovereignty and food justice as well!!!

Winston Husbands, a long-time volunteer with AFB, identifies with this

overarching mission and wants to be part of the solution to endemic food insecurity.

Husbands says Black food sovereignty is not only the right to healthy,

culturally-appropriate food and the right to be the stewards of that process,

"But it also needs appropriate action through policies, programs and institutions.

The community must have some measure of control over sourcing which can

include growing the food, access to land, and input on how the food gets into

our communities[!]"

Unconventional grassroots and emerging Black-led and Black-serving organizations

consistently experience lower funding that makes sustainable, long-term

programing and services impossible to maintain. As a result, it creates a system that

simply responds as best it can during emergencies like the current pandemic.

Presently, 36 per cent of Black food organizations expect to run out of funds within

the next six months.

Anan "Xola" Lololi, executive director of the 20 year old, African FoodBasket approached

the city two years ago after the Anti-Black Racism Unit was established. He wanted

to create a partnership to ensure his community was included in consultations. That

initial dialogue evolved into the Toronto Black Food Sovereignty Project with

working groups meeting once a week to discuss long range plans.

For Lololi it's important that, "The Black community become food secure through

intentional programming that is not only self-sustaining but also self-determining."

Black communities in Toronto have historically had limited access to community

gardens, green space and tree canopy cover leaving them more vulnerable to

extreme weather events that further imperil food security.

Food banks began springing up in the 1980s as a short-term emergency fix for

hunger with little regard for cultural appropriateness let alone nutrition. But

demand keeps growing especially among the working poor who are unable to

cover the costs of housing, transportation, medication, and child care without

giving up something and that something is usually food.

Currently, 28 per cent of Black households in Toronto are food insecure. That

means 36 per cent of Black children don't know where their next meal is coming

from. Black children experience food insecurity at a rate 3.5 times higher than

white children.

Aina-Nia Grant, Director of Community Resources with the City of Toronto, sees the

city acting as the anchor for the Toronto Black Food Sovereignty Project (TBFSP)

while the Black community informs, develops and leads the multi-departmental

initiative. Implementation is set to launch in early 2022.

Grant says, "This is such a critical piece of Black health. This will begin to shift and

embed Black sovereignty in what, when and how we eat. I'm very excited to see the

project come this far from only a conversation and a vision."

Husbands knows the TBFSP will continue to evolve over the long-term and he is

committed to the process of improving food sovereignty within his community.

Toronto City council voted in a historical moment to pass the Toronto Black Food

Sovereignty Plan on Friday, October 1st.

Toronto adopts plan to create Black food sovereignty, first of its kind in North

America

Angelyn Francis

By Angelyn FrancisEquity and Inequality Reporter

Fri., Oct. 1, 2021timer2 min. read

updateArticle was updated Oct. 02, 2021

Toronto city council has just approved a five-year plan to deal with food insecurity in the Black community in a culturally sensitive way.

The plan, approved Friday, is the first of its sort in North America and lays out a multi-million dollar commitment to advance food sovereignty in Black communities over the next five years.

Melana Roberts, a policy development officer with the city’s Confronting Anti-Black Racism unit (CABR) who worked on the plan, said the team did not come across anything similar globally — a Black-led food plan funded municipally.

“We can’t just have a charitable approach to this,” Roberts tells the Star. “We need a human-rights-based approach that's based in not only addressing the challenges Black communities face, but positioning them as leaders.”

The plan to create this support system was a collaboration between existing community groups.

(Continued below!)

Anan Lololi, co-founder of Afri-Can FoodBasket and food justice activist, is the

person who first started suggesting that sovereignty is a better angle to tackle

the issue from.

“Food sovereignty is the right for people to (have) healthy and culturally appropriate

food produced through ecological and sustainable methods, and their right to define

their own food and agricultural systems,” Lololi said.

The group will use the funds to develop new city-supported, Black-led food

insecurity initiatives, support existing Black-led and Black-serving initiatives like

Afri-Can FoodBasket and overhaul systems the city already runs to help create Black food sovereignty.

This would mean culturally-rooted nutrition programs, access to growing space,

Black food markets, and infrastructure like community kitchens and sustainable funding.

Speaking from experience running Afri-Can FoodBasket since the ‘90s, access to

consistent funding has been a struggle for Lololi.

“What we want is intentionality,” he said.

Lololi has been working in food justice for 25 years and he’s noticed it’s a

predominately white-led and white-focused space. But with Black and Indigenous

families more likely to face food insecurity, Lololi would like to see more targeted programs.

Funding a general food program won’t necessarily guarantee dedicated funding will

be able to reach the most food insecure.

Apr. 20, 2021

A 2020 report by PROOF found that Black and Indigenous families have the highest rate of food insecurity

compared to other races — just over 28 per cent each.

That has a ripple effect and leads to negative health outcomes. Food is one example

of how social determinants of health are affected by anti-Black racism, based on a

Canada public health report. We saw early on in the COVID-19 pandemic how the illness disproportionately

affected Black and other racialized communities.

Black food security has been a topic of discussi

on at city hall since 2015. It was put forward through a city Board of Health report

and has seen more focus through the city’s CABR unit.

They are currently accepting applicants to take part in an advisory circle that will help steer the initiative as it rolls out.Doreen Nicoll is a freelance writer, teacher, social activist and member of several community organizations working diligently to end poverty, hunger and gendered violence.

Image: City of Toronto/Flickr

African Food Basket participants on the Toronto Afri-Can Food Basket communiy farm!!!!!

"Our brother Anan Lololi, founder and ED of the Toronto-based Afri-Can Food Basket. He’s the one who introduced me to the food movement." Malik Yakini, ED of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network and co founder of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance!!!!