Spirit, Power, and Connection: Community Conversations

RAFI-USA’s Come to the Table program is pleased to present its 2020 series, Spirit, Power, and Connection: Community Conversations. Building on our 2018 Equity at the Table Speaker Series, Community Conversations will bring people together in towns across North Carolina to learn from each other and build power together for a more just food system.

The 2018 Equity at the Table Speaker Series featured speakers who shared various perspectives on diversity, equity, and inclusion in food systems work. At each event it was clear from the robust discussion and participation that those who were attending also had wisdom and experience to share. Those relationships and conversations informed and improved our 2019 Come to the Table Conference.

Our 2020 Community Conversations series will lean into those relationships and conversations. We believe in the power of relationships, and that:

• In order to change structures in the food system that result in inequity, hunger, and many kinds of suffering, we must build power.
• In order to build power, we must see the connections between our different areas of work and the problems we are addressing.
• In order to build power, we must connect with each other and develop trusting, honest relationships based on communication and shared values.
• The connections between us are rooted in our common human spirit and have the power to bridge the issues that so often divide us.

Community Conversations will be an opportunity to hear from speakers who are deeply grounded in food justice work, to meet and hear from community members, and for RAFI-USA staff to meet you! The series will build connections between people, sectors, and ideas.

The first event will ask What is the Human Cost of Contract Agriculture? It will feature a screening of Under Contract, a documentary produced by RAFI-USA in which contract farmers tell their stories about the exploitative and divisive environment in contract agriculture, and how the corporate production model pits farmer against farmer. A discussion will follow with RAFI-USA staff member and former contract poultry grower Craig Watts.

Future Community Conversations will address farmer mental health, storytelling for social change, health and healing for clergy, how to have difficult conversations, and more. Check back with our Community Conversations page for updates!