Urban Food Policy Forum Fifty Years of Food Activism in New York City: Lessons for City and State Food Politics and Policy

For more than 50 years, activists in New York City have been fighting to end hunger, increase access to healthy affordable food, improve the pay and working conditions of food workers, reduce food-related pollution and climate change, end food apartheid, and improve school and other institutional food. As New York prepares for city elections in 2025 and state elections in 2026, this panel will discuss what have food activists have learned about how to influence the policies, politics, and budgets that shape our food system.

Guest Panelists:
Liz Accles, Executive Director, Community Food Advocates
Johanna Fernández, Associate Professor of History, Baruch College, CUNY, author, The Young Lords: A Radical History
Ligia Guallpa, Executive Director, Worker’s Justice Project
Iyeshima Harris- Ouedraogo Policy Manager, Equity Advocates

Moderator:
Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor of Public Health, CUNY School of Public Health, Moderator, author of forthcoming Fighting for Health and Social Justice, Health Activism in New York Since 1970