The world’s food system is broken—this group wants to help fix it
Top photo: FrontLine Farming
With FrontLine Farming, CU Boulder scholars and community colleagues focus on food security, food justice and food liberation
Many global experts agree: The world’s food system is broken.
Millions of people around the world each year, while millions more suffer from preventable, diet-related health issues like and heart disease. Food insecurity—which disproportionately —perpetuates cycles of poverty and makes it difficult for already-struggling families to get ahead. Commercial agriculture practices , and is a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions. Farmworkers face unfair and unsafe working conditions while also earning very low wages. The list goes on.
Damien Thompson, an assistant teaching professor in the Masters of the Environment (MENV) program, co-founded FrontLine Farming with MENV colleague and lecturer Fatuma Emmaud.
On a global scale, finding and implementing solutions to these problems will require international cooperation among policymakers, researchers and everyday citizens. But here, on Colorado’s Front Range, a nonprofit with ties to CU Boulder is working to improve the local food system, one bite at a time.
Founded in 2018, is a nonprofit food justice and farmer-advocacy organization that aims to build a more equitable food system through community-derived, data-driven and asset-based solutions. Led by women and people of color, the group is also reclaiming the narrative and elevating historically oppressed voices.
The organization was co-founded by Damien Thompson, a Sustainable Food Systems specialization lead as well as an assistant teaching professor for the CU Boulder Masters of the Environment (MENV) graduate program, and Fatuma Emmad, an MENV lecturer and Sustainable Food Systems career advisor.
Working alongside FrontLine Farming volunteers and staff, Thompson and Emmad are striving to improve the region’s food system through farming, education, policy changes and many other initiatives.
Food access and education
FrontLine Farming is trying to improve the Front Range’s food system from the ground up—literally. The group runs three urban farms—Sister Gardens and Celebration Community Farm in Denver and Majestic View Farm in Arvada—where it grows thousands of pounds of vegetables each year.
Much of that produce is distributed through community-supported agriculture shares, or CSAs. Participants pay upfront, then receive weekly distributions of vegetables between July and October.
Many CSA members pay full price, but FrontLine Farming provides a small number of free CSA boxes to families in need of additional support. The organization also accepts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as payment for CSA shares and, thanks to the Double Up Food Bucks program, gives a 50% discount to SNAP customers.
FrontLine Farming also donates up to a third of its annual harvest to a network of partner organizations through its Healing Foods program. These partners include organizations like Project Angel Heart, a nonprofit that prepares and delivers meals to Coloradans with severe illnesses.
FrontLine Farming runs three urban farms—Sister Gardens and Celebration Community Farm in Denver and Majestic View Farm in Arvada—where it grows thousands of pounds of vegetables each year. (Photo: FrontLine Farming)
“We’re trying to provide access to healthy food in the places where folks are already accessing services,” says Thompson.
In partnership with Denver Food Rescue, the group also hosts regular No Cost Grocery events at its farms. Shoppers can get free groceries and specialty items rescued from Whole Foods and Sprouts stores in Denver, without needing to show identification or documentation. These events not only increase food access but also help reduce the stigma around food insecurity.
FrontLine Farming offers an array of educational programs, including classes on topics ranging from herbalism and beekeeping to insect identification and seed-saving. It also runs a two-week farm immersion program to support aspiring Black, Brown and Indigenous farmers and gardeners.
“All of our education is rooted in this idea of sovereignty,” says Thompson. “Folks need information, they need knowledge in order to be able to start to participate in the food system in more meaningful ways.”
Achieving food sovereignty
Improving working conditions for farm laborers is another major priority for FrontLine Farming. In 2021, the group was part of a coalition that helped pass the state’s first farmworkers’ bill of rights, a law meant to protect the more than 40,000 farm laborers in Colorado, many of whom are migrants from Central America and Mexico.
Overhauling the food system may seem daunting. But as FrontLine Farming demonstrates every day, small actions can have a big effect. Here are three steps you can take.
Plant a garden: One of the easiest ways to get involved? Grow your own food. “Become a community gardener, really into understanding the nature of the work that it takes to produce even a small amount of food,” says Thompson.
Join a CSA: If you don’t have time to grow veggies—or you worry you just don’t have a green thumb—consider buying a community supported agriculture (CSA) share from a farm near you, says Thompson. Also, spend some time learning about the farm’s values—how do they treat their labor? Do they follow organic practices? “Getting involved with a CSA and directly financing a farm contributes to the stability of local farms,” he adds.
Volunteer at a farm: FrontLine Farming relies on volunteers at its three farm locations—but they’re not the only organization you can support. Show up, get dirty and give your time and energy to your local farm. And if volunteering is not an option for you, consider joining your city’s sustainable food policy council or donating to organizations that support local agriculture.
FrontLine Farming also worked on the City and County of Denver’s Good Food Purchasing Program, which encourages major institutions to buy foods that are local, sustainable, fair and humanely produced.
“For us, food justice is policy work,” says Thompson. “How do we work within the system to try to change the system as it is currently constituted?”
With these and other programs, FrontLine Farming is working toward its goal of achieving food sovereignty, or the right for individuals to define and implement their own food and agriculture systems. Food sovereignty also encompasses the right to food that is both healthful and culturally appropriate, as well as produced sustainably.
“That’s where we want to be moving forward,” says Thompson.
Land ownership key to equity
Zooming out, all of FrontLine Farming’s work is informed by the team’s identities as women and people of color. Historically, Black, Brown and Indigenous farmers have faced myriad barriers to land ownership, resources and technical assistance.
“It’s been outright racism in terms of access to resources like banking and financing,” says Thompson. “Back in the day, it was racialized terror. Black farmers were literally terrorized and run off their land, potentially even lynched, depending on the circumstances.”
Farmers of color continue to face many of these same hurdles today. FrontLine Farming wants to help remove those obstacles while also amplifying the agricultural wisdom and skills of Africans, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, refugees and other communities.
FrontLine Farming also recognizes that land ownership—particularly among people of color—is crucial for resilience and equity. The organization recently celebrated a major milestone when it acquired the land on which Sister Gardens sits in Denver’s Chaffee Park neighborhood, but continues to raise money to buy more property through its Liberation by Land reparations campaign.
“The fact that we own Sister Gardens now—that’s land no one can take from us,” says Thompson. “That’s really important and really meaningful, ultimately, for the idea of sovereignty, especially for Black folks.”
Understanding the food system
Looking ahead, FrontLine Farming will continue to push for changes to the food system. Much of that work comes down to raising awareness about how that system is inextricably intertwined with labor, immigration, climate change, human health, policy and other topics.
“There are all of these different experiences that folks have in their everyday lives that are actually related to the food system,” says Thompson. “And it’s important to start to understand that. Not so we can scold farmers or turn producers into the bad guys, but so that we can understand that changes in the food system really do have so many knock-on effects.”
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