HEALing our Food System

At the Food Chain Workers Alliance, we know very well that no single organization can fix America’s broken food system on its own. The HEAL (Health Environment Agriculture and Labor) Alliance was formed with this understanding.

HEAL’s mission is to build our collective power to create food and farm systems that are healthy for our families, accessible and affordable for all communities, and fair to the hard-working people who grow, distribute, prepare, and serve our food — while protecting the air, water, and land we all depend on.

HEAL believes that all people and all communities should have the right and the means to produce, procure, prepare, share, and eat food that’s nutritionally and culturally appropriate, free from exploitation of themselves and any other people, and to be in their full power in harmony with the rest of the natural world.

HEAL shares the belief that a renewed food system will result in thriving local economies, better stewardship for the environment, and healthier individuals and families nationwide. And HEAL works to turn that belief into reality through cross-community organizing, advocating for policy solutions, and holding powerful food system actors accountable for their actions.

But what about the good corporations? By identifying corporate targets, we aim to expose the policies that put people and the environment at risk, and the undue influence these conglomerates have on politicians and policy-making. But not all food is bad news! We’ll also aim to promote those corporations that care about health, the environment, agriculture, and labor.
$173.5 million: How much the so-called “Farm Lobby” spent in 2008 alone to lobby members of Congress to pass a regressive Farm Bill, one that reduced support for the nation’s food insecure families.

On June 22nd, 2015 the 5 anchor organizations and 15 foundational member organizations met in Chicago for the first time. Organizations reviewed the platform and began the process of forming campaign working groups, which include:

  • Cross-Community Organizing: HEAL Food Alliance will use translocal, cross-community organizing to learn from community-run campaigns and policies that address health, environment, agriculture, and labor.  This group will initially focus on moving Good Food Purchasing Policy campaigns at the local level.
  • Influencing Candidate and Congressional Campaigns: Good governance of our food system depends on holding elected officials accountable to our Real Food Platform and on having Congressional champions of our work.
  • Rewarding Good & Exposing Bad Actors: HEAL will highlight the practices and policies that support businesses that adhere to the Real Food Platform and expose the practices and policies that enable businesses to abuse workers, small farmers, consumer health, and the environment.