003: Voices from the Field: Grassroots Strategies to Empower Farmers and Ensure Food Security with Rosalinda Guillen

Essential Ingredients Podcast

Series: Labor Day Special Episode 2

Episode Description:

“If we were smart as a country, we would look at all of these immigrants that are new citizens of the United States, and look at all of these food production methods and skills that they bring. We would have better food security by including the immigrant farmers in the decision-making on how food production is going to be developed for the future is hitting us really hard with climate change.” —Rosalinda Guillen

Farming is the backbone of our communities, yet too often, the hard-working men and women who toil in the fields are overlooked and undervalued.

But a growing movement is changing that narrative, empowering farmers to take the reins and shape a more sustainable, equitable food system. Community to Community (C2C), founded by Rosalinda Guillen, is a pioneering organization that empowers farm workers and immigrant communities to lead the charge in building a more sustainable, equitable, and community-driven food system.

In this episode, Justine and Rosalinda discuss the challenges and barriers in organizing farm workers, the integration of immigrant farmers' practices, the vision for community farms and food security, the role of regenerative agriculture in addressing climate change, and Rosalinda’s hopes for the future of empowering farmers and transforming the food system.

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Rosalinda Guillen (she/hers) is the founder of Community to Community and a lead strategist and visionary within the non-hierarchical ecofeminist leadership of C2C. Her perspective is fundamentally influenced by her introduction to the multi-racial, working-class community organizing model of the Rainbow Coalition, the Cesar Chavez house meeting model, The World Social Forum, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) of Brazil and growing up a farmworker in La Conner, WA. Rosalinda has organized farmworkers in WA State and the strawberry fields of Salinas CA. She has represented farmworkers in the Legislatures of California and Washington State and in ongoing policy and Movement dialogues on immigration issues, climate change, labor rights, trade agreements, ecofeminism, and strengthening the food sovereignty movement towards a Solidarity Economy.

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Episode Highlights:

01:30 What is C2C?

09:18 Learning How to Organize a Community

11:54 Creating a New Narrative

18:09 Getting Into Consensus

21:49 Agricultural Lessons From Immigrant Farmers

26:50 The Answer is in Collaboration

30:45 The Role of Regenerative Agriculture