Connecting food justice to farmworkers through a faith-based organization

Abstract

Faith-based organizations (FBOs) support Latinx farmworkers in rural spaces across the U.S. Faith drives FBOs to operate in unique ways; however, there is little understanding about how faith shapes FBOs that work in food systems. At the same time, food justice scholars consistently call for making systemic changes to labor and immigration policies while working in solidarity with farmworkers. Even with these arguments, there is still a lack of food justice scholarship investigating immigration, rural spaces, and the FBOs that support farmworkers. Drawing on data from a five-month ethnography with the Valle Vista Farmworker Ministry, this paper begins to address these gaps. This article details how faith guides Valle Vista's activities, analyzes how faith impacts its ability to address injustices, and posits possibilities for food justice actors to study and ally with FBOs. Results reveal that Valle Vista's affiliation with the Church and people's faith guided the FBO in distinct ways. The Church influenced Valle Vista to focus on charity, a perspective aligned with food security, while individual actors' faith drove them to speak out against injustices and design educational and advocacy programs to support farmworkers, activities that aligned with a food justice perspective. These findings indicate that although some food justice actors may be hesitant to work with FBOs, especially with their focus on charity, FBOs could be sites for investigation and collaboration for food justice actors who endeavor to work in rural spaces with farmworkers.