Climates of Inequality — Agricultural Communities: Leaders in Environmental Justice

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Pesticide advocacy in the San Joaquin Valley

Courtesy of the Central CA Environmental Justice Network.

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One of many oil wells surrounding neighborhoods in Kern County, California.

Courtesy of Central CA Environmental Justice Network.

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Air quality sensors from a community-based monitoring program in Arvin, California.

Courtesy of Central CA Environmental Justice Network.

The Problem

The Roots

The Solutions

Take Local Action

In the San Joaquin Valley, harmful pesticides contaminate the air, water, and people. Intensive and exploitative agricultural practices burden low-income communities of color. People of color are disproportionately impacted by the lack of access to nutritious food, clean air, and clean water.

Historically, agricultural communities in the Central Valley have been exploited. Neighbors divided by industrial agricultural fields do not breathe the same air or drink the same water. Generations of farmworkers grow, harvest, and distribute the world’s food but are forced to live in towns plagued by harmful pesticides and pollutants. Dismantling agricultural industries will require solidarity and advocacy.

Communities have built resilient and self-sufficient food systems through collaborative learning and farming. People impacted by air, water, and pesticide pollution are organizing to achieve environmental justice. Some projects include air monitoring networks and farmworker pesticide workshops.

Take Local Action

Industrial almond agriculture in the Central Valley.

Courtesy of UC Merced graduate, Jocelyn Rojas.

UC Merced students harvest pumpkins at Raw Roots Farm.

Courtesy of UC Merced graduate, Jocelyn Rojas.

A community protesting against Chlorpyrifos in CA.

Courtesy of Central CA Environmental Justice Network.

La Milpa, a community-led farm in Fresno, CA.

Courtesy of UC Merced professor, Rebecca Ryals

Harvest provided to Tulare communities by FoodLink.

Courtesy of Community Partner, Brenda Gutierrez.

Home garden set-up and progress in Porterville, CA.

Courtesy of Community Partner, Brenda Gutierrez

Plot design training at TAC Farm.

Courtesy of TAC Farm Manager, Jose Armando Munguia.

Our Point of View

University Partners

Community Partners

Global climate change has forced us to re-evaluate how we grow our food. The San Joaquin Valley is home to resilient communities working to dismantle oppressive agricultural industries and reclaim their food systems. Students from UC Merced had the honor of speaking with leaders in sustainable agriculture and environmental justice throughout the Central Valley. We share these stories of food sovereignty, agroecology, and environmental justice to shed light on how agricultural communities in the heart of California use their wisdom to find intersectional solutions.

—University of California, Merced

While our region is often used as an example of what’s wrong with our food system, it is rarely seen as a place for “sustainable agriculture”. However, transformative and innovative solutions are already underway here in the Central Valley, led by communities of color that Big Ag and the climate crisis disproportionately impact. Through this collaboration, we have co-created a platform to share the stories of local leaders who are actively building a food system from the ground up — one that feeds people, heals the land, and is owned by communities instead of corporations.

—Central Valley Agroecology Program Planning Committee