Phat Beets Produce is an American food justice collective focusing on food justice in North Oakland, California, started by Max Cadji and Bret Brenner in 2007. Their programs include weekly farmer's markets (sourcing from local farmers of color), free produce stands, youth gardens, community supported agriculture programs (called the "beet box"), food and social justice workshops, and previously, a kitchen and cafe cooperative. Cadji helps residents have access to nutritious food by coordinating between farmers, institutions, and low-income communities to utilize empty land for urban gardening.
Their mission addresses disadvantaged North Oakland residents, actively opposes the systematic forces of gentrification in the North Oakland Area, and stands in solidarity with criminal justice issues. The organization states that it draws largely from the Black Panther Party, whose founding members lived in the North Oakland area. The Black Panthers focused on black empowerment and racial issues, but also addressed food justice issues, most notably their Free Breakfast for Children program.
Phat Beets has four community produce spaces located around Oakland: North Oakland Children’s Hospital, Arlington Medical Center Farmer’s Market, Arlington Medical Center Produce Stand, and the Saint Martin De Porres Community Produce Stand. Three gardens grow their produce: Healthy Hearts Garden (Dover Street Garden), 59th street spiral gardens, and BEET DOWN! Acres.
The "beet box" is now run by the non profit organization Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project. Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project is founded and led primarily by women and People of Color, and has a similar mission to elevate life for youth and their families in Oakland through urban farming and access to the natural environment.
Ideology Phat Beets is a social justice organization that takes an open position on food justice and other social issues, like housing justice, gentrification, and racialized processes within the criminal justice system, to address a variety of issues that relate to each other in hopes of helping community members in need and taking an active role in attempting to solve social problems. The organization believes this approach follows the theory of Intersectionality, in that individuals experience multiple forms of oppression at the same time, which shapes their identity.
Food and housing justice are connected because they share similar factors, like place-based city planning and policy, transportation regulations, and commercial real estate development that change and subsequently affect the environment of the food and housing justice movements. Phat Beets has also mentioned that racialized processes are in line with food justice because a minority community’s lack of access to nutritious and affordable food is partially a result of racist policies that prevented the accessibility to healthy food in low-income minority communities in the first place, like the investment into suburbs and capital structure after World War II that left minority groups in the city without access to grocery stores. Phat Beets has stated that gentrification is also in part caused by racialized policies that push minority groups farther away from their homes and healthy food.
Food justice According to the Just Food organization located in New York City, “Food justice is communities exercising their right to grow, sell, and eat healthy food.” Phat Beets believes that everyone deserves the right to have healthy food that is affordable and easily accessible. In order to help strengthen food justice in Oakland, part of the Phat Beets mission is to create opportunities for local farmers and businesses, connect the community to food justice, and find different methods of making healthy food accessible
Phat Beets believes it provides farmers of color in Oakland more opportunities to be profitable because the organization's mission is aimed at offering space for produce sales in farmer’s markets and produce stands at local schools and hospitals. The goal is to help local farmers have enough economic support that will allow them to stay in business and continue to sell their crops in the community. By striving to give local farmers more opportunities to succeed, Phat Beets hopes to lower the dependency residents have on cheap, processed food because there will be more options to buy local, nutritious food.
Phat Beets also makes it a point to connect “community and individual health with our food system.” They also aim to connect the community to food justice by focusing on groups that need aid, like residents suffering from obesity, and teaching them how to make healthy lifestyle decisions. In order to have a strong food system, programs like “Fresh Fellows” teach youth at risk of chronic diseases how to have a healthy lifestyle regardless of the challenges they face. Lastly, part of the Phat Beets strategy is to form community organizing like workshops and farmers’ markets, with the goal of fostering a sense unity and strength so that the community can come together to fight the issues affecting them, like “those affected by diet related diseases within the North Oakland Flatlands."
Another way that they are also working to promote food justice and make healthy food more accessible is by creating new methods of allowing sustainable food to be in the economy. For example, Phat Beets has worked toward passing policies that would allow residents to utilize public parks for food cultivation, including collaboration with the Edible Parks Task Force to create gardens at public parks. Furthermore, Phat Beets previously connected with local entrepreneurs to help boost the local economy by participating in The Kitchen Incubator program to help give small restaurant businesses a stronger chance of being successful. This program is intended to help create a profitable economic environment for sustainable food.
Gentrification Phat Beets has decided to take an open stance against gentrification, “a shift in an urban community toward wealthier residents and/or businesses and increasing property values”, because they believe they should fight intersecting social issues in order to allow food justice to thrive. Gentrification pushes residents out of their communities and makes it more difficult for them to have access to healthy, affordable food. So in order to strengthen food justice, Phat Beets believes it must also help fight gentrification. Phat Beets has stated that gentrification is the result of “a politically deliberate program set in motion by real estate companies, developers, big business, government officials and police.” Phat Beets believes one way gentrification could be alleviated would be if the City of Oakland provided monetary support for the community.
Phat Beets released a “Statement on Gentrification” to elaborate on their gentrification position. In summary it says that if someone agrees with Phat Beets’ mission, then they are ultimately against gentrification because it forces out residents and therefore prevents low-income minority groups from having access to healthy, affordable food. Phat Beets believes the City of Oakland contributes to the perpetuation of gentrification because it decreases monetary support for North Oakland residents, while it still “selectively funnels funds into better transportation and subsidizes high-end business and housing developments.” Phat Beets does not support documentaries made by the Better Homes and Real Estate Company that promote NOBE (an acronym that stands for North Oakland, Berkeley, and Emoryvile) that state “these neighborhoods are being ‘discovered’” because it is an attempt to make the neighborhood more attractive to richer residents and businesses. Phat Beets understands that new individuals moving into Oakland cannot be blamed for gentrification, but it is important to still understand the systems that are allowing for gentrification and other injustices to continue.
Urban gardens' contribution to gentrification Urban gardens are generally created to make a positive contribution to their communities. However, some arguments have been made that urban gardens promote gentrification because they are placing their needs above those of the underrepresented groups in their community. Urban gardens could be used as a “gentrification tool” because their attractiveness might allure higher end businesses and richer residents to move into the area. This would help raise the cost of living and subsequently force the people that the community garden was attempting help out. Phat Beets stood by their belief when a local business, Grease Box, moved into their former farmer's market location, sparking public claims of displacement and gentrification from the organization toward the owner.
Some supporters of urban agriculture, like the San Francisco Urban Agriculture alliance oppose such arguments because they believe that there are larger social and economic forces at play that cause gentrification. Patrick Crouch, an urban farmer and author, also believes that gentrification is directly influenced by government’s economic incentives to bring in more affluent people, and is not caused by community development. There have been instances of some urban gardens, like Georgia Street in Detroit, that are thought to help the community but not contribute to gentrification because of their location. Georgia Street is located far from high traffic areas that would make it more alluring for businesses to open.
In order to better deal with the contribution of gentrification urban gardening may have, the San Franischo Urban Agriculture Alliance and Crouch's Urban Garden, like Phat Beets, have decided to incorporate social justice into their organizations framework in order to “make sure urban agriculture is more than just a catalyst for gentrification.” This would allow urban gardens to be a positive contribution to the community because they are keeping its issues and needs in mind. Patrick Crouch suggests that understanding the community’s history and policies, supporting community leaders, and paying attention to the people’s needs will allow an urban garden to help combat gentrification from occurring.
Stance on gentrification