Sound Bites: Radical Farmers Use Fresh Food to Fight Racial Injustice | Debating The Maryland Farmers’ Rights Act | Tribute To Juanita Ewell Of Cherry Hill Urban Garden

Juanita Ewell, Cherry Hill Urban GardenMarch 3, 2015 – Segment 3

On Sound Bites, our series about our food and our world, we begin the hour with a story from Yes! Magazine: Radical Farmers Use Fresh Food to Fight Racial Injustice and the New Jim Crow. With: Jalal Sabur, farmer and prison abolitionist, who helped to start the Freedom Food Alliance, a collective of farmers, political prisoners, and organizers in upstate New York committed to incorporating food justice to address racism in the criminal justice system; and Leah Penniman, farmer and educator based in the Albany, NY, area who wrote the article for YES!.

Then, our guests debate proposed legislation before the Maryland General Assembly, the Farmers’ Rights Act. With: Delegate Charles Otto (Republican, District 38A, Somerset & Worcester Counties), Deputy Minority Whip in the Maryland State House, and member of the House Environment and Transportation Committee and the House Natural Resources, Agriculture & Open Space Subcommittee; and Senator Richard Madaleno, Jr. (Democrat, District 18, Montgomery County), Vice-Chair of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, Chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Subcommittee, and primary sponsor of Senate Bill 0532, or the Farmers’ Rights Act.

We close out the show with a tribute to a local hero, Cherry Hill Urban Garden’s Juanita Ewell, who passed away on February 17th. From the Garden’s Facebook Page:

Juanita started the garden in 2010 with the mission of saving the community. She worked tirelessly to spread her love of gardening and healthy eating, and her energy and passion touched the hearts of so many. She will be dearly missed by her family, friends, and the entire Cherry Hill community.”

We remember this amazing person, an agent for change in her community, by listening back to an excerpt from our interview with her from last summer.