I think that the agriculture system in general is rooted in racism - consider that historically black labor on plantations was the backbone of the economy. These workers didn't reap the benefit of that system.

In terms of the contemporary food system we see a lot of racism currently. Obviously we have a large supply of food. A lot of people don't examine why that is the case, but there are a number of nonwhite migrant workers being exploited every day.

I think there needs to be a general consciousness raising among consumers. So many consumers aren't aware of the backstory. They see the end product in the supermarket but don't know all the steps that it took to get it there, who helped to get the food there.

Given that I'm from the South, I wanted to do something to address that. I have been focusing more energy and resources on addressing those issues.

I think that the agriculture system in general is rooted in racism - consider that historically black labor on plantations was the backbone of the economy. These workers didn't reap the benefit of that system.

In restaurants across America we see Latino workers in the kitchen who are being paid substandard wages. The saddest thing to me is that if we think about these workers, these are the people with the least access to good food. Yet they're often suffering from the highest rates of obesity and diet-related illnesses.

Oran Hesterman is a brilliant philanthropist. He had so many progressive ideas about shifting the way that money is given out. He wanted to focus on the creation of healthy, community-based food systems in historically excluded communities and now an advocate, an ally, and obviously lots of capital won't be able to go into these communities now.