Introduction to the Food Dignity Values Statement

First paragraph: The Food Dignity Values Statement was drafted at a national project meeting in May 2014, three years into the community-university collaboration that was the Food Dignity action research project. The project brought together academics from four universities and community leaders from five community-based organizations working to streng­then their local food systems. The goal was an action-research collaboration to support and learn from and with these community organizations about how to build equitable, sustainable, and just local food systems: “Food dignity as a premise and Food Dignity as a research project are both steeped in recognizing that community people hold the knowledge and ability to ask the right questions and find the right answers to their own needs” (Porter, Herrera, Marshall, & Woodsum, 2014, p. 124)....