iEat Green - Guest Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern –The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is an Associate Professor of Food Studies and an affiliated
faculty member in the Departments of Geography and Women’s and Gender Studies
at Syracuse University. Dr. Minkoff-Zern’s research and teaching broadly explores the
interactions between food and racial justice, labor movements, and transnational
environmental and agricultural policy. This focus builds on her extensive experience
with agricultural biodiversity projects abroad, combined with work on immigrant
health issues domestically. 
In her book, The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for
Sustainability (MIT Press, 2019), she explores the experiences of Latino/a immigrant
farmers as they transition from farmworkers to farm owners, offering a new
perspective on racial inequity and sustainable farming. Dr. Minkoff-Zern argues that
immigrant farmers, with their knowledge and experience of alternative farming
practices, are—despite a range of challenges—actively and substantially contributing
to the movement for an ecological and sustainable food system. She has also
published in journals such as Geoforum, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Food, Culture,
and Society, Antipode, Agriculture and Human Values, and Renewable Agriculture and
Food Systems, among others. She earned a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of
California, Berkeley.