A U.N. communications officer and analyst helps farmers adapt to climate change

Chicago native Ian Muir Smith got his first meaningful exposure to the effects of climate change in 2021, as a Fordham College at Lincoln Center student majoring in international studies.

He earned a summer research grant to travel to Kenya, where he spent three months studying how farmers are using technology to mobilize resources and “guide their own development,” he says. He lived in an adobe hut with no running water and watched his hosts’ water reserves run out because of a drought.

“That was the context of everything that was happening in people’s lives,” he says.

Toward a More Just Model of Agricultural Development

The farmers Smith lived with in Kenya are among nearly 4.5 billion people who rely on food systems for their livelihood, according to the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs. It’s a statistic that lies at the heart of Smith’s work as a consultant for the U.N.’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and as a research fellow for the nonprofit Food Tank.

“In order for countries to ‘develop,’ agriculture is the first thing that has to change,” Smith says, noting that agriculture is also responsible for one third of global greenhouse gasses contributing to climate change. “And whether they get to determine how to do it, or whether other countries and companies are determining how they do it, is up in the air. I want to make agriculture and agricultural development more just and more democratic.”

As a communications and knowledge management consultant with IFAD, which is an international financial institution and specialized United Nations agency, Smith looks over data from the portfolio of grants that the agency sends to research institutions to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change. He then writes reports and blog posts on the effects those grants had. These are made available in the agency’s “knowledge base,” a database that is publicly available and sent to partners and donors.

Working to Ensure That Climate Debt Gets Paid

By the time his final semester rolled around, he had the opportunity to take a communications internship with the United Nations in Rome, where IFAD is headquartered, beginning his professional relationship with the agency and furthering his passion for steering developmental resources to those most impacted by industrialization and climate change.

“The reason that I want to do what I want to do,” he explains, “is that I truly believe the U.S. and Europe owe a debt to the billions of people who are suffering because of the climate crisis and neo-imperialism. And I want to spend my life making sure that debt is paid.”

Since graduating, Smith has helped organize several youth climate actions and is currently working to start a microfinancing social enterprise to invest in women’s communal banking groups in Kenya. And while food system and climate issues can often result in a sort of “doom and gloom” feeling, Smith says that his work has made him feel more optimistic about meeting the challenge.

“Every day I learn about new organizations doing new work that is changing people’s lives,” he says. “There are millions and millions of people who are working on food systems and are determined to make the world better.”

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Unfortunately, if you belong to the wrong demographic, then it’s unlikely you have benefitted from this cornucopia of healthful options, says Garrett Broad, PhD, an assistant professor of communications and media studies.

In his new book, More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change (University of California Press, 2016), Broad takes a comprehensive look at the food crisis facing marginalized communities and how the industrial food system has exacerbated the problem.

“Lower income communities have grocery stores that are more expensive and lower quality,” Broad said. “But the issue is about more than food… Inequity in the food system is not isolated from other inequities.”

Broad explained that there is an ever-widening food gap, as wealthier citizens enjoy a bounty of food options while historically marginalized communities are left to forage in “food deserts,” areas that lack access to affordable, high-quality food.

This disparity is no accident, Broad said. At the heart of food injustice is structural racism and socioeconomic inequality.

“Food is an entry point into a larger conversation about various social and political changes that can increase the health of our society. For instance, if we had better rent control, then people wouldn’t have to spend 65 percent of their income on housing and would instead have more disposable income to think about food quality rather than just low prices.”

Some groups, particularly large corporations seeking to “give back” to the community, have attempted to solve the problem by building more grocery stores or planting gardens in urban and underserved areas—a fix that Broad calls a “magic carrot approach” to solving community food access and nutrition problems.

“You can’t just plop a grocery store into a neighborhood without connecting it to other education strategies that reflect the food cultures of those local communities—especially if that store is too expensive,” Broad said.

The aim of More Than Just Food is threefold. First, Broad unpacks this complex issue and argues that it is rooted in systemic inequities and fueled by misinformation. Second, in doing so, he challenges “over-simplified and victim-blaming” narratives that fault marginalized communities for the diet-related health issues that disproportionately affect them, such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and metabolic disorders.

Finally, Broad offers suggestions about how to tackle the situation using a community-based approach. He offers the example of Community Services Unlimited, a South Los Angeles organization that began in the 1970s as the nonprofit arm of the Southern California Black Panther Party and has made significant strides in promoting urban agriculture and nutrition education.

“The conversation has to be about more than food. If all we’re talking about is food and nutrition and not race, class, and cultural knowledge… then all of this is just going to be window dressing.”

Broad’s book comes out today.