RUIN THEIR CROPS ON THE GROUND

In 1789, to subjugate Indigenous tribes, George Washington ordered his troops to “ruin their crops on the ground and prevent them planting more.” Destroying Indigenous food sources would be just one way that the U.S. would use food as a tool of oppression. To prevent enslaved people from rising up or escaping, enslavers restricted their food intake and gave them only the least desirable and nutritious foods. Since the Great Depression, school lunches have served as dumping grounds for unwanted agricultural surpluses.
Drawing on fifteen years of research, University of Hawaii Professor of Law Andrea Freeman narrates the startling history of U.S. food oppression from colonialism to the present. Freeman cogently argues that U.S. food law and policy have, throughout history, represented a form of slow genocide against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities. The book will be the first to expos how long-standing alliances between the government and the food and agricultural industries result in racial health disparities in food-related diseases and deaths. Today, modern food policy, in the form of insidious marketing and USDA nutrition programs, continues to prioritize corporate profits by targeting communities of color as dumping grounds for unhealthy subsidized commodities that cause premature death.
Ruin Their Crops on the Ground marries Michael Pollan's insights into food psychology with
Michelle Alexander's unveiling of the new ways that racism manifests in U.S. society. It updates
Marion Nestle's Food Politics and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation for the Black Lives Matter
era, tackling the effects of law and racism on everyday issues, making it indispensable reading
for anyone eager to learn how corporate manipulation and government deception influence
their food choices and entrench racial inequality.

Andrea Freeman is a professor of law at the University of Hawaii and the author of Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice (Stanford University Press, 2019). As the national and international expert on how racism and food policy intersect, she has delivered keynote addresses at universities and institutions nationwide and her work has been featured in The Washington Post, HuffPo, Salon, and other outlets.