Protests in recent years have mobilized millions of people across the country and world, and brought attention to issues of great injustice. Despite these mass actions, real systemic change on issues from genocide to immigration, to food and farm worker abuses have remained out of reach. One reason for this lack of change is that when people are mobilized without a coordinated organizing strategy, and without the support of a broad coalition - we are not able to build the power we need to bring about transformative change.

Our guest today, Jose Oliva is the Strategic Campaigns Director for HEAL Food Alliance and has a long history of organizing and coalition building for workers rights and system change. Through HEAL, Jose works in an alliance of 52 groups that represent over 2 million people working in the food and farm sectors. He was the co-founder and former director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, he led organizing with the Chicago Interfaith Workers’ Center, Casa Guatemala, and The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United among many others. Jose joins us for this timely conversation on the whys and hows of strategic organizing for social change in our food system and beyond.

Jose shares about non-violent direct action organizing, grassroots organizing practices and details about HEAL's current campaigns to expose and limit corporate control of our food system and their city and state level Good Food Purchasing Policy work. If you are interested in applying for HEAL's School of Political Education to build political power to transform our food and farm systems, check out the link above.

The Table Underground airs on WPKN 89.5fm community radio in Bridgeport, CT on the first Tuesday of every month at 6pm - and by podcast or on our website any time! Please "follow" our podcast to support our show and leave a review if you like what you hear!

Our theme song is by The Passion Hifi.

Chef, activist, artist and author Bryant Terry on his 5th book, Vegetable Kingdom - cooking for his kids - uplifting Black and Asian food traditions - and collective actions to transform our "messed up food system". A show from our archives, first aired in 2020.

Thanks to the Yale Sustainable Food Program and the Yale Afro-American Cultural Center for their partnership on this episode. Music credit: "Sprout That Life" by DJ Cavem. Check out our full post at www.thetableunderground.com from 2024 with photos and lots more info. To learn more about Bryant Terry and what he's been up to since 2020, go to: https://www.bryant-terry.com/

The Table Underground airs on WPKN 89.5fm community radio in Bridgeport, CT at 6pm EST, on the first Tuesday of every month, and by podcast or on our website anytime. Our theme song is by The Passion Hifi. Please follow our podcast or leave a review to help others find us. Thanks for listening!

Tim Macklin & Todd Koehnke of CORR: Collective Oyster Recycling and Restoration and Kim Granbery a wild oyster farmer and owner of Leetes Island Oysters share about their work to return oysters to Long Island Sound. This farming and stewardship work helps to rebuild habitat, filter water, prevent erosion, and cultivate biodiversity as well as a love of oysters and our ocean and water ways. Find more info on this episode and many others at www.TheTableUnderground.com.

The Table Underground airs on WPKN 89.5fm community radio in Bridgeport, CT. Please click "follow" to support our show and leave a review if you like what you hear!

Our theme song is by The Passion Hifi. All photos are courtesy of CORR, Leetes Island Oysters, and Tagan Engel.

Soraya Hosni is a French-Tunisian social entrepreneur, olive oil sommelier, farmer and environmental anthropologist. She speaks 8 languages and is as comfortable talking with North African olive farmers as she is with global leaders. Her innovative work to address systemic challenges and inequities in the olive oil supply chain led her to develop cultural, technical and economic solutions that benefit both farmers and the earth they farm on. Tunisia is one of the world's largest producers of olive oil, yet most of it gets mixed with oil from Spain and other countries and sold under labels with an Italian sounding name. Olive trees in Tunisia are hundreds and sometimes thousands of years old, drought resistant, and typically raised free of chemicals. Soraya shares about the many creative ways she has worked to uplift Tunisian olive oil to help return profits to farmers and preserve these heritage farming practices.

As with most social entrepreneurs, Soraya’s creativity and projects surpass the confines of one sector and one conversation. To learn more about the full breadth of her work check out The New Medina, a cultural heritage center she founded in Tunisia and @thenewmedina on Instagram. Clever Harvest is the agriculture tech company and system she started to help farmers coordinate their harvest, milling, and aggregation. Visit our website for photos and more links to her amazing work and many past shows at www.thetableunderground.com.

The Table Underground airs on WPKN community radio, 89.5fm in Bridgeport, CT, and by podcast any where and any time. Our theme song is by the Passion Hifi.

Rob Peck, aka Hood Farmer Rob is a Black urban farmer, mushroom grower and educator based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His love of fungi has led him from cooking up mushrooms to foraging in parks and the forest, to growing mushrooms - both indoors and out - and now, into the Lab to grow his own spawn. Through his business Hemp Milk & Honey, Hood Farmer Rob is focused on growing food and farmers for the future. One of the ways he’s doing this is through leading mushroom cultivation workshops for networks of Black, Brown and Indigenous growers.

For more info, photos and links from this episode, go to www.thetableunderground.com. Follow Rob's work at @hoodfarmerrob and through his business @hempmilkhoney both on Instagram. And check out this sweet article about him from CT Farmland Trust.

The Table Underground is produced and hosted by Tagan Engel. It airs on the first Tuesday of each month on WPKN 89.5fm community radio in Bridgeport, CT and by podcast and streaming whenever and wherever you get your podcasts. Our theme song is by the Passion Hifi.

For our first show of 2026 - go behind the scenes with our Host Tagan Engel's family, her partner Enroue Onigbonna Halfkenny and children Tomitsela and Ayo Engel-Halfkenny. They talk about the themes of this show: food, radical love and creative social justice which are also pretty big themes in their family. Hear from these parents and teen/young adults in this progressive family who are muli-racial (Black, Ashkenazi, White - including Irish and Swedish, and Indigenous - Miq’Mac and Saponi) and also mulit-faith practicing both in Judaism and the Yoruba Tradition. They dig in about the food they love, their varried experiences, and the ways they engage in family, community and social justice work in the world. At this pivotal moment, where their son Ayo turned 21 this year and is in college, their daughter Tomitsela will be leaving for college in the fall, as well as in this moment of much political and social upheaval, it seemed like a special time to capture these reflections and a great way to start the new year.

To find links to many of the things discussed in this episode go to www.thetableunderground.com.

This episode was edited by Tagan Engel, and our theme music is by The Passion Hifi. We air on WKPN 89.5 Community Radio in Bridgeport, CT on the first Tuesday of each month at 6pm eastern.

Indonesian Chef and Farmer Ria Ibrahim shares on building loving relationship with soybeans through a multitude of methods to preserve and enjoy these sacred beans including as miso, tofu, and soy milk. As Farm to Table Director at Soul Fire Farm Ria brings deep cultural connections, love and spirit into her work to preserve the harvest for community, cook for programs, and teach cooking and foraging. She also speaks on her journey to learn plants and fungus in a new land and passing on this love and knowledge to her daughter. You can follow Ria at @kitchenmagician on Instagram and get notices about future workshops and soooo much more by signing up for the Soul Fire Farm newsletter. Go to www.thetableunderground.com to see photos and recipes for this and many past shows.

Lauren “Sun Turtle” Peters is a Mashpee Wampanoag seed keeper carrying on in the traditions she learned from her clan mother Anita “Mother Bear“ Peters. In 2021 Lauren helped to return the King Phillips variety of corn, also known as Metacom corn, to be grown on her people’s land for the first time in 300 years. Soon after, she founded Corn Sister Circle, a project powered by her love for her community and desire to connect Wampanoag peoples across generations to heal from colonialism and racism with each other through tending land and traditional food ways.

For photos and links about things mentioned in this interview as well as many past episodes go to www.thetableunderground.com. You can also read Lauren's article Corn Sister Circle: Honoring Our Ancestors, Grounded on Our Ancestral Homelands where she writes beautifully about the complexity of this work and journey including the apology from the American Psychological Association to First Peoples in the US. To donate to support Corn Sister Circle and other work that Lauren is leading click here. You can also follow their work and see videos via their Instagram @wampumconsulting.

Much gratitude and love to Lauren Peters for sharing her story and for doing this vital work. Many thanks to the talented Meg Dalton for editing this episode. Our theme music is from the Passion Hifi. All episodes are produced and hosted by Tagan Engel. The Table Underground is available on any podcasting site, through our website and now airs on the first Tuesday of the month on WPKN community radio 89.5fm in Bridgeport, CT.