The Racism of Anti-Foraging Laws

Anti-harvest laws in the US were designed to systematically repress Black, Indigenous, and poor rural communities - so why do they persist?

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘foraging?'

Does it evoke scenes of ancient hunter-gatherers chewing on pieces of grass? Do you imagine early colonists gathering apples from a wild orchard? Or maybe you remember your rural neighbors in the 50s, collecting nuts to roast on an Autumn evening. Do you just think of TikTok?

Foraging - the act of harvesting wild-grown foods - may conjure a wide variety of images for any culture, but those of us in North America can have a particularly hard time aligning our concepts of the act. Although for many young people, foraging may feel like a new phenomenon, the activity of foraging and the novelty of wild foods have ebbed and flowed from American cultural interest for more than a century - often increasing in times of economic crisis. One can trace an increase in published foraging guides alongside the growth of the environmentalist movement in the late 19th century, and James Beard even opens the vegetable chapter in his 1962 “American Cookery” by touting the flavors and fantasy of foraged plants. Today, foraging has seen newfound interest and participation from many ages and peoples - though it can be hard to quantify that growth, given a lack of research into the industry.

Where formal research evades, however, anecdotal research abounds. Take, for example, Alexis Nelson, whose quippy TikToks about foraging have garnered her millions of followers, commercials, a book deal, and a recent segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live! She’s not alone either - Alan Bergo, who was featured on Hulu’s new “Chef vs Wild” foraging-cooking show, won a James Beard award last year for his latest video series on cooking with wild flavors. Google search terms for words related to “foraging” have increased steadily for more than a decade, and businesses like Foraged Market now offer consumers direct access to unique wild-harvested ingredients: pine bud syrup, acorn flour, and mushroom salt to name a few.

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The novelty of unique gastronomy is hardly the only reason for loving wild foods. Foragers often cite the physical and mental benefits of increased physical activity in nature, as well as the health benefits of a more diverse local diet. And it’s not only individual foragers that benefit from foraging: foragers are commonly conservationists, using their harvest practices as a method of understanding, monitoring, and supporting their local ecosystems. Foraging is a visceral, tactile engagement with the natural world, and it benefits people, communities, and the environment alike. Most foragers will tell you that foraging is for everyone - that it’s free and accessible. That’s true. But like most activities, its accessibility varies across regions and racial groups.

Foraging has not always been viewed as a hobbyist activity in the way it's displayed on social media today. 100 years ago, the act of collecting wild-grown fruits and nuts was commonplace in rural areas, and Native ethnobotanical knowledge predates any migrants to the Americas. From Indigenous Americans, to enslaved African Americans, to Immigrant workforces, foraged foods have been key to subsistence, economic development, and cultural traditions throughout American history. Today, it even be an act of political and social resistance, as described by Linda Black Elk in this video:

It is worth noting that Linda's work, along with other BIPOC foragers and organizations, have made significant impacts on the cultural and social equity of foraging in America today. North American Traditions Indigenous Food Systems, or NATIFS, has piloted programs and systems to help culturally and economically develop Indigenous foodways, including for foragers. I-Collective, a group with diverse efforts towards Indigenous Food Sovereignty, has helped promote foraging thought leaders. The presence of several black forager-influencers (Indy Officinalis, Chrissy Tracey, Sophia Roe, to name a few) also reflects positive shifts in food media around BIPOC foragers. But in order for any of these efforts to persist, foragers first need something simple: access to land. In the United States, that's not so easy.

Today, tangible evidence of foraging inequity is evident in America’s wild harvest laws. Many municipalities uphold unnecessarily prohibitive or restrictive foraging laws that result in arrests and fines for acts as innocuous as picking dandelions (seriously - people have been fined for literally picking dandelions). In a country where BIPOC interactions with police are consistently more violent than white interactions, it is not an exaggeration to say that anti-foraging laws can create a direct threat to BIPOC communities who collect wild foods. This is compounded by the wide diversity of wild harvest regulations that exist in the US, that are often challenging to find, interpret, or abide by. The ambiguity of these laws put foragers who harvest - for subsistence, economic development, or cultural tradition - at risk. How were these policies even developed in the first place?

In 2018, Baylen Linnekin published a pivotal paper on anti-foraging laws for the Fordham Urban Law Journal. In it, he describes a three-pronged history of legislation developed to restrict foraging from Indigenous people, formerly enslaved Black people, and poor rural White communities. In each case, the policies are rooted in land access and exclusion.

Perhaps the most egregious example of anti-foraging policy stems from the systematic displacement and land theft from Indigenous Americans. In addition to Native American genocide, early colonizers in North America strategically removed Native people from historical lands and defended those lands with weapons, effectively restricting Native methods of hunting and gathering. As colonizers moved West over the following centuries, policies like The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and The General Allotment Act of 1887 furthered the inaccessibility of historically foraged lands, and perpetuated a culture that saw land as private property rather than a communal resource. In some cases, Native Americans retroactively discovered that their foraging practices had become illegal, learning that treaties they were forced to sign included clauses prohibiting harvesting on certain lands.

Records show that enslaved African-Americans foraged wild plants to supplement the insufficient food they received, but laws targeting those practices were actually developed post-Reconstruction. Formerly enslaved people are recorded to have sold wild foods as a method of economic development, but White lawmakers created anti-foraging regulations to intentionally suppress those communities. These laws persist in the form of anti-trespassing laws, whose nefarious origins were uncovered in a 2015 paper called "Property Law as Labor Control in the Postbellum South" by Brian Sawers. Sawers sat down to talk with AJ+ about this research in a youtube video featuring Alexis Nelson:

As the Jim Crow era progressed in the early 20th century, segregation laws also created profound barriers to parks and other natural environments for Black people. In "Black Faces, White Spaces," Carolyn Finney describes how slavery and Black violence persist within environmentalist spaces, perpetuating systems of exclusion. For people who depend on, make a living from, or culturally enjoy foraged foods, exclusionary laws have created danger and barriers to a better life, throughout history and today.

The national landscape of wild harvest regulations today is highly fractured and difficult to interpret. Policies may exist on the state level, but are often determined by seasonal regulations set forth by National Park Service directors, state park management systems, city ordinances, and more. This poses a challenge for research, but also emphasizes the need for further attention towards these matters. Linnekin's 2018 paper "Food Law Gone Wild: The Law of Foraging." uses National Parks to create a snapshot into the diversity of foraging policy across states - but the real picture is far more challenging to access or communicate. The effect of these regulations protects neither the environment nor the forager - typically just a land owner.

Policy is not the exclusive cause or symptom of systemic racism in the wild foods industry, but it is a key component that needs reformation to create a more equitable and sustainable foraging economy - and more equitable access to the natural world. Aside from papers mentioned here, very limited studies have sought to study contemporary foraging in North America, let alone analyze the history or equity of its legal regulation. But because foraging rests at the intersection of land justice, environmental justice, food justice - and as we have seen here - racial justice, it is worthy of increased attention. In a world with rapidly shifting climates, unreliable global supply chains, and questions about the future of agriculture, it is not unlikely that we will see a continued increase in foraging participation. To protect a new generation of marginalized and BIPOC foragers, it may be pivotal to proactively reform the foraging laws across America.

What do you think of when you hear the word "foraging?"
Hopefully, an opportunity for a more equitable future.

References

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