Karen Washington has spent decades promoting urban farming as a way for all New Yorkers to have access to fresh, locally grown food. As a 26-year Bronx resident Karen worked with local neighborhoods to turn empty lots into community gardens and has been a long-time activist for garden protection and preservation and food justice. Karen is one of 4 co-founders of Rise & Root Farm, a five-acre farming cooperative run by women that is literally rooted in social justice. Through the healing power of food and farming, Karen and her fellow farmers continue their food justice work by growing food and community beyond the city boundaries.

A physical therapist by training, Washington began gardening when she moved to the Bronx in 1985. “I had a backyard, and instead of putting a lawn on it or cementing it, I decided I was going to grow some food,” she says. “I had no experience whatsoever. No one to turn to — my parents weren't farmers, my grandparents weren't farmers.” She wanted to grow three vegetables in particular: “Collard greens, of course, because they’re a staple in the African-American diet,” she says. “Eggplants, because eggplant seemed funky — you know, eggs on a plant? And tomatoes. I hated tomatoes. The tomatoes we had were pale and tasted like cardboard."

The season's first tomato crop at the farm

Rise & Root Farm produce for sale at the Union Square Greenmarket, NYC

For Washington, farming is a spiritual practice. “It's not just about growing,” she says. “When I'm on the farm, I sit back and think about the people that were there thousands and thousands of years ago. And you give homage, as a farmer, and gratitude, to be on that land — not to own it, but to be stewards of the land, to take care of the land for the next generation. Sometimes I’ll just sit in a field, and just give the universe thanks and praise that I’m farming on this land, and that I’m taking care of this land, because the land has been given to me to take care of. And I just give thanks to the universe for allowing me to do what I do, and in doing it, to find joy.”

Women farmers at Rise & Root Farm master many skills including harvesting honey, growing tomatoes, and planting and nurturing seeds.