Food insecurity, defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a lack of reliable access to sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food, has long been a prevalent issue among low-income communities of color. According to studies published by the Food Research & Action Center, food insecurity and food-related illnesses have disproportionately impacted Black, Indigenous, and Other People of Color (BIPOC) as a result of economic, systemic, and proximity barriers to accessing quality, healthy food, particularly produce, insufficient information about healthy and sustainable diets, and less public investment in open spaces such as community gardens. Throughout February in honor of Black History Month, Bloomist is shining a light on the state of food equity in America by featuring 4 inspiring Black Farming organizations that are taking new approaches to more equitable access to healthy food, like transforming food deserts into food sanctuaries and creating local, sustainable food systems. Get to know farmers who are making a difference including Rise & Root Farm, The Ron Finley Project, Soul Fire Farm, and Planting Justice.
RISE & ROOT FARM
Rise & Root Farm is a five-acre farming cooperative in bucolic Orange County, NY run by 4 owners who are women. The mission of Rise & Root is to educate and empower people, especially from the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, on how to farm and the importance of healthy food options. “To grow your own food gives you power and dignity,” says co-founder Karen Washington. “You know exactly what you’re eating because you grew it.” Rise & Root provides abundant and nutritious food for the local community, including organically grown vegetables, heirloom tomatoes, cut flowers, and more that they sell at three farmers markets, including the fabled Union Square Greenmarket. Rise & Root also trains volunteers to be the next generation of farmers and hosts events where family, friends, and customers can gain experience in the field. In an exciting development, Rise & Root recently broke ground on a community kitchen, which will accommodate cooking classes, workshops, and offer a shared space to neighboring farms.
THE RON FINLEY PROJECT
Making gardening "gangsta" has been Ron Finley's mission since 2010, when he began planting food on the weedy parkway outside his home and got into trouble for violating Los Angeles city code. He fought the city and won permission to keep his garden and build more like it in the "food deserts" around South LA, where, he says, it's far easier to find liquor stores, fast food and diabetes treatment centres than organic fruit and vegetables. Ron first started gardening to decrease the effects of the food apartheid in which his own neighborhood existed, to encourage healthy eating habits, and beautify the land. Today the self-taught gardener is part motivational speaker, part food revolutionary, teaching communities how to transform food deserts into food sanctuaries and individuals how to regenerate their lands into creative business models. Finley encourages people of all backgrounds to grow their own food. "I think everybody should have knowledge of how to feed themselves and what food they're eating,” says Ron.
SOUL FIRE FARM
Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system. The organization grows and distributes life-giving food to end food apartheid. With deep reverence for the land, Soul Fire Farmers work to reclaim the collective right to belong to the earth and to have agency in the food system. Soul Fire brings diverse communities together on this healing land to share skills on sustainable agriculture, natural building, spiritual activism, health, and environmental justice. The organization is training the next generation of activist-farmers and strengthening the movements for food sovereignty and community self-determination. Their food sovereignty programs reach over 160,000 people each year, including farmer training for Black and Brown growers, reparations and land return initiatives for northeast farmers, food justice workshops for urban youth, home gardens for city-dwellers living under food apartheid, doorstep harvest delivery for food insecure households, and systems and policy education for public decision-makers.
PLANTING JUSTICE
Planting Justice works to address the structural inequalities embedded in the industrialized food system, including the systemic exploitation of food system workers (especially undocumented farm and kitchen workers); the lack of access to fresh, nutritious food in low-income communities of color; and the culture’s over-reliance on packaged, processed food. The intention of Planting Justice is to support healing justice in collaboration with marginalized communities who have been severed from their most optimal wellness due to structural oppression. To achieve this goal, Planting Justice is transforming the food system one garden at a time. In the last 10 years, the organization’s team has built over 450 edible gardens throughout the Bay Area, empowering hundreds of people to grow their own food. Planting Justice also works with High Schools to develop food justice curricula and has created over 40 green jobs in the food justice movement for people transitioning from prison. Today, Planting Justice is cultivating urban farms and training centers that will dramatically increase the scope and scale of this work.