Cultivating the Commons: Seeding Agroecology

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Agroecology Commons is a cooperatively-led worker self-directed nonprofit that cultivates knowledge sharing, community action, and global solidarity for decolonized land stewardship, collective healing, and justice within the food movement. We steward land on the unceded territory of the Chochenyo Ohlone people whose presence, struggles, and traditional ecological knowledge have laid the foundation for our agroecological work today. 

 

This campaign seeks to raise $50,000 to support three main areas of our collective work: cooperative land stewardship, organizational wellness, and farmer-to-farmer education including the Bay Area Farmer-to-Farmer Training, a hybrid on-farm and online course focused on training the next generation of agroecological land stewards. Outlined below is more information on how your support for this campaign will assist in enhancing each programmatic area. The campaign will be open till the New Year!

 

 

Community Education:

 

Agroecology Commons facilitates the Bay Area Farmer-to-Farmer Training (BAFFT) that will have it’s 6th cohort in 2022; we are raising funds specifically for the apprenticeship component of the program. The program serves predominantly queer, Black, Indigenous, people of color (QBIPOC) and gender marginalized beginning farmers through various learning modalities, and connects them to a network of agroecological farmers, practitioners, and educators. BAFFT trains the next generation of farmers in both technical and social components of agroecology; course topics range from: soil fertility, queer ecologies, land-based global social movements, seed stewardship, crop cultivation, tractor safety, and more.

 

To transform our local food system, we believe we need to confront and dismantle oppression and exploitation within the current paradigm, while collaboratively designing resilient models that are environmentally and socially just. With your financial support we will continue to expand and develop our post BAFFT Apprenticeship and Mentorship Program that honors the important legacies of sharing ancestral agrarian traditions and practices. We recognize the problematic role that unpaid internships have in exploiting labor—making beginning farming opportunities available to only a select few with certain class privilege. Through the Apprenticeship and Mentorship program, we erode these entry barriers by building a learning network between aspiring farmers and active land stewards where each person is paid and honored for their time and commitments.

 

In addition to the BAFFT Apprenticeship and Mentorship Program, your contributions will go towards hosting monthly farmer-to-farmer skillshares, upholding the long legacy of campesino-a-campesino methodologies and helping to strengthen a network of agroecological farmers here in the Bay Area. Previous farmer-to-farmer skillshares have included: crop planning, direct market sales to cooperative markets, land preparation, seeding, Black agranism, goat stewardship, amaranth cultivation and processing, milking, cheese making, rotational grazing, and fodder production.

 

Thank you for helping us equip the next generation of farmers and land stewards, while actively dismantling the structural inequalities and environmental challenges that confront our food system.

 

 

“Agroecology Commons truly brings the warmth and spirit of the movement for land justice/ food sovereignty/ agroecology. They have genuine relationships with incredible people across so many places doing this work and it was a gift to receive their stories, wisdom, thoughts and visions. Honoring land, ancestors, history and struggle are important to me in food/farming work and it remained at the center of everything we did, in every conversation we had in the Bay area farmer to farmer training. It was incredibly grounding in that way.” -Marissa, 2021 BAFFT Graduate

 

Cooperative Land Stewardship:

 

Agroecology Commons is cover cropping and preparing the soil for the first season of our 3-acre farm in El Sobrante, CA, which will be the home to our cooperative educational farm and agroecological land commons for beginning farmers! This farm will provide land access for BAFFT participants to experiment, learn, and practice land stewardship with support from experienced mentors. As you may predict, starting a farm takes a lot of resources and materials! Your support will help us to acquire the necessary infrastructure to ensure a supportive start to a thriving farm, including cover crop seed, a tool shed, deer and gopher fencing, and irrigation materials. We are also creating a Food Sovereignty Lending Library that your contributions will help us lay the groundwork for. The library will reduce economic barriers and initial capital investment for small farmers, while encouraging access to key infrastructure and tools like, seeds, a commercial dehydrator, honey spinner, broad forks, grain mill, seeder, value added processing equipment, walk behind tractor, post pounders, pole pruners, and much more.

 

 

 

Organizational Wellness:

Investing in a culture of wellness for members of Agroecology Commons is vital to the integrity and longevity of the work we do. We are building organizational resilience through collaboratively designed structures that encourage individual wellness, as well as practices for our collective that align with our values of reciprocity, cooperation, reflection, healing, solidarity, and reverence for the Earth. It is often difficult to secure funding for these types of organizational wellness; through the potency of community crowdfunding, you will help us raise funds towards comprehensive health insurance and benefits for our staff, ongoing educational trainings, the development of a 5-year strategic plan, and a reparations fund to support collective members who have faced various forms of systemic oppression.

 

 

Thank you for your support! Sharing food, farming, and land connection is a way to practice collective healing; we can literally plant the values, principles, and approaches that we wish to see in our world, while transforming our food system, and by extension, our larger society!

PERKS:  

Collective Members Ancestral Recipe Cards: $25 Donation

Sharing food is one of the oldest practices that brings people together. Exchanging ancestral recipes   can connect us to each other by cultivating  understanding around historical land and food legacies and building trust and community. We want to feel connected to you! Collective members of Agroecology Commons will share ancestral recipes bringing us all that much closer to one another. Are you salivating? We are. 

Virtual cooking demo - $100  Donation 

Share space with collective members Kai and Jeneba to learn how to prepare a savory dish inspired by their family lineages in the Philippines and Sierra Leone. Combining local produce and culturally relevant ingredients this stew is sure to be a crowd pleaser. As we cook, we’ll share what inspires us, what excites us about cooking, and about the people that got us into the kitchen.

Homemade Ice Cream and Goat Social: $500 Donation 

Come chill with us, our goats, and make some homemade goat milk ice cream! Request (or bring!) your favorite flavors and we’ll make ice cream with fresh goat's milk on the farm. Our favorite seasonal and local flavors right now are pomegranate, honey-lavender,  bay laurel, and rose-cardamom. 

Goat Stewardship Workshop: $1000 Donation 

Learn about the important role of animal stewardship in agroecological farming. This three-hour in person workshop will include a goat milking and cheesemaking demonstration followed by a goat ice cream social. We will discuss topics around the legacy and struggle of pastoral traditions, rotational grazing, fodder production, silvopasture, and grazing for fire mitigation. 

Share a farm to table meal with AC members Summer 2022: $2000 Donation

Join Agroecology Commons Collective members for a curated farm to table meal highlighting food from the land and local agroecological farmers within our network. Enjoy a summer feast out on the land as we gather in community to celebrate our first harvest.