The Planted Seed

We developed out of a few Farmer listening sessions hosted with the Good Food Purchasing Twin Cities Coalition in late 2018 and early 2020. In February of 2020 over 45 farmers of color came together to talk about farmer-led racial justice work and the need for us to have spaces to organize socially, economically and politically.  

We shared our political organizing strategies and we welcomed farmer activists Chanowke Yisreal and Roosevelt Tarlesson, from the California Farmer Justice Collaborative, to speak about their work on the California Farmer Equity Act of 2017.  We generated a list of policy priorities and some initial ideas to help incubate and grow our collective.  

COVID-19 hit in March, which drastically changed our options for coming together. But we were determined and with a volunteer Coordinating Team and many one to ones, we identified some needs and we started a few initial projects.