an Intro to Agroecology a political, social, and cultural process with emphasis on the East Bay
taBLE OF CONTENTS 4…………. What is agroecology? 5…………. Why a local food system? 6…………. Ecosystem of the soil 7………….. Illustration by Yael ehrenberg 8…………. In Conversation with Mandela Grocery Cooperative 9………… AAPI and Black Solidarity at City Slicker Farms 10…………. Resilience through seed saving 11…………. Public seed libraries 12…………. Future visions 13………… a collection of images by minkah taharkah 14-15……... Organizing for agroecology 16-17…….. International ancestral practices 18………… Heritage and Healing is Black Farming 19….….….. Bluma Farm feature 20………... Urban Tilth feature 21…….….. resources
We are a group of students in the Introduction to Urban Agroecology course at Merritt College on the ancestral homeland of the Chochenyo and Muwekma Ohlone people. This zine has been designed with the purpose of sharing information and offering reflections on agroecology. What follows is a collaborative effort with our lovely neighbors, classmates, colleagues and comrades to explore the social, cultural, and political aspects of agroecology and our local food system. Our hope is that this zine inspires all who read it to learn, organize, and collaborate because there is power in the collective. We hope you enjoy.
We encourage everyone (especially those who inhabit this East Bay region of California’s San Francisco Bay Area) to offer a Shuumi Land tax and support the work of the Sogorea Te Land Trust. From their website, “The Shuumi Land Tax directly supports Sogorea Te’s work of rematriation, returning Indigenous land to Indigenous people, establishing a cemetery to reinter stolen Ohlone ancestral remains and building urban gardens, community centers, and ceremonial spaces so current and future generations of Indigenous people can thrive in the Bay Area. Shuumi means gift in the Ohlone language Chochenyo.” You can do this at https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/shuumi-land-tax/ The Introduction to Urban Agroecology course is held at Merritt College and is part of the college’s Urban Agroecology Certificate of Achievement which trains students in the skills and practices of urban agriculture, focusing on ecologically restorative food production, project planning, and small-scale enterprise development. We encourage anyone looking to further explore agroecology to sign up!
Agroecology is “a social, cultural, and political process and a tool for the collective transformation of reality.” - La Via Campesina “Agroecology creates the social and material infrastructure for food producers of all kinds to remain on the land (in rural, coastal, and urban spaces) and to ‘break free’ from white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy and other forms of exploitation.” -The People’s Agroecology Process
What is Agroecology? Agroecology focuses on sustainable farming. It is an alternative to the industrial food system that heavily extracts from land and life. In other words, agroecology focuses on using what is readily available and reduces reliance on external farm inputs. Rather than pumping the soil with synthetic fertilizers, folx would find ways to naturally improve the soil by increasing biodiversity and soil fertility. However, Agroecology can be thought of as not just “sustainability,” but a movement for social change. Agroecology values the techniques and knowledge developed by farmers’ experiences, small-scale local practices, and social processes that value community involvement and economic self reliance. Agroecology is a whole systems approach that understands ecological change in agriculture and food systems cannot happen without political, social, and economic change.
Why do we need a local food system? Locally grown food has a smaller carbon footprint because it has to travel less to nourish us. Local food systems build connection and community with our health, create healthy habitats for pollinator species, and grow resilient regional economies.
It’s not only important to be locally grown, but with methods that protect our watersheds, animal and plant life, and soil health. Most industrially grown food intensively uses harmful pesticides that pollute land and water, exploit local people for their labor and harm their health, and steal land from Indigenous peoples. Supporting local food systems all over the world creates regional, cyclical economies that benefit the livelihoods of everyday people in those communities.
ecOSySteM Of The SOil Soil is where life starts, it is the basis of everything we eat. There is an entire ecosystem in the soil. This is known as the soil food web. Nematodes, arthropods, spiders, fungi, earthworms and more live within the soil, forming a mutually beneficial relationship to plants. Through photosynthesis, plants pull carbon dioxide down into the soil, converting it into carbohydrates and sugars which is then expelled through their roots as food for microorganisms. In turn, these microorganisms provide nutrients, enhance soil structure, enhance plant growth, health, and resiliency. We can take notes from the natural cycles of the ecological systems in our world to understand what it means to build healthy soil. Agroecological practices tell us that we are not simply tending plants, we are tending soil as well. The dawn of profit-driven agriculture due to colonization meant that “it took only a few decades of intense tillage to drive over 50 percent of the original organic matter from the soil into the sky as carbon dioxide” (Penniman 87). Disrupting the soil disrupts the soil ecosystem and all its multied benefits. Over time, soil becomes compacted, nutrient deficient and barren, and vulnerable to pests and disease. Conventional farming prevents carbon from being stored and transformed, driving climate change, as “the initial anthropogenic rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels was due to [the] breakdown of soil organic matter” (Penniman 88). Implementing practices that support life in the soil restores our relationship to our environment while providing a healthy, vibrant foundation of which our plants are able to grow. Indicators for assessing healthy soil include: lots of organic matter (compost, straw, decomposing plant material), loamy structure that holds water well, a diverse community of soil organisms, near neutral pH, and presence of macro and micronutrients determined through a soil test. See some tips for building healthy soil, adapted from Farming While Black and USDA “Soil Health Management.”
Healthy soil tips: -Keep your soil covered as much as possible. Lay mulch or straw to exposed soil to retain moisture and prevent erosion. -Add compost to introduce microorganisms and nutrients to your soil ecosystem. -Disturb soil as little as possible, use tools like a tilther instead of a till. -Promote biodiversity and minimize chances of pests and disease by planting companion plants in the same beds or rows and practice crop rotation. -Collect and spread fallen autumn leaves over your soil as mulch. -Plant cover crops over the winter. Photo credit: Rachel Ruiz
By Yael EHRENBERG
URBAN AGROECOLOGY CO-LEAD AT MERRITT COLLEGE
In conversation with Mandela Grocery Co-op
Mandela Grocery Cooperative on 7th St in West Oakland “How does a worker-owned cooperative work towards food justice and promote community change?” ★ Mandela challenges food apartheid in West Oakland by providing natural, organic foods in an area where overprocessed foods, candy, soda, & alcohol are in abundance at corner stores ★ They support the community by buying from local vendors to bring fresh, organic produce to their customers ★ Discounts are offered to neighbors in government-funded housing, and SNAP/EBT benefits are accepted ★ Employees are empowered by being centered around the daily operations and administrative decisions of the business “What would you like people to know about co-ops?” ❖ If more people and businesses moved over to a co-op model, we could make much change in society by empowering workers, offering equitable pay, and building community ❖ Let’s remove idea that we have to have a manager in a work setting and instead value employees not just as a means to an end but as individuals working collaboratively “How can our readers help?” ➢ Put a little money in the karma jar! Anything you put forward will go towards someone else’s groceries ➢ Contribute online paypal.com/paypalme/mandelacoop
AAPI and Black Solidarity at City Slicker Farms. Volunteer coordinator Vera Lopez (@ixmu.jpg on Instagram) next to a mural they created at the farm to represent City Slicker’s support and dedication towards these two communities. “These communities make up the heart and soul of City Slicker Farms so we share this to say we see you, we hear you and we stand with you.”
Resilience through Seed Saving The industrialized nature of our current century have turned common goods into economic goods. From land, to water, to seeds, these life-giving forces get reduced to privatized and commodified things. Agroindustrial seed production prioritizes shipping hardiness, shelf life and profits meaning great loss of diversity, poor nutritional value, increased dependence of farmers on seed companies and loss of culturally relevant crops. Seed stewardship is vital to the autonomy of farmers and gardeners and contributes to a resilient food system. When we save and steward seeds, we are ensuring that our seed is adapted to our environment, making it more resilient. Farmers around the world have been stewarding seed for as long as agrarian societies have existed. Dr. Vandana Shiva, an Indian food sovereignty activist, describes the seed as “an embodiment of millennia of nature’s evolution and centuries of farmers’ breeding. It is the distilled expression of the intelligence of the earth and intelligence of farming communities'' (Navdanya 14). While seed saving can be an involved process, it can also be an experimental and enjoyable one. Some tips on seed saving from Organic Seed Alliance (seedalliance.org) include: start small and with a crop you love, consider your climate, try annuals first, meet and learn from other seed savers.
Organic and heirloom seed companies: Kitazawa Seed Company, True Love Seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Johnny’s Select Seeds, Hudson Valley Seed Company For more on seed saving see seedambassadors.org for a printable guide For more on Indigenous seed preservation and stewardship visit sierraseeds.org
Public Seed LIbraries Seeds are crucial to the cycle of life.
Seeds are the livelihoods of farmers all over the world.
Seeds are meant to be saved, shared, and collectived.
There are numerous seed libraries in the East Bay that allow us to freely share and receive seeds.
View the full map online at: http://bit.ly/eastbay-seed-libraries
“The past is painful, the present precarious, the future is free. We always see ourselves in the future.” -Erika Alexander
The future we want is already being cultivated. When we turn the soil and sow the seeds and watch the garden grow in abundance from season to season we are undoing centuries of harm on this land. Generations of displacement, disinvestment, exploitation and violence severed our ancestral dispositions. But with each season, the expansion of our collective healing and a freer future grows. With great care and deep gratitude, we tend to our plants, watering deep into the soil, enough to reach the roots. Reconnecting with the earth helps us breathe better. Anyone who has spent time on the farm has knowledge to share and in that way we find ourselves growing as a community. We now have something to build towards and fight for. Shared knowledge, shared work and shared visions across generations have created a pathway into the future. One that is free and rooted in community, self-sufficiency and good food. May we always inspire one another, build with each other and share with one another. We support each other, we sustain each other, we defend, protect and honor one another! Now and always. The future is free. by marisa johnson Mesoamerican cosmovision sees the earth and the cosmos as interconnected. It is a way of understanding how we relate to the world and life around us and that which is bigger than us. It is about being informed by this larger worldview and perspective in everything you do. The same is applied to agroecology, where whole systems are considered, where land stewardship is about protecting and preserving for generations, and the spiritual and ecological go hand in hand.
Photo credit: Minkah Taharkah Follow Minkah on IG @walkroftheskeye or get in contact at three3seedz@gmail.com
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Agroecology has the power to mobilize and inspire millions to take back the land, seeds and food appropriated and controlled by transnational corporations. “Agroecology is a tool for organizing in opposition to corporate power. Agroecology cannot be defined exclusively in terms of sustainable and healthy food production. When we work together as farmers, farm workers, peasants, and food sovereignty activists, we do it to develop a strong platform to create policy, to influence public opinion, to educate each other, to mobilize against corporations that are putting our lives and livelihoods at risk.” - Jesús Vázquez of Organization Boricuá for Ecological Agriculture (3)
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✿ Barriers we must actively work against and work against reproducing in our organizing: - Individualism at the core of the dominant capitalist ideology, enforced through institutions including the non-profit industrial complex - Competition and the mentality of working in silos, as well as the divisions among communities and working peoples - Systemic and interpersonal violence of white supremacy and patriarchy - Fear of repression by state police and military apparatus - The culture of U.S. exceptionalism enforced by domestic and international policies (imperialism) (7)
✿ How to build a collective consciousness by deepening our understanding of the reality and history of our struggle: - Understand the other side – the powerful and the real force they have - Analyze our side – our forces, strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, and inabilities - Understand the power of the state – legislative, executive, judicial powers - Understand the different tendencies in the political and economic realms - Identify the next steps, and possibilities in the current context (15)
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Agroecology is international. Agroecology is the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous peoples, campesinos, the African diaspora, and rural people. Farmers, herders, fishers, gatherers, and foresters all over the world have tended the biodiversity of their regions for centuries to today. These complex traditional knowledge systems are central in agroecology to be protected and restored. These four examples are “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems” (GIAHS). To learn about more systems around the world, visit http://www.fao.org/giahs/giahsaroundtheworld
Andean Agriculture “Millennia of experience and selection by Indigenous communities in Peru have led to the domestication of a number of endemic species such as potatoes and quinoa. This knowledge includes three main agricultural systems, each one related to their respective altitude: maize crops (2800-3300 m.), potato crops (3,300-3800 m.) and the livestock area with high altitude crops such as quinua, cañihua (3,800-4500 m.). For each altitude, native selected crops are cultivated.”
Oldonyonokie/Olkeri and Engaresero Maasai Pastoralist Heritage Area (Kenya and Tanzania) “In Southern Kenya, Maasai have developed an agro pastoral system for centuries. Their system integrates at the same time animals such as buffalos, goats and sheep with endemic species and food plants such as maize and beans. Depending on the climate, the needs of the animals and the community requires an important knowledge and understanding of nature.”
Gout Oasis system in El Oued, Algeria “The ghout traditional hydro agricultural system consists in digging into the soil using wind knowledge to plant date palm at the top of the groundwater resources. This system integrates at the same time vegetable, cereal, fruit trees and date palm production through a complex multi layered organization. Divided in three levels, these mixed crops are sustainable looking at the soil and water resources.”
Dong’s Rice-Fish-Duck System (China)
The Rice-Fish-Duck system was developed in Congjiang county by Dong people. Growing up rice, fishes and ducks at the same time in paddies is an excellent ecosystem beneficial for human created sustainable development. It is also an economic system combined within a virtuous eco-cycle in which many traditional methods of farming and folk customs are harbored.
“At the heart of the movement for liberation is the opportunity to heal intergenerational trauma. The most authentic way to do so is to cultivate the earth, eat the foods of your ancestors, reweave yourself back into the story that been sprouting from the village hearth since time immemorial.” - Rowen White, Indigenous Seed Keepers Network
Heritage and healing is Black farming. Many in the Black community find healing from the past through farming and growing heritage foods like collards, okra, and black eyed peas that are so central to Black American cooking. This singular practice honors the generations of ancestral earth knowledge and creativity, and reconfigures a painful relationship to land. The purple tree collard at Acta Non Verba’s farm in East Oakland. This variety was brought to the Bay Area from the American South during the Great Migration. It’s purple, green and even pink leaves and veins are distinct to this variety. It can easily be propagated from a single cutting. Okra is a seminal Black food often used in gumbo or fried and eaten on it’s own. The mucilaginous quality of okra is amazing for gut and digestive health. Black eyed peas ready to be planted. Many historians and culture keepers say that the bean was braided into the hair of enslaved African women, making their way across the Atlantic during the Middle Passage. This historical preservation of seed makes it especially significant to Black foodways.
"George Washington Carver in silhouette" by quinn.anya CC BY-SA 2.0
Highlighting a local steward: Bluma
Farm
A local agricultural project in an urban setting
Bluma farm in downtown Berkeley, learn more @ www.blumaflowerfarm.com
Where can you find land to grow on in a city….. .....how about a rooftop? Joanna Letz of Bluma Farm grows flowers and herbs on a rooftop that otherwise would be unused space. Her farm provides habitat for pollinators and the downtown Berkeley location makes it possible to interact with the surrounding community, provide tours and educational visits, and be super close to customers. Joanna uses no-till methods and rooftop friendly practices to manage soil health like silage tarps, soil amendments, and fertigation. Bluma Farm is an excellent example of how you can make farming work in an urban setting. Catch Joanna and her beautiful flowers at her weekly pop-ups on Dwight Way in Berkeley! She and her crew also offer CSA bouquets, weddings/events, and workshops. What a unique situation with a nice view! :)
Local feature: Urban Tilth Based out of Richmond, Urban Tilth runs a total of seven school and community gardens with the goal to teach and employ community members to grow, distribute, cook, and consume thousands of pounds of local produce each year, and to create a more equitable and just food system within a healthier and more self-sufficient community.
The Healing Movement at Richmond High School is an afterschool, student-driven wellness club to support youth’s inner peace by working with plants and herbs.
Along with running CSAs, Urban Tilth holds Free Pop-up Farm Stands, serving neighborhoods without access to fresh produce, at schools, parks and local cafes.
The Greenway Gardens (6th Street and Ohio Ave) and Unity Park Project is the transformed defunct Santa Fe railway line that now hosts 2 large, open gleaning gardens of 26 raised beds and an 84 fruit tree Edible Forest (16th street and Ohio Ave). The sites are collectively managed by community members and staff. A weekly farmers market at Unity Park Project is currently in the works. See more of their food and farm/garden projects including: -Summer Apprentice Program -Farm to Table CSA -Farmers to Families Free CSA -Urban Agriculture Academy -Verde Elementary Garden -Sol Garden -North Richmond Farm At their website urbantilth.org
Resources Organizations Planting Justice Urban Tilth City Slicker Farms Agroecology Commons Merritt College Acta Non Verba Oakland Leaf Groceries, Co-Ops, and CSAs Mandela Grocery Cooperative The DEEP Berkeley Basket CSA Beet Box CSA Local Farms
The mission of S.C.A.R.S., a project by Olivia Eng, is to foster healing through the intersection of dance, creative expression, storytelling, poetry, cross-cultural exchange, holistic practices and herbal medicine. ScarsArt.wixsite.com/scars
Brown Girl Farms Bluma Farm Gill Tract Community Farm Knowledge Growing Change: A Journey Inside Venezuela's Food Revolution (watch on Kanopy with through your local public library account)
Brown Girl Farms on the core of what their farm is about: "Eating is so intimate. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you are inviting a person into your life,” a quote by Maya Angelou
References: Méndez, V. E., Bacon, C. M., Cohen, R., & Gliessman, S. R. (2019). Chapter 10: Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, and Urban Agriculture in the United States. In Agroecology: A transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented approach. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Penniman, Leah & Washington, Karen. (2018). Chapter 5: Feeding the Soil. In Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing. Shiva, Vandana Dr. (2015). Seed Freedom - What is at Stake. In Seed Freedom: A Global Citizens‘ Report, Co-ordinated by Ruchi Shroff, Navdanya Elisa Catalini, Translated by Harriett Barham Natasha Louise Raisch. Florence: NAVDANYA International. “Soil Health Management.” Natural Resources Conservation Service Soils, United States Department of Agriculture, https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/soils/health/mgnt/#. Accessed 24 March 2021. The Peoples Agroecology Process: Unlocking our Power through Agroecology. (2015).
Above Photo credit: Howard E. McMinn & Evelyn Maino, An Illustrated Manual of Pacific Coast Trees
