Tanama Varas (left) and Azhar Khanmohamed (right)
Today’s post was written by NFFC member, Azhar Khanmohamed, a California-based farmer, educator, and organizer. All photos courtesy of Azhar.
Last summer, the National Family Farm Coalition gave me the opportunity to participate in the 2nd annual Short Course in People’s Agroecology, hosted by Rural Vermont and the People’s Agroecology School of Vermont; and supported by Via Campesina member leaders. Coming into the course, I had mixed feelings and questions. I was excited to learn from the folks at Via, whose work I had been following for years, and to connect with comrades who have committed their lives to the struggles for food sovereignty and agroecology. At the same time I felt skeptical; could Vermont, a state composed of 90.6% white folks, really be home to an effective agroecological school? How does this reconcile with agroecology as a practice that emphasizes social (and racial) justice? To be honest, I have still not fully resolved these contradictions for myself, but I can say without a doubt that this experience was deeply transformative for me; and that the movement for agroecology being cultivated in Vermont demonstrates the multi-racial, internationalist solidarity that is essential for us to embody here in the “Belly of Beast”.
Learning 1: Immersed Within An Agroecological Movement
Tom Gilbert’s worm bin for vermicomposting at Black Dirt Farm.
Before this course, I felt like I had only really experienced the principles of agroecology in small, isolated contexts. Being in Vermont, it felt as though I was immersed within a wide, thriving agroecological movement. The entire food system, from the policy and legislation, to the systems of local aggregation, processing, and distribution, all the way down to the relationships between inputs and outputs on farms; all of it seemed to be synergetic and at least partially organized by agroecological principles. Through conversations with Mollie and Graham, staff members at Rural Vermont, I learned how this ecosystem of agroecology was built through decades of farmer organizing, and was in dialogue with international movements. The importance of this long-term, place-based powerbuilding became more clear through conversations with the farmers like Tom Gilbert of Black Dirt Farm.
Black Dirt Farm collects food waste from local communities as a revenue-generating service; then turns this food waste into high quality compost, chicken feed, and an array of vermicompost products. Tom’s model deeply embodies agroecology, transforming waste into an entire agroecological value chain. What’s more, Tom’s model demonstrates the importance of agroecology as a political movement; as it is supported by a policy passed in 2012 that prevents food scraps and organic matter from going to the dump with other non-compostable waste. Tom, other farmers, and local community members organized to pass these policies as a way to ensure that the organic waste produced by communities nourishes the land, rather than being lost to toxic landfills. This is just one example of many that demonstrate how small farmers and their communities have worked to try and organize Vermont’s food system to be non-extractive and in direct support of those who are working closest with the land.
Learning 2: Internationalism, Work Brigades, and Agroecology as Embodied Knowledge
Just a few of the apples gleaned during work brigades.
As a part of the immersion within a local movement for agroecology, the People’s Short Course gave me the opportunity to participate in work-brigades. We hayed, harvested garlic, flowers, and berries, pruned apple trees, spread compost, pulled burdock, and planted riparian buffers in a flood-prone area. In one case, we completed nearly a month’s worth of work collecting apple drops and thinning apples in just a few hours due to the scale of our labor power. The farmers we worked with made it clear that without our help, much of this work might have gone undone, impacting the rest of their season and in the context of pruning, even future seasons.
In addition to the actual brigading, we also spent time learning about the history of work-brigades as tools of resistance and mutual aid, contextualizing the practice within a larger international movement for agroecology. We also shared stories of the brigades we had been a part of before this course. Rolando, a farmer from Puerto Rico, shared that what started as a critical mutual aid brigade for him has now transformed into an ongoing practice. Several farming families in his region meet up once every other month (ish) to brigade; they rotate whose farm they support each time; and at the end of each brigade they break bread, listen to music, and tell stories. In Vermont, we learned how the brigades after recent floods turned into ongoing mutual aid and organizing infrastructure that continues to support communities through worsening climate chaos.
A mistica before working together on ecosystem restoration.
Through embodied and theoretical explorations of brigades, it became clear that while important, labor support is only one of the benefits of this practice. At the beginning of each brigade we held a mistica, a spiritual and political practice honoring the spirit of the land and the individual contexts we each brought to the work. At the end of each brigade, we shared a meal together, and shared stories, music, joy, and laughter. In many ways, these acts of community building on the land were just as nourishing to both the farmers and the brigaders as the labor itself; and drove lasting impacts beyond the labor support of the brigade. For me, this lasting impact was felt through ongoing mentorship from Tom from Black Dirt Farm and Jesús from Organización Boricuá. Since the short-course ended, Tom has continued to give me advice on the mushroom and compost farm I co-operate in North Richmond, CA; and Jesús has helped me deepen my political understanding of agroecology and its relationships to the movements for climate justice and land reform. In my eyes, continued collaboration after brigades is possible because of the solidarities that are woven when we come together to support one another in land-based work. This solidarity is a deeply embodied experience; and for me, it was the most transformative part of the short course.
As I mentioned at the beginning, I entered the program with a conceptual understanding of agroecology, and several 1-off experiences with individual agroecological projects. The People’s Short Course was my first time feeling deeply connected to agroecology as a broader movement, and as an embodied form of knowledge rooted in the solidarities of those who practice it. While I didn’t know it at the time, the short course sowed the seeds of a much deeper understanding of agroecology within me. 7 months later, I can feel those seeds, and the potent medicines they have grown into: a sharper politic, deeper alignment in my relationships, and more clarity in my role in the movement for agroecology here in the Bay Area. I am incredibly grateful and humbled to have had the opportunity to participate.