it doesn’t take a lot of time on a farm to understand that success depends on thriving ecosystems, like healthy, nutrient rich soil, or companion planting, where organic growers pair up different types of plants to mitigate harmful insects Even the smallest pollinators make monumental impacts.

But what about the larger systems that extend beyond producing a bountiful harvest, where success is defined by equitable access to healthy foods and opportunities for growing it?

These macro systems depend on policy, land usage, education, and upskilling So I’m here visiting Devon at Sunlight Gardens with my friends Danielle and Veronica to learn more about ways to build healthy, thriving ecosystems that ensure food access for everyone We’ve harvested a bunch of stuff.

I know we’ve got some some Swiss chard, some rainbow chard, we’ve got, you know, zucchini flowers and zucchini and kale and collards and all these things.

Could we cook some, like, now?

Let’s do it.

Let’s eat.

All right.

Best part.

Make a stir fry if that sounds good to folks.

Yeah.

Sounds.

Yeah.

Sunlight Gardens offers access to healthy food for its community through their farm store lovingly named pharmacy, as well as training programs for youth and for young farmers.

But to help ensure that the seeds of these programs continue to grow, Devon is taking collaborative action with other farmers So Devon, what is what does success look like to to you in the sunlight gardens A lot of it has to do with health outcomes.

We want a healthier community I have a vision of just eating local food on accident Like, you go.

It’s not being intentional about it, just, like, it just is local food.

It’s just local food.

Yeah.

Exactly, yeah.

Local food is the norm.

You go to the grocery store, even you go to eat fast food, and you are eating local food.

It’s going to take a lot to get there, but this is why we try to increase access, because I think part of it has to do with having more practitioners, more people growing their own own food, more people creating farms like Sunlight Gardens, doing more urban farming Ways do you think that we could bridge the gap between rural farms and urban farms.

We could really figure out ways for urban and rural farms to work together more because they do different things.

They serve somewhat different purposes there needs to be less of a focus on only growing commodity crops and, you know, to kind of get big or get out farming model that we see There needs to be a focus on urban farms and rural farms and then understanding how they can both benefit each other.

I think a great collaboration Or even to have, like, a Sunlight Gardens rural farm, right?

The rule farm, we can grow a lot more food because we have more space.

We’re out in the countryside.

say if we are providing food to a whole school district or to an entire hospital.

We would be able to supply their food sustainably.

But then also we could partner with our urban farm to provide directly to neighborhoods Being in an urban environment, you have so many opportunities to do really great programming and training and then partnering with the rule farm supplies the quantity and supplies the large amounts that you need to feed our you know, our cities and our kind of current environment.

For some, the idea of farming can carry negative connotations.

Associating food cultivation with exploitative labor practices, such as migrant farming or our country’s history of using the labor of enslaved black people, can sometimes mean that success looks like getting as far away from the land as possible But this isn’t the only reason we see so little diversity among farm ownership today.

As of 2022, the USDA census shared that only 9% of U.S.

farms were owned by black indigenous or non-black and indigenous people of color.

And a major contributing factor for the lack of diversity comes down to bad policies.

After the Civil War, many formerly enslaved African Americans pursued farming, despite an uphill battle against prejudice, hostility, and unfulfilled promises by the U.S.

government to provide tillable land to freed men.

By the year 1910, 14% of U.S.

land was owned by African Americans.

But as the years progressed, a number of policies were introduced by the USDA, which prevented access to loans or opportunities to build equity for not only black farmers, but Native Americans American, Latin, and woman identifying farmers as well And from 1910 to 1997, the U.S.

saw a 90% drop in black farmer ownership In recent years, the USDA has acknowledged the discriminatory impacts of its past policies, but even today, the fight continues.

There have been significant cuts to funding for increased access to fruits and vegetables, as well as for programs meant to create more industry pathways for our country’s next generation of farmers.

Are you doing anything else to kind of address those disparities on a system level.

Yeah, definitely.

So, aside from, you know, doing the data day to day at the farm here There’s also work that needs to be done on the government level, right?

We have the USDA who is in charge of all agriculture in our country And it’s very important for people of color and beginning farmers to be represented in that same area it’s important to get out and talk to the people who are making the laws about farming We need to have opportunities for people who maybe don’t have farming in their family to be able to get into farming I have done a lot of policy work So I’m a board member of the Michigan Farmers Union Another initiative that I co founded also is a Michigan Food Sovereignty Collaborative Network And we’re on a similar mission to make sure that there’s a balanced approach to agriculture, that everybody has a seat at the table Everybody has an opportunity to grow healthy food.

with really the end goal being building that strong local food system And having a better relationship with what you eat, you know that it wasn’t sprayed with a hundred different chemical pesticides.

It didn’t travel hundreds of miles to get here And I believe when we have more of that focus, we will see a great benefit in the health of our communities.

All right, so y’all helped me out at the farm.

We had such a good day cooking, harvesting, and having fun here.

So I want to send you home with some plants of your own.

So we’re gonna be planting some Swiss chards today Okay.

So it’s really simple how you do it.

Here’s our seeds Basically, all there is to it, you just want to poke some holes in the soil.

And We only need one seed and you’ll plant one seed in each hole Then you’ll kind of cover it up, and we’ll put some water on it.

And that’s Awesome.

Cool.

Thank you.

You want to take some?

These seeds are so cool looking.

So Danielle and Veronica, how do you feel If there is food sovereignty, if there is access and low barriers for for folks to be able to cultivate their own food Do you feel like that would help kind of heal some of the separate ties to nature that we that we’ve see in our communities Do you feel like there’s some opportunities there to kind of heal and what does that look like for you?

Self-care is so important And I feel that nature provides us with healing powers and it’s for free Well, this is very therapeutic And it’s also helping us heal, not only mentally, but I feel physically also I would agree.

Like, for me getting out in My little garden is part of my mental health practice I feel closer to my ancestors when I’m doing that, because I know that this is a practice that they also did, you know, and I feel like I understand why why more, the more I grow up So I think as we have more access to land helps us just reconnect with like what is naturally part of who we are When my aunt came to the United States, she taught me a big lesson Her kids bought her a house in the city, so the first thing she did was removed all of the grass and planted a garden with pinto beans and corn and different foods or vegetables that she used to plant back home in Mexico And now I understand the why.

She was with her actions connecting us back to our roots to our ancestors and to the land and earth.

Thank you all for coming here and being willing to shine a light on what we do and just being so open and just willing to put your hands in the soil.

Thank you.

There’s still so much to be done before food sovereignty is something that’s available to everyone.

But I’m relieved to know that there are steps I can take with my community to get started.

Whether it’s advocacy through policy or voting with my dollar to shop local and support small farms when I can or even just getting together with my community to share a garden, our stories, and our knowledge.

I’m learning that all of these actions can help cultivate even more opportunities to connect with nature through food to learn more and find resources that support Sunlight Gardens mission.

Find more episodes of Color Out here or to register for one of our upcoming community events, head over to wgvu.org