Karen Washington is a political activist and community organizer fighting for food justice.
Karen Washington is a political activist and community organizer fighting for food justice.
Washington grew up in New York City, attended Hunter College and received her master's degree in occupational biomechanics and ergonomics from New York University in 1981. [1] In 1985, she moved from Harlem to the Bronx with her two children. [2] Washington studied organic gardening at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UC Santa Cruz in 2006. [1] [2]
In 1988, after years of tending a garden in her backyard, Karen Washington helped found the Garden of Happiness in the Bronx. [3] A decade later this garden teamed up with other community gardens in New York City to launch a farmers market. In the late 1990s Mayor Giuliani attempted to sell many community garden properties at auctions. Using various tactics such as protests, civil disobedience, and diplomatic negotiations, Washington and other community activists succeeded in saving the plots for continued use as community gardens. Washington returned to New York after completing the training program at UC Santa Cruz and founded Farm School NYC and Black Urban Growers. [1]
In 2014, Washington began an apprenticeship at Roxbury Farm in Kinderhook, New York. [2] After her apprenticeship, she "retired" to co-found Rise and Root Farm in Chester, New York. [4]
In 2018, rather than using the term "food desert," she coined the intersectional term "food apartheid" to bring attention to social inequalities and injustices in the entire food system. [5] [6]
Farm School NYC provides agricultural training and educational opportunities for New York City residents. Through grassroots social justice and a community based approach this organization hopes to "inspire positive local action around food access and social, economic, and racial justice issues." [7]
They first began in 2009 with community events focused around food. In 2010 Black Urban Growers put on the first annual Black Farmers and Urban Growers Conference with over 500 participants. Their mission is "to engage people of African descent in critical food and farm-related issues that directly impact our health, communities, and economic security." [8]
Co-founder of a sustainable farm in Orange County, New York that is cooperatively-run and women-led. [9]
In 2012, she was named in Ebony's "Power 100" of influential African-Americans, and in 2014 she received the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award. [2]
Eliot Coleman is an American farmer, author, agricultural researcher and educator, and proponent of organic farming. He wrote The New Organic Grower. He served for two years as Executive Director of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), and was an advisor to the U.S. Department of Agriculture during its 1979–80 study, Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming, a document that formed the basis for today's legislated National Organic Program (2002) in the U.S.
Urban agriculture refers to various practices of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in urban areas. The term also applies to the area activities of animal husbandry, aquaculture, beekeeping, and horticulture in an urban context. Urban agriculture is distinguished from peri-urban agriculture, which takes place in rural areas at the edge of suburbs.
Organic horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom variety preservation.
An heirloom plant, heirloom variety, heritage fruit, or heirloom vegetable is an old cultivar of a plant used for food that is grown and maintained by gardeners and farmers, particularly in isolated communities of the Western world. These were commonly grown during earlier periods in human history, but are not used in modern large-scale agriculture.
A community garden is a piece of land gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for their own plot and the yielding or the production of which belongs to the individual. In collective gardens the piece of land is not divided. A group of people cultivate it together and the harvest belongs to all participants. Around the world, community gardens exist in various forms, it can be located in the proximity of neighborhoods or on balconies and rooftops. Its size can vary greatly from one to another.
Growing Power was an urban agriculture organization headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It ran the last functional farm within the Milwaukee city limits and also maintained an active office in Chicago. Growing Power aimed for sustainable food production, as well as the growth of communities through the creation of local gardens and Community Food Systems. They implemented their mission by providing hands-on training, on-the-ground demonstration, outreach and technical assistance.
The UC Santa CruzCenter for Agroecology is a research, education, and public service organization within the Division of Social Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Community gardens in the United States benefit both gardeners and society at large. Community gardens provide fresh produce to gardeners and their friends and neighbors. They provide a place of connection to nature and to other people. In a wider sense, community gardens provide green space, a habitat for insects and animals, sites for gardening education, and beautification of the local area. Community gardens provide access to land to those who otherwise could not have a garden, such as apartment-dwellers, the elderly, and the homeless. Many gardens resemble European allotment gardens, with plots or boxes where individuals and families can grow vegetables and flowers, including a number which began as victory gardens during World War II. Other gardens are worked as community farms with no individual plots at all, similar to urban farms.
Florida Certified Organic Growers and Consumers, also known as Florida Organic Growers or FOG, is a non-profit organization founded in 1987. It is classified as a 501(c) corporation. One of the main facets of FOG is Quality Certification Services, a program that extends through 30 states and 14 countries. FOG is also concerned with community outreach and education in order to promote healthy organic lifestyles and social equity.
Nina F. Ichikawa is an American writer, agricultural activist, and the executive director of the Berkeley Food Institute.
Urban agriculture in West Oakland involves the implementation of Urban agriculture in West Oakland, California.
The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) certifies organic food and products throughout the State of Maine. It is a voluntary organization whose office is located in Unity, Maine. As of 2016, MOFGA certifies 480 producers and growers.
Yonnette Fleming is an American urban farmer and community earth steward based in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Fleming is part of the environmental movement, her work focusing on urban community gardens and black farmers.
Taqwa Community Farm is a half-acre park operated as a community garden in the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City.
Leah Penniman is a farmer, educator, author, and food sovereignty activist. Penniman is co-founder, co-director and Program Manager of Soul Fire Farm, in Grafton, New York.
The Food Justice Movement is a grassroots initiative which emerged in response to food insecurity and economic pressures that prevent access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods. The food justice movement moves beyond increasing food availability and works to address the root cause of unequal access to adequate nutrition. Like other Environmental Justice initiatives, the Food Justice Movement advocates for rights-based solutions that identify the underlying human rights that allow individuals to achieve adequate food security and nutrition. This differs from policy-based solutions that focus on food availability and affordability by increasing food production or lowering the cost of food.
Keep Growing Detroit is an organization dedicated to food sovereignty and community engagement in the cities of Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park. Founded in 2013, the program designs and implements initiatives that promote the practice of urban agriculture as a mode of food justice for underrepresented communities, particularly those who do not have access to healthy food options. The goals of Keep Growing Detroit are to educate and empower community members using urban agricultural practices. Programs such as the Garden Resource Program and Grown in Detroit served as catalysts, laying the foundation for Keep Growing Detroit.
Community gardens in New York City are urban green spaces created and cared for by city residents who steward the often underutilized land. There are over 550 community gardens on city property, over 745 school gardens, over 100 gardens in land trusts, and over 700 gardens at public housing developments throughout New York City. The community garden movement in NYC began in the Lower East Side during the disrepair of the 1960s on vacant, unused land. These first gardens were tended without governmental permission or assistance.
Urban Growers Collective is a non-profit organization that builds urban farms, gardens, and provides fresh foods primarily in underprivileged areas in the West and South Side of Chicago. The organization was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 2017 by Erika Allen and Laurell Sims. As of 2019, there are eight urban farms that have been created and are run by Urban Growers Collective.
East New York Farms! (ENYF) is a community organization created to address food justice issues in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
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