Star Route Farm 2023 Food Sovereignty Fund
Donation protected
This past 2022 growing season we have donated 17,583# of nutrient-dense food from our four-acre fields; farmed alongside a majority BIPOC crew for the first time, including Iridescent Earth Collective, grew black beans, garlic, and potatoes, on our new fields, held a beautiful mutual-aid retreat for our 30 of our downstate partners to strengthen community, build new connections, and give our thanks. With your love, financial support, presence on the farm, and interest in our work, we grew lots of beautiful food, gave it all away, and made it through a difficult growing season. We are tired, stressed, and continually fighting for the respect all farmers deserve, but your support has allowed us to work towards our mission - 90% of our food this year went to food-justice-based organizations we have been farming for since 2020.
We work to question the entire global food system and the premise on which it is based: pollution by agricultural chemicals, the decline of rural livelihoods, and food, people, and land as commodities to be exploited. We exist in an economic system where profit for corporate agribusiness has created a damaged earth, and commodity prices are set below the cost of production, which means small-scale growers are the ones remediating the soil while struggling to survive. This is a very narrow and limited way of organizing life and deciding who is important and who is not important.
We do not want to modify this system of production but to get out of it altogether! We have officially launched our nonprofit, The Catskills Agrarian Alliance, in order to work towards a complete transformation of the food system.
We are fundraising for a complete food system transformation that (1) prioritizes living wages, healthcare, and secure housing for all food system workers (2) centers and creates conditions for BIPOC agrarianism to actually flourish (3) replaces extraction with mutual-aid and the communal sharing of resources (4) grows food naturally and takes care of the soil (5) is led by the working class and serves all people with nutrient-dense, ecologically grown food.
WE ARE FARMERS WHO:
- Grow nutrient-dense, beautiful, and tasty food to give away. (Since 2020 we have donated 34,000# of food through crowdsourcing, fundraiser events, & grants)
- Are working to build a resilient food system with our nonprofit, The Catskills Agrarian Alliance. The CAA integrates our production farming with land access work, farm to institution work, and alternative food distribution that we have already been invested in for many years. Now it is all just joined together!
- Are seeking the remnants of our own heritages and ways to stand for another way of life!
- Are providers with a deep commitment to feeding our communities and caring for our land.
- Farm for communities of color and the working class.
- Believe that shortening the gap between farmers and consumers and regional food paths are key to bringing about a fundamental change for the better.
- Are seeking donations to help us do our work!
YOUR DONATION
- Promotes the vitality of mutual-aid groups directly confronting ongoing food insecurity.
- Grows organically grown vegetables we will donate to: St. Anns food pantry and soup kitchen (Bronx) Bushwick Ayuda Mutua (Bushwick) Comida Pal Pueblo (Bushwick) Market in the Heights (Harlem) Wat Buddha Thai Thavorn Vanaram (Elmhurst).
- Supports the local food economy and scrappy, tired, and dirty farmers who are full of love. Local models of food production can sustainably meet people's needs, but we need consistent support to implement our vision!
- Will go towards our wages for our BIPOC beginner farmers during the 2023 season.
Once again, we are so grateful for the ways our community has held and helped us. We look forward to the upcoming 2023 season as we continue to build the foundation for a de-commodified food system in which resources do not go to the highest bidder but to all people! Please donate if you can and spread our mission because this is what we are up against:
Cheap food comes at a high price. Farmer plight is kept hidden from public attention. It is culturally expected for farmers to work over 40hrs per week/7 days a week for less than minimum wage. We try to pay ourselves $300/week to help us pay our employees $15/hr. There is a tremendous amount of sacrifice and unpaid, skilled labor from the people who do this work with us, which is an exploitative and unsustainable way to feed people.
Grant culture is inaccessible. We don’t have the capital to outsource our fundraising and grant applications. It's hard to farm and figure out the money to keep the things alive and write lengthy time-intensive grants at the same time.
Market economics are false. Conventional industrial-sized farms subsidize the low costs of food with the help of the government. Small farms who focus on growing food ecologically (versus using chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and GMO seeds) cannot compete with this pricing and are never paid the value of their work.
Farming is expensive. It's hard to make a dollar from a $2.50 bunch of kale. It takes three people hand planting, hand weeding, and fertilizing that plant for 4 months to grow that kale! Seed supply costs have gone up 30% due to supply chain shortages. As gentrification accelerates, land becomes increasingly inaccessible to farmers who only earn $10-$20/hour.
Mutual Aid work is volunteer-run. But we believe it is really important to financially support mutual-aid organizations and their efforts to take care of their neighbors, feed hundreds of people, and fight gentrification.
LEARN MORE, DONATE, AND SUPPORT OUR WORK!
Fundraising team (2)
Star Route Farm
Organizer
Arabia, NY
Amanda Wong
Team member