Here’s What You Missed at the 2021 Emerging Farmer’s Conference
The ground is thawing as folks prepare to sow seeds in gardens, fields, terraces, raised beds, community plots, or potted herbs. In the spirit of emergence, our Slow Food Ambassador Stephen Offerman is giving us the scoop on what happened at the 2021 Emerging Farmer’s Conference.
Reclaiming Our Voices: For Farmers, with Farmers
The Emerging Farmer’s Conference was translated into ten languages. Ten! Take note, Slow Food folks. Most of our events are in one language: English. Big River Farms and the Food Group centered folks who are—as a standard in a dominant culture that centers white cisgender male bodies—usually relegated to the margins of the food narrative. In nature, the most dynamic change and growth happens in the margins between ecosystems. The Emerging Farmer’s Conference shows us a glimpse into a world where the dynamism of the margins is brought front-and-center.
“those who survive on the margins tend to be the most experientially innovative—practicing survival-based efficiency, doing the most with the least, an important skill area on a planet whose resources are under assault by less marginalized people.”
Attendees joined from across the nation. The theme of this year’s conference was Reclaiming Our Voices: For Farmers, with Farmers.
“Welcoming” includes welcoming the non-human people: the plants and animals that farmers grow, raise, and ultimately kill so that we may have food and sustain our own lives. And let’s not forget the microbial folks giving us that beautiful black gold that sustains fungi and plant people! Hope Flanagan of Dream of Wild Health opened the conference with a land blessing and ceremony song to recognize gratitude for all life and the importance of the soil.
individual challenges, community solutions
Challenges of individual farmers were presented. Primary among those are education and resource allocation. How do you grow food for yourself, for your community, and for sale when you don’t have land to grow it on? The conference took a panel approach to address structural and systemic barriers that new farmers face, pulling on the wisdom of a community rather than relying on a single expert-hero. More, and more diverse, viewpoints created fertile soil for generating entirely new ideas.
“If Mama Nature teaches us nothing else, she teaches us that diversity is absolutely necessary for survival. Now, she doesn’t mean some surface diversity, but a system where every single being is doing their part, pulling their weight. A homogenous, ‘gentrified’ eco-system would quickly die. If we are committed to organizing sustainable and liberating social movements they must be diverse, pulling especially from those who are the most impacted instead of suppressing their voices or using them as props.”
What You Can Do
Elevate voices of small, landless, and peasant farmers.
Buy from Indigenous, Black, and immigrant farmers, especially women and queer folks
Advocate policy change for better land access
Support solutions that are grounded in community effort rather than corporate sponsorship.
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Seeding a new generation of Farmers
The keynote speaker for this year’s 2021 conference was Tiffany LaShae of Soul Fire Farm. She is a grower, educator, and activist that has farmed all over the world, working on climate-smart agriculture, and urban and rural soil research. Tiffany outlined on-farm and off-farm action steps for land access and the power of storytelling to let voices be heard.
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ABOUT Stephen OFferman
Stephen grew up and still lives in Minnesota, surrounded by farms and food companies. He was exposed to food and agriculture at a young age and has long been interested in how food systems can sustain our growing human population.
