Growing Food and Community with Farm School NYC
New York City has the reputation of being a concrete jungle where green spaces are confined to the cracks between the sidewalks and food originates on grocery store shelves. But there are an ever growing number of opportunities to get involved with food and farming in the city and Farm School NYC is one of the most established and comprehensive facilitators of farm based educational programing. I spoke with Connor Vaughn, the program coordinator for Farm School NYC, about growing produce, promoting food justice, and nurturing community.
Michaela Elias (ME): How did the Farm School get started?
Connor Vaughn (CV): I want to be clear and upfront that I am one voice in a collective organization — Farm School especially. Also I was not here when it got started so I don’t know the history quite as well as a number of folks could speak to, so I recommend going to our website. But it was really a grassroots effort. Starting in 2007 there were a lot of folks in New York City, from farmers and educators to activists and community organizers, folks coming from different parts of the food system and coming together to think about why we don’t have this programing. There were a bunch of women who had gone through the CASFS program, which is an agroecology and sustainable farming program out in Santa Cruz. So they were thinking why doesn’t something like this exist in NYC? So over the next couple years people were in dialogue thinking about what this might look like and how it might take place. There were a bunch of meeting sessions and the first classes took place in January of 2011 and have been going pretty much since 2011 with a short break here and there, but programming is pretty consistent.
ME: What does your day look like as an educator with the Farm School?
CV: A number of the founders of the farm school are still very much involved and either teach the same courses that they have been teaching since 2011 or are involved as board members. So in terms of my day as Program Coordinator I do a little less on the education side. I have to fill in some of the gaps here and there with co-facilitation, but most of my day is doing any number of things that need to get done. I also organize some bigger picture things with different programs such as our CRAFT network. CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) is a style of educational programming that originated in the Hudson Valley, so we have some collaborative education programs that folks can participate in. So my job is reaching out to different partners and making sure everyone knows what they need to know and everything is happening as it should.
ME: How long are the programs? Is it all hands on?
CV: There are 2 certificate programs, Farm Intensive and Citywide. Both programs take 3 foundational courses together in the winter, which are still as experiential as possible in the learning process. Then the Farm Intensive spends one entire growing season from April to November on an urban farm in Crown Heights, Brooklyn called the Youth Farm and the Citywide program visits various farms in NYC throughout the year and has a less intensive weekly schedule than the Farm Intensive program. The Citywide program is structured to be completed in 2 years but folks often take some time off from classes and complete the program in 3 or 4 years.
ME: What communities do you work with and how do you encourage engagement?
CV: Farm School is really a place for everyone. With that said we do have a specific mission and explicit intention to work with low income folks and communities of color, recognizing that they are disproportionately affected by our unjust food system. So we do have additional efforts that we spend towards reaching out to low income communities and communities of color and making sure those demographics are reflected in incoming students. During the application process for our certificate programs we want to make sure we have a diverse applicant pool from different boroughs, not just location-wise but also age, we really appreciate intergenerational aspects. So we have diverse age range, different backgrounds, different socioeconomic standings.
ME: Could you go into what food justice means and how it is incorporated into the Farm School?
CV: This is more a reflection of my own understanding and approach to food justice rather than an organizational one, but I really see food justice as a response to the injustices currently at play in our food system. So actively working towards righting those wrongs within the system we currently live in. I also think food justice is a direction and a vehicle to head towards as we work towards food sovereignty. So food sovereignty being communities and people empowered to not only have access to foods they find culturally relevant and healthy but the ability to have that power to self determine those aspects as well.
ME: So how are food justice and food sovereignty incorporated into the educational programming?
CV: One of the educational courses in the winter that just wrapped up is the food justice course. Well I can say it just wrapped up but in many ways it continues on. It is our longest course that we have — it’s five weeks. And it’s explicit about exploring food justice, what it is and how it’s incorporated in the work of Farm School. We also want to give students the tools to create these lenses for themselves to see the world and incorporate it into their own work as so many of our students are part of various organizations and are incorporating it already. And we strongly emphasize the integration of food justice as it manifests in each course, whether it be irrigation or botany or crop management. So whether that’s taking a moment in crop management to talk about labor rights and industries of agriculture, be it textiles or flowers or vegetable production and various labor movements that are taking place within those specific industries. Or maybe with irrigation thinking about access to water and how it’s exercised with growers in California. Or in botany, taking a moment to really think about how the scientific information that we’re often presented with has been utilized for oppression throughout human history and how we can incorporate aspects of indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing to uplift those voices, not only in botany but in all our classes.
ME: Can you describe some of the policy or infrastructural changes that would improve food access and food justice? What are actionable things that can change these issues?
CV: I think that it needs to happen on various levels. That could be everything from national, state, and local policy to community changes as well as personal changes. I think a lot of what needs to change is policy and the way that informs personal decisions, but also the way people inform policy. I don’t want to place the onus of what needs to change on people’s behaviors and habits but an actionable way for people to engage with food access and sovereignty is to draw deeper connections with food and the plants around them and the sense that there is life everywhere, even in NYC. So that could mean finding community gardens in your neighborhood and connecting with folks and just seeing the work that’s already being done and engaging with that. Even something as simple as getting to know the trees that grow on the sidewalk is a way of beginning to nurture these relationships with nature and that in turn will help us connect with our food as well.
In terms of small actions that anyone can take — Talk to your friends and family about the food system. Try to investigate why things are the way they are. Talk to your elders and ask them about their experiences. Learn about your cultural relationship to food. Most importantly, continue to ask questions.
ME: Are there any promising trends you see?
CV: I mean I would love to just list organizations. I think there are, but I’m always wary of trends. I think there is credit to be given for momentum being built around certain things, but I think most of the folks we work with are in it for the long run and I would hesitate to call certain things a trend. We’re really intent on building communities in NY and empowering communities in order to be more resilient and provide for themselves. We see folks connecting and coming together with the neighborhoods they live in and the various cultural groups, and establishing connections between folks that have gone upstate and are now selling in a farmers market in the South Bronx that wasn’t there ten years ago. I wouldn’t call it trends, I would call it actions in the direction we want to be heading towards.
ME: Can you talk about any particular successes of the farm school and what your goals are for the future?
CV: I think that so much of our success to date is really the people that we have grown with and who have become part of a community. I think that also reflects the story of most people’s experience with Farm School, that it’s not just the things you learn here and the ideas you encounter but it’s as much the people you meet and connect with. And it’s about building that community of folks to start the next farm with, or start a new nonprofit with. So seeing our students move on in order to start their own initiatives is really amazing and we have had a number of students do that. I think moving into the future, Farm School would really love to continue what we’re doing and continue to be a permanent organization that is building communities and working towards food justice and food sovereignty within NYC. It’s something we’re already doing really well and we don’t necessarily see the need to expand exponentially and create farm schools in every city in the US. That would be great if that happens but I think so much of our work is connected to growing community. We would love to see farm schools in every city across the US but that wouldn’t be us, that would be the communities there really working for that.
