The Collective Farm Helping Oregon's Latinx Farmworkers Weather the Pandemic

Seattle’s urban agriculture community saw a boom during the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests. BIPOC-led urban farms — like YES Farm and Black Star Farmers — had an increase in volunteers and people wanting to help provide food security, agricultural education, and land access to communities who don’t have their basic needs met. In the first half of 2020, the city of Seattle assigned plots of land to 439 new gardeners to pursue urban farming, with nearly half of them going to underrepresented populations.

In the U.S., a movement of Black farmers is trying to reclaim their legacy as agrarians. Only 1.7 percent of farms were run by Black farmers according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture. Black farmers are forming collectives, creating land trusts, creating conferences.

The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the ways in which the food system is broken, but governments, NGOs, and philanthropists are working to address the discrepancies by connecting small-scale farmers of color with businesses that can purchase their produce at fair rates. “For the first time, they felt connected with a real community. For the first time, they felt they were getting paid what’s right for what they’re growing,” a business advisor for one of the operations explains.

A grassroots organization in Tamil Nadu, India has helped women farmers throughout the region to create "small informal farming groups" so that they can collectively lease land for their agriculture businesses. This collective farming venture, which has culminated in 89 collective farms with nearly 700 members, ensures "nutrition and food security for landless women at the household level."

For several years, the Urban Growers Collective in Illinois has been helping to bring and distribute healthy food to underresourced communities throughout Chicago by operating eight urban farms, but efforts have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. In just over six months, the organization has "delivered nearly one million pounds of produce to more than 25 partner organizations across the city."

Small farmers in Indiana are working together to "manage the spaces they share, and to use those resources to improve their community by growing healthy food, and distributing that food to the people around them." Although the efforts started with a retiree population, young adults are now joining in, and the coop is gaining attention from economists and universities.

After restaurants closed due to COVID-19 and tariffs were implemented on exports to China, fishermen and women in the United States had to shift their business model to sell directly to consumers. For example, Get Hooked, a subscription-based community-supported fishery in California that delivers daily catches to customers, saw their business double after the pandemic hit. This new model allows home cooks to support local suppliers and explore new foods.

By collaborating with other businesses, nonprofits, and institutions, food processing enterprises in Montana are expanding the local supply chain to keep food in the state. The Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center packages food for a local grower's co-op, which distribute Montana products to individuals, grocery stores, and restaurants. The Livingston Food Resource Center created its own partnerships by buying its food from Montana farmers to give to people experiencing economic hardship. These collaborations are reducing the costs for local food processing, which also cuts down on costs for customers.

An income qualified farm-to-community incentive program has found its place within the Coloradan San Miguel County. Allowing farm shares to be distributed at Mountain Village Farmers’ Market, both communities win through affordable and healthy food and the providing of a consistent income source.

While climate change continues to complicate the realities of creating seasonal viable crops, farmers in Malawi are adopting conservation agriculture in at attempt to salvage what they can from their crops. Through a variety of "climate change resilience farming methods," local farmers have seen an increase in their crops' resiliency.