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WHAT DO WE DO?

 

We - the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), Keep Growing Detroit, and Oakland Avenue Urban Farm - are 3 long standing Detroit urban farming organizations. On Juneteenth 2020 our years of food sovereignty and land security work culminated in the creation of the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund.

 

Through our Co-Founders, 4 Black women agriculturalists committed to right relationship with land, our lead co-conspirator and YOU, we are closing the unresolved wealth gap impacting Detroit Black Farmers' ability to purchase vacant land in one of America's Blackest cities. We honorably steward this transformation by supporting Detroit Black Farmers with land acquisition, farm support, infrastructure and equipment readiness, and building food sovereignty in community.

 

We ground in the historical plight of our ancestors and elders who faced an all together different form of land insecurity. Thousands of Black farmers lost their land in the pursuit of continued survival. As that intergenerational trauma persists, we still fight for our shared legacy of intergenerational Black farmland ownership. From 15% of farmers in the 1910s to a mere 1% now; from our gentrifying neighborhoods and in the face of speculative development, we are smashing the narrative that the "best use" of vacant land is based on financial worth alone.

 

The Detroit Black Farmers are our annual awardees. From expanding their farms and gardens to combat blight, providing produce, meals and knowledge to their neighbors, and courageously growing on land despite being unable to afford it, they lead the charge towards an abundant ecosystem rooted in land security, local produce, food sovereignty and community care. We are, the Detroit Black Farmer, and we are, the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund.

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HOW DO WE DO IT?

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Just 3 years in and over 10 acres of urban farmland later, Detroit Black Farmer is repairing our vacant city landscape.

 

Owning urban farmland is just the first step in stewarding it and the fund reflects that. As we granted case by case requests from awardees for rain catchment, irrigation, heavyweight tools and more, we made funds available specifically to support these related farmland costs. They are essential to ensure continued growth and success on our path to food sovereignty.

 

This journey to food sovereignty is interconnected, as are we. Building community for us looks like Work N' Chills at awardee farms! Promoting collective land stewardship and strengthening bonds directly impacts our projects - and, gives us a chance to just chill. It also looks like cooperative work, such as stewarding the development of a grower co-op of awardees, who are aggregating collard greens and tomatoes to market to select Detroit distributors with expansion coming next year. It also looks like Restorative Economics, and the growing web of supporters, small businesses and organizations creativerly working to support the fund financially.

 

We know that the legacy of intergnerational Black farmland ownership, that we hold, is heavy. It is why we hold it with such care.

 

But we know too that many hands make light work. Thank you - our nation of grassroots supporters - who believed, like us, that WE can support, create, fund and sustain, the Detroit that we want and deserve.

 

Keep supporting, keep sharing and keep uplifting our to balance the inequities we have all witnessed here in Detroit. We can MAKE this change - together.

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