Join S&G hosts for a final round of reflections on a season of land access stories and strategies. A difficult subject to capture in six episodes, we know the conversation is growing, and currently includes many folks whose voices you didn’t hear. And that’s where we plan to continue – joining the larger community of active participants and actors dreaming up how we can farm in a future accessible to all.

LINKS

• National Farmers Union / IG: nfucanada
• National Farmers Union – Farmland

With Episode 5 comes an in depth conversation between two (previous) co-farmers and friends on how to find security in a precarious system.

This episode is part of a larger conversation of imagining a relationship to land that is beyond our colonial understanding. We intend to continue the conversation after this series is released, and we encourage you to reach out to producer Maddie Marmor if you have ideas on how to do so.

LINKS

• Cedar Down Farm / IG: @cedardown2
• youngagrarians.org / E-News: Sign Up / FB YoungAgrarians / IG @youngagrarians / Flickr: youngagrarians

Within the Canadian context, ‘public’ lands refers to lands a government has first jurisdiction over – like a park, or ‘crown land’. In this understanding, the ‘people’ of that nation are the first (human) stakeholders who should be considered when making decisions on that land. S&G wanted to find those very few public land scenarios in Canada where food growing was the main consideration, and to hear from those who are farming there – the perks, the oversight, what was possible and what still needs dreaming up.

There is so much potential here – from hydro corridors, to park land, to those strips of grass between ‘private’ property and public infrastructure that a government oversees, where we could be growing food, closer to home, with more hands involved.

We were excited about this one, and we hope you are too!

LINKS

• Beet Box Farm / IG: @beetbox_coop
• County Left Farm / IG: @countyleftfarm
• Rouge National Urban Park
• Parks Canada | Rouge National Urban Park Leasing
• National Capital Commission
• National Capital Commission Farm Rentals

There are so many stories out there of how people come to farming – whether it’s first generation, or intergenerational. The fascinating yet frustrating thing is these stories are almost all different. There doesn’t seem to be a simple, tried and true path to farming. Frustrating too, because the tips and strategies of the ‘how’ are hard to hear and tease out. The crew tries to do just that, focusing on finding the high-level nuances of those strategies, while attempting to build a list of tips for those stuck in the complexity of doing something that feels hard on a good day.

A special thank you to the many, many farmers and farm workers who sat down to share their stories with us. One of the hardest choices of the season was choosing which made it into the show. Thank you again, and to those reading, listen to your farmers – their stories are ones of perseverance, strength and resilience, and certainly sources of great hope.

LINKS

• Tackling Transitions: Informing a New Food Systems Planning Strategy for Ontario / IG @farmerclairesfoodfun
• Crocus Hill Garden / IG: @crucushillgarden
• Wildwood Farm

IG: @chigarden2015 / FB: Chi Garden

In this episode, the crew takes all the hype heard about Québec, the solutions the province is offering to successfully encourage farm renewal, and offers examples of personal stories and systemic decisions happening on the regional level. With help from farmers, policy folks and land access supporters, a dream of a national land access strategy for farmers takes shape, seeking the lessons we can learn from a government that wants to solve this issue, and what we can demand from governments that need to do much, much more.

LINKS

• youngagrarians.org / E-News: Sign Up / FB YoungAgrarians / IG @youngagrarians / Flickr: youngagrarians
• Centre de recherche et de développement technologique agricole de l’Outaouais / IG: @credetao / EM: rmarkgraf@agro-outaouais.com

Larkspur Farm / IG: @larkspurfarmsblooms

Land is spoken of constantly in young and new farm circles – where are you farming, how did you access it, what was your strategy, … it is almost always the 3rd or 4th question after “How are you?” and “How’s the season going?”

Some would wax on about vertical farming, aquaponics, and lab grown food. Fair, however these formats are not what the majority of young and new farmers are interested in. Land, soil and access to it, is at the heart of our experience – it is fraught, loaded and deeply rooted at the intersection of class, race, settler – first nation relationships and capitalism (this list is not exhaustive.) In short, land is still that important.

In this first episode of the series, S&G hosts Stuart Oke, Aliyah Fraser and Maddie Marmor break down some of the personal reasons to focus on Land Access. It will introduce the struggle to lens equity into the series from the context of four farmers (can’t forget the amazing Kate Garvie – producer/editor extraordinaire!) who are young, currently and previously ‘landless’, first generation, lower class, white and black, who want to farm while decolonizing within a colonial system.

Balancing the inclusion of land ownership in the land access conversation while not promoting it as a solution was a tension throughout the season. We ask it to you now: how do we access land while also decolonizing?

All this and more in our first episode of the series – Why Land Access?

LINKS

• Sow and Grow website link
• Rooted Oke Farm / IG: rootedoakfarm
• Lucky Bug Farm / IG: luckybugfarm
• National Farmers Union / IG: nfucanada
• Farmland | National Farmers Union
• Farmland Access and Tenure | National Farmers Union
• Treaty Land Sharing Network

After a busy season in the fields we're back for another new series of the podcast. We'll be exploring the absolutely huge issue being faced by all new farmers seeking to farm in Canada... Land Access.

Join us for the new series starting in October 2024!

Feat. Maddie Marmor, Stuart Oke, Aliyah Fraser

Join Aliyah, Stuart and Maddie one last time to reflect on the conversations, takeaways, throughlines of the past seven episodes. The power of nuance, semantics and intersectionality are all present as the crew shares what stood out to them. Keep your ear’s piqued for a series 3 too!

Continue learning at the links below.

• Who Will Feed Us: New Farmer Perspectives on Agriculture for the future

• National Farmers Union - Agroecology 

• La Via Campesina: Agroecology and Peasant Seeds

• Rooted Oke Farm / IG: rootedoakfarm

• Lucky Bug Farm / IG: luckybugfarm

• Sow and Grow website link

• Support the podcast

• National Farmers Foundation  

Contact us:

sowandgrowpodcast@gmail.com