Community Ag Project

Welcome back to the Community Agriculture Project! In episode 8, we sit down with Diego Martins, who currently works for the New York Horticultural Society as a Greenhouse and Garden Manager. Diego has started a program called Gay in the Garden.

Gay in the Garden is for queer folks and their allies to come together for both unstructured and facilitated time in the garden, and is a place to show up freely and authentically. You can expect to grow horticulture skills through collective garden work like weeding, watering, composting, and various garden care tasks followed by a communal harvest and potluck. Monthly, attendees can explore the wisdom the garden offers in the current season, and queer culture-bearers can lead communal, nature-based artmaking and ecological knowledge shares.

There is a lot of laugher and joy in this episode! At the same time, Diego has the space to share their story as a queer and trans man navigating their interest in agriculture, horticulture and gardening in New York City.The story follows his experience with Green City Force and how they came to work at the New York Horticultural Society.

Here are some follow up resources from this episode:

Green City Force website: https://greencityforce.org

The Horticultural Society website: https://www.thehort.org

Diego’s Instagram: @plantfatha

Diego’s contact for professional matters: [email protected]

Lastly, the genius creator Nicole Daniels: https://www.tiktok.com/@nicoleolived

Hey everyone! Ethan here. Welcome to the second episode of my minisode series for the Community Agriculture Project! To briefly introduce myself, I am a current high school student passionate about environmental justice and law. In the first recording of my minisode series, I delved deeper into my personal experiences in the agricultural and environmental field, so I recommend you listen to that to learn more about me! In this episode, I would be discussing different technologies created in response to climate change and how they relate to the way we adapt our agriculture practices. I am so excited to share what I’ve learned with you all.If you wish to contact me regarding this episode, you can do so at my email: [email protected]Other resources from this episode:Cover image: https://medium.com/@amykwilson/vertical-farming-with-hydroponics-33d689f23ea1 FloodMapp: https://www.floodmapp.com/ Vertical Farms: https://www.plenty.ag/ , https://bowery.co/ , https://www.aerofarms.com/ , https://www.squarerootsgrow.com/ , https://smallhold.com/ Community Agriculture Project: https://www.communityagproject.com/

Hello and welcome back to the Community Agriculture Project. We have made it to episode 7! In this episode, the 2023 CAP interns Ethan Liu and Iradatu Sulayman join us to interview Elissa Teles Muñoz, a Coordinator at the Climate Resilience & Education Task Force (CRETF). CRETF is dedicated to increasing access to interdisciplinary climate education and professional learning opportunities in New York's K-12 schools. In this episode, we cover the importance of a strong climate education, current climate education policies in the United States, and what a comprehensive and accessible climate education entails for youth. We discuss the shared experience of being underwhelmed by our K-12 climate education and lay out frameworks for moving forward.

You can find more information on the people featured in this podcast episode on their LinkedIn pages, or contact them by the emails provided:

Elissa Teles Muñoz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elissa-teles-munoz

Ethan Liu:

[email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethan-liu-2b569a236/

Iradatu Sulayman:

[email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/iradatu-sulayman-15a22419a/

Other resources mentioned in the episode:

• CRETF website: https://www.cretf.org/
• A new green learning agenda: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-new-green-learning-agenda-approaches-to-quality-education-for-climate-action/
• PEJAS maps: https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https://services6.arcgis.com/DZHaqZm9cxOD4CWM/ArcGIS/rest/services/Potential_Environmental_Justice_Area__PEJA__Communities/FeatureServer&source=sd
• NYC scoping plan: https://climate.ny.gov/resources/scoping-plan/
• NYC sustainability reports: https://www.nyc.gov/site/sustainability/about/reports-publications.page, https://climate.cityofnewyork.us/initiatives/planyc-getting-sustainability-done/
• Climate change education act: https://climate-literacy.org/federal-policy/the-climate-change-education-act/
• Books: Teach for Climate Justice by Tom Roderick, All About Love by bell hooks

Don’t forget to check out our website at communityagproject.com and stay tuned for more episodes!

Hello and welcome back to the Community Agriculture Project podcast. In episode 6 we sit down with Yahezequiel Walker, aka Yazi, to talk about his work in soil and community.

We discuss the work that Yazi does with the Triiibe Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio, and how his community has influenced the way that that work is done. This topic leads us to discussing ideas in leadership, and what it means for Yazi to heal and facilitate healing in his hometown. We talk about how change happens, from a culture perspective to a land regeneration perspective. Yazi ties in his knowledge of soil smithing and soil science, and how he is working to increase accessibility to in this sphere by removing language barriers.

If you want to reach out to Yazi, you can do so with the following contact:

[email protected]

@yazi13 on instagram

Check out the work of the Triiibe foundation here:

http://www.triiibefoundation.com/

Stay tuned for more of Season 1! Don’t forget to check out our website at communityagproject.com.

Welcome back to the Community Agriculture Project Podcast. Welcome to Episode 5. This episode was shot in Vallejo, California in the Let Our People Grow garden and nursery. Let Our People Grow is a regenerative permacultural nursery focused on making food sovereignty and food security more accessible.

The original goal for this episode was to showcase just the work being done in the garden, but it ended up being much more than that. The group of us, including Jesse, Rob, Charnaya, Jezrel and Emily, spent the day cooking and drawing deeper connections with eachother and the community through food. We harvested lions mane and oyster mushrooms directly from the mushroom grow tent, managed by Rob and Jesse, that is on site at Let Our People Grow. We sourced our food locally, cooked with fresh garden ingredients and made a nourishing plant-based meal inspired by the creativity of Charnaya and Rob. We sat around a table in the garden and had conversations appreciating the meal we had put so much love into.

In the conversation that followed our meal, we get to touch on the stories of all of the people that were present that day. We found common ground through this conversation, and speak on all of the ways community relates to our missions. The Let Our People Grow space has been and will continue to be a beacon of community agriculture for the Bay Area, and we were lucky to connect in such a special place.

We hope you enjoy this episode of the Community Agriculture Project. Please check out the work of all the individuals that contributed to this episode, and stay tuned for the rest of season 1 and the bonus episodes we have on deck for you. Be sure to check out our website at communityagproject.com

Jesse Preciado: @preciadofied, @letoutpeople_grow

Rob Lopez: @decolonizehongos, @roblopez_iam

Charnaya Kimbrough: @intuitiveeats_

Jezrel White: @reelxpozure

Emily Davis: @communityagproject

Welcome back to the Community Agriculture Project.

This is Ethan here, your host of our new minisode series. This bonus series will be a collection of five short podcasts focusing on the intersection between agriculture and our current climate state. From this series, you may expect to hear about how certain technologies, policies, and innovations impact climate change and agriculture.

I am a current high school student passionate about environmental justice, and I plan to pursue environmental law in the future. For this first episode, I will be introducing myself in more depth and sharing my experiences in the environmental and agriculture sectors for you to get to know me better. Stick around if you’d like to learn more about your host! I am ecstatic to share this first episode with you all.

Welcome back to the Community Agriculture Project podcast. Episode 4 takes us to Salem, Massachusetts where we get to know the stories and people behind Maitland Mountain Farm. Maitland Mountain Farm is a family farm best known for their pickles, but owners Holly and Andy have an effect on their community past their value added products.

We start by talking with Dr. Miyabe Shields, a research scientist with a background in endocannabinoid pharmaceutical sciences. Miyabe runs Project Chronic, and works at Maitland Mountain Farm as a farm hand and as the Natural Medicines Program officer. Miyabe talks about their experience of integrating into a new town, and how working on the farm has played a role in that.

We then speak with Holly Maitland, who tells us the history of Maitland Mountain Farm, including its multi-generational homesteading roots. Holly shares about the development of the Maitland Mountain CSA, and how it’s rooted in the community’s needs.

Lastly, we get to speak with Andy Varela who is, among many other things, the husband of Holly, a local city councilor, and quite the cook! Andy provides insight into what it looks like to navigate the local political landscape as it intersects with food, agriculture and medicine.It was absolutely a pleasure to speak with some of the people behind the Maitland Mountain Farm operation, and I’m looking forward to see the ways they continue to weave with their community and embrace sovereignty.

Welcome back to the Community Agriculture Project. Today I talked with Trevor, a student researcher studying Sustainable Development and Environmental Chemistry at Columbia University. In this episode, we discuss Trevor’s initial inspiration for setting up air quality testing equipment in his community, the theory of purple air sensors and how they are implemented for environmental testing, the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) HYSPLIT models, and the relation of this data collection with community agency and community advocacy.

Below are the resources from Trevor that we mentioned throughout the episode:

https://www2.purpleair.com/products/purpleair-flex - PurpleAir sensors

https://www.ready.noaa.gov/register/HYSPLIT_hyagenda.php - A workshop showing you how to set up HYSPLIT on your computer, good luck! Start with day 1 and installation and go from there. If you have a windows computer, I can help! If you have a MacBook and figure it out, let’s collab!

https://www.ready.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT.php - Try out the web-based program to run your own models without installing.

https://www.arl.noaa.gov/ - NOAA ARL

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-Eo_on11MqnCvfN5_0eiR_IbzQcAFQwF - Various papers and texts!

Contact Information:

@TrevDurning, [email protected]

You can stay in touch with the Community Agriculture Project @communityagproject on instagram or by email: [email protected]

Welcome back to the Community Agriculture Project. Our second episode is an interview with Domenico Celli aka Puentes Naturales. Domenico is based in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico in barrio Tanamá where he operates an agroforestry coffee farm and beneficiado that provides services to support local coffee farmers in any stage of the coffee production pipeline.

The mission statement of his project, known as the Forgotten Forest Puerto Rico project, is as follows:

“We believe that the best way to make small-scale coffee farming sustainable in Puerto Rico is to focus on the highest quality. As part of the United States, we have much higher production costs than almost anywhere else in the world where coffee is grown (Latin America and Africa). However, there is very limited local market able to support these higher prices— the average per capita income on the island is less than half of even the poorest U.S. state. So, that leaves small Puerto Rican producers in a difficult position— having to cut corners in attempts to provide affordable for the local market or take on a relatively large financial risk to invest in producing a better product which then must be marketed and shipped off island.

Our Forgotten Forest project aims to restore Puerto Rico's original coffee variety under shaded agroforestry conditions. We intend this small micro-lot to be a showcase of what Puerto Rican coffee can be at its best, along with the economic and environmental benefits it could support. If successful, the goal is to de-risk the prospect of producing higher quality coffee and expand our impact by duplicating this basic model through the Cordillera Central.“

You can follow Domenico’s work through his instagram pages @puentes_naturales and @forgottenforestpr, and through the resources on his link tree: https://linktr.ee/collective_perspective_

You can also check out some video content of my time volunteering at the farm on our instagram page @communityagproject. Enjoy!