In June, I had the pleasure of attending the Resilience and Resistance: Cross Pollinating Food Movements Food Systems Conference in Portland, Oregon.
Eastie Farm is a grantee of a 4-year U.S. Department of Agriculture Award called the Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program, or CFP. Eastie Farm’s CFP project is to serve the East Boston community with fresh food access, in addition to giving the public access to green spaces, fostering food and climate literacy, sharing resources about food aid programming, and fostering community connections. Our goal is to reach 1,100 subscribers to our Community Supported Agriculture program by 2027.
About 600 people, including all CFP grantees, attended the Resilience and Resistance Conference. Hosted on the Portland State University campus, the 3-day conference was packed with keynote speakers from across the food system, small group breakout sessions, walking tours, and of course, lots of local food.
On Saturday June 21, before the official conference began, I joined a walking tour of the Farmers Market at Portland State University. The most popular Farmers Market in Portland, the Saturday market at PSU brings in thousands of shoppers. The market works with about 100 vendors, all who specialize in different local goods. On one rainy morning, you can walk past a local kimchi vendor, a cut flower stand, a mushroom market, more leafy greens than you can identify, and a coffee shop that sources coffee beans directly from their family’s farm in Colombia.
The market also participates in Double Up Food Bucks and other food assistance programs that make the market more affordable to customers using SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).
In true Portland fashion, the kickoff event to the conference was at a roller derby. The purpose of the event was to network with conference attendees while watching the game. I had never watched a bout of roller derby, and The Rose City Rollers were incredibly fun to follow. The game is fast-paced, high energy, and full of friendly competition. The Rose City Rollers is a gender-inclusive, volunteer-run roller derby league with over 400 players. They have 4 home teams as well as a youth program and a recreational team.
The next morning began the official conference. The Opening Plenary, titled “Developing Resilience and Strategizing Resistance: A Conversation between Food Sovereignty Leaders” featured Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network and Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community Development. Malik and Rosalinda commanded the attention of the entire stadium. Both food sovereignty leaders pushed us to stay connected to food systems politics at every level from our immediate community to the national stage.
After a powerful plenary session, I met with CFP Grantees from the Northeast Region to present our projects to USDA NIFA (National Institute of Food and Agriculture) staff. I heard from St. Mary’s Nutrition Center in Maine, Oko Farms in New York, Cumberland County Food Security Council in Maine, Our Neighbors’ Table in Massachusetts, Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program in Maine, and Mill City Grows in Massachusetts. I was greatly inspired by the work of fellow grantees who, like us, are working to make food more accessible in their own communities. While every organization had a different approach to alleviating food insecurity and building community, many of the success stories I heard were familiar to me. For example, another organization had a youth program similar to ours and told a story of a young boy who built confidence in himself through working at the farm. While I know this story was about someone I had never met, I completely understood how character development could grow from a summer job because I’ve seen it happen on our own farm.
During my presentation, I shared the current status of Eastie Farm’s Community Supported Agriculture Program: our accomplishments, challenges, and lessons learned.
Eastie Farm’s most notable accomplishments in the past year include:
- CSA customers doubled in the last year from 160 to 320
- SNAP/HIP CSA subscribers more than doubled in the last year from 4 to 9
- Our tiered pricing system: About 250 shares are priced at or above market rate, allowing us to serve 72 customers at a discounted rate and 30 customers who receive free CSA shares over the summer
- $85,130 spent directly on local food in 2024. In 2025, we’re projected to spend over $150,000
- Streamlined our existing free food distribution into our CSA packing and distribution process, serving 50 families weekly
Thanks to the team at USDA NIFA for listening in on our presentation.
In the afternoon, I attended an Affinity Session entitled “Challenges Unique to Rural Food Hubs” to better understand how an urban farm like Boston may be able to support rural farmers.
My last breakout session of the day was “Reclaiming the Urban Landscape for Food, Medicine & Healthy Lifeways” led by Judy Bluehorse Skelton and Emma Johnson, who work for Portland State University’s Indigenous Traditional Ecological & Cultural Knowledge (ITECK) Certificate Program. During this session, we walked to PSU’s ITECK Center (read more about the ITECK Center here).
Outside of conference activities, I had plenty of time to explore Portland and enjoy some delicious food and coffee.
Just 1.5 miles from my hotel was the International Rose Test Garden.
I walked around the garden and Hoyt Arboretum and then hiked up to Forest Park where I happened upon the Pittock Mansion and the Witch’s Castle.
Day 2 of the conference began again with a Plenary Session. This session, “From Vision to Reality: Setting the Table” featured four speakers, Sarah Hackney from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Susan Lightfoot Schempf from the Food Systems Leadership Network, Jose Oliva from HEAL Alliance, and Edna Rodriguez from RAFI- USA. My biggest lesson from this panel was that stopping or stalling a detrimental action can and should still be considered a win. While we are experiencing major cuts to food access programs, slowing the process or stopping further cuts is a success. Additionally, all speakers encouraged conference attendees to join regional and national food systems networks to build social capital and stay connected to the larger food systems movement. While some CFP grantees gave oral presentations, others gave poster presentations at this point in the conference. I connected with many more CFP grantees from New England including La Colaborativa, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and Fresh Start Farms.
The last breakout session of the conference was a unique one. There were a series of breakouts entitled “The State We’re In”, each tied to different areas of the food system (ex: Network Wavers and Policy Advocates, or Agency, Extension, and Academics). I attended the Urban Agriculture session led by the Executive Director of New York City Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture, Qiana Mickie. We discussed our present experiences in the urban agriculture field, challenges we’re facing, and opportunities for growth.
This conversation, in addition to the rest of “The State We’re In” breakout groups, fed into our all-conference discussion and a report about the current state of our food system. In small groups, we talked through our biggest takeaways from the conference and made commitments to take the lessons back with us into our daily work. Many of us re-affirmed our commitment to maintaining connection with mission-aligned organizations.
The conference wrapped up with a keynote from Rowen White entitled “Seeds of Resilience: The Cultural Dimension of Plant Biodiversity In Indigenous North America”. Rowen White is the founder of Sierra Seeds and she began the Indigenous Seekeepers Network. I was looking forward to Rowen White’s keynote for weeks, as I learned about her seed rematriation work as a college student. Rowen reminded us that seeds have only become proprietary in the past 150 years. Major companies that patent seeds ensure that its customers must continue to buy new seed year after year. This not only encourages reliance on just a few suppliers, but it also drastically reduces biodiversity. Indigenous peoples protect a substantial amount of Earth’s biodiversity, and Rowen White is dedicated to the seed sovereignty movement. She is also an excellent storyteller, inspiring food systems leader, and mother. Rowen White’s keynote was the perfect end to a content-filled conference, as she shared photos from her childhood, success stories, and reasons to continue the valuable work of sustaining our food system and cultural connection to food.
Thank you to ISED Solutions for planning the conference, and to USDA NIFA for supporting our work to create a more equitable and sustainable food system.
