Hello Readers!
I’m in San Francisco now, on the heels of attending EcoFarm 2026, the annual conference of the Ecological Farming Association held in Monterey, California. My head is still full of the words of many brilliant speakers and exciting agroecological practices and ideas. But also a sense of solidarity and mission that coalesced around many stories of migrant farmworker intimidation, deportation, family separation, arrest, and the murder of innocent protestors.
The conference mirrored the weird duality of life these days. Normality reigned within the idyllic Asilomar Hotel and conference grounds: keynotes addresses, workshops, social gatherings, laughter. Yet we knew that outside, deeply unsettling, dystopian, and criminal events were unfolding in the form of mass roundups, federal ICE agents terrorizing migrant farmworkers, and yet another fatal shooting. It felt like looking at images of daily life going on in Kiev while the country and parts of the city were being pummeled by bombs, or of daily life in Berlin in the late 1930s as the noose tightened and Jews were expelled and deported.
Fieldworkers and ICE Raids
There were stories of both despair and hope. At a keynote event on protecting immigrant farmers and farmworkers, Chris Lopez a Monterey, California Board of Supervisors member, described the county’s “Know Your Rights” campaign, and the reactions of deep fear among parents as they read the “California Childcare Safety Plan,” that helps them put in place emergency plans should they be arrested or deported. One resident shared the story of going fishing at a county park, where he was apprehended on a road that happens to be on federal, not state or county land. His social media post called it the most expensive fishing trip of his life, and warned others not to venture out on this road.
Martita Martinez-Bravo, executive director of Friends of Fieldworkers, Inc. described a massive raid on a cannabis facility, in which more than 360 farmworkers were taken, and the infants and toddlers who were left without parents. In one family, children ages 11, 9, and 2 waited at home alone for parents who never returned from work. The two-year-old ended up being sent back to Mexico to be cared for, while the two other children were split up and sent to different homes. Afraid to turn to county mental health services for support, fieldworkers must rely on the non-profit sector for assistance.
There were many stories of mutual aid, too. Midwest staff representing Wild Farm Alliance (WFA) were at the conference to talk about the Beneficial Bird-Pest-Native Plant Explorer tool they are working on, which helps farmers figure out which native plants and birds will provide agroecological pest control. Minnesota neighbors have started to use the same database platform WFA uses to keep track of ICE license plates. They use Signal chat to report plate numbers. Signal is also the preferred tool for parents to organize rides to school for children whose parents are too afraid to leave their houses, and other forms of mutual aid.
Strengthening the Organic Produce Supply Chain
The theme of this year’s conference was “Seeds of Strength: Empowering Farmers for a Changing Climate,” and climate change was factor in nearly every session I attended. But if there was another theme, it was that of building shorter and more regenerative supply chains. My book, Reaping What She Sows: How Women Are Rebuilding Our Broken Food System was a good fit for that theme, so it was an honor to appear alongside five iconic included in Reaping , Mai-Nadine Nguyen, Bu Nygrens, June Russell, Karen “Mama K” Washington and Olivia Watkins. Our keynote panel, “How Women Are Rebuilding Our Regenerative Supply Chains,” closed the conference.
It was the bookend to an opening pre-conference all-day session, “Sustainable Paths – Strengthening the Organic Produce Supply Chain,” that included a very good talk by two academics on labor, immigration, and the food supply chain.
Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, associate professor in the department of geography and the environment at Syracuse University, and the author of Will Work for Food, looks at labor throughout the entire supply chain, from the fields to packing plants to retail, restaurants, homes, and the waste stream. Because it is the increasing concentration of power and ownership in the food system that is squeezing laborers the most, she chose to focus on that, especially concentration in retail. When supermarket chains merge, it puts pressure on pricing, quality, consumer choice, and everything downstream from that, including worker treatment and payment. Most consumers are oblivious to the ways that labor is being squeezed.
Minkoff-Zern also highlighted two highly effective campaigns to improve worker conditions that succeeded by targeting the point in the supply chain where power is most concentrated. In the case of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, it was by identifying the players who were racking up the biggest profits on the backs of poorly paid farmworkers: the Walmarts, Wendy’s, and Taco Bells of the world. By pressuring bit corporations to pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes, this example of a Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model achieved big wins. Another was the Vermont dairy workers’ Milk with Justice campaign, which again targeted the big money-makers in the industry, including Ben and Jerry’s. Seven years into the campaign, the campaign has generated $5.35 million invested in workers’ wages and bonuses, and improvements in labor and housing conditions.
Another model of change is the Good Food Purchasing Program which focuses on expanding institutional food procurement that prioritizes environmental sustainability, valued workers, animal health and local economies.
Alison Alkon, who teaches in the Community Studies department of UC Santa Cruz, studies the impact of race and racial justice in farmers markets throughout the Bay Area, food activism, food justice, and the forging of shorter supply chains with more integrity. She’s noticed how the typical farmers market shopper profile has changed over the past 25 years, from one of opposing corporate control and supporting small farmers, to one prioritizing the purity of what shoppers put in their body (the “my body is a temple” approach).
Yet, in these very charged times, when the fusion of racial justice and food justice movement is growing stronger; economic populism—the desire to push back against corporate control—on both the left and the right is increasing; and when labor is being actively targeted by a malicious government, could offer the political moment when change for the better is possible. Speaking of economic populism and self-absorption, Alkon’s current area of study is the MAHA movement how its conception of healthy food is affecting supply chains and the future of food. Message her if you have good leads!
A number of speakers across a variety of panel discussions made the point that now, more than ever, consumer education about our food supply chain is necessary. Alkon noted, “As things become more centralized they’ve gotten more confusing, and that education piece—making the case for organics—is more and more important.” It’s important, she added, to undermine the organics-as-a-branding-strategy” approach adopted by Big Food, “and center the values that brought us here in the first place: clean air, waters, and environment, healthy food, workers, and animals.
Land Access, Reform, Consolidation, and Community Control
It was standing room only at a session titled “Land Reform: Confronting Consolidation and Building Community Control.” Land access is one of the biggest hurdles that face aspiring regenerative farmers, and the frustration in the room was palpable because the barriers to land access are big and big in number, including:
The historic and systematic exclusion of tribal and other communities of color from land ownership and access; the financialization of land and runaway consolidation (“hedge funds buying up land like it’s candy,” as Jamie Fanous with Community Alliance with Family Farmers put it); lack of transparency, making it hard to know who is buying land, who owns land and how to reach them; landowners holding on to land to build intergenerational wealth over putting it in the public commons; lack of long-term tenure on farmland, making it impossible for farmers to regenerate soil, create biodiversity, and build wealth; lack of land trusts that focus on agricultural use.
There were solutions, varying in readiness and development, on the table too. James Nakahara, of the regenerative farming-centered Kitchen Table Advisors, described the work of the California Agricultural Land Equity Task Force he is part of, and its recently released report and recommendations. They are less prescriptive, instead offering “an á la carte menu” of options available to the farmer seeking land access, he noted, citing examples of land access in the U.K. that allow urban communities to claim vacant lots for community gardens that will serve the public good.
Agustin Vega, of Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE), spoke of the need for mechanisms to “keep land in the community when a business goes under,” instead of being sold to deep-pocketed corporate bidders. He’d like to see such land go instead to organizations like one of CAUSE’s collaborative projects, Project MILPA, which helps advance farmworker-led regenerative agricultural cooperatives and land trusts in California’s Ventura County.
Veronica Mazariegos-Anastassiou, one of three farmer-operators behind Brisa Ranch, in Pescadero, California, talked about the farm’s efforts to get shared land access through a long-term conservation land trust lease for multiple businesses, including an educational non-profit. “With any such model, agency has to rest with the people on the land,” she said.
Fanous stressed the importance of policy solutions, “the need for elected official to write laws” that are going to keep land out of the hands of venture capitalists. At a time when 10 percent of landowners own 75 percent of all land in Fresno County, she noted, “this is a bi-partisan issue, and there are hard-core Republicans in the Central Valley saying they don’t want Wall Street firms in the valley.” (For more detail, read this powerful San Francisco Chronicle story)
To speed the coming of the day when there is better land access land in California she encouraged audience members to engage with lawmakers as well as county offices of sustainability, food policy councils, and land reform agencies. “Just engage at the county level,” she advised.
Moderator Antonio Roman-Alcalá, assistant professor at Cal State East Bay, Hayward, had the last word: “Movements generate policy change, not the other way around.”
There were many other great sessions that I attended, and just as many that I missed, so I’m looking forward to catching up with some of them when they are accessible online. I’ll keep you posted on that!
Other News and Notes:
I loved my conversation last night at Omnivore Books with the force of nature that is Shakira Simley, the Bay Area organizer, advocate, and non-profit leader who currently serves as the Executive Director of the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center. Tomorrow I’m heading to Oakland for this talk at Clio’s Books in Oakland, with Willow Blish of Slow Food South Bay, Dru Rivers of Full Belly Farm, and Jamie Fanous of CAFF!
For a nuanced and historically based look at RFK Jr. ‘s MAHA revolution, and whether it can succeed in toppling Big Food, please read, “RFK Jr. Is Dangerous. His Food Revolution Might Actually Work,” by Jane Black. It’s from the excellent Substack publication “Consumed,” that she writes with Liz Dunn.
Moderator of the land reform panel that I attended at EcoFarm, Antonio Roman-Alcalá, wrote this comprehensive and sharp article on the concept and practice of mutual aid for Civil Eats. Even though it was written during the Covid-19 pandemic it speaks directly to many of the demonstrations we’re witnessing today in response to the illegal and lethal actions of ICE in Minneapolis and other cities.
Stay safe, all. I’ll be dropping another article here in a couple of weeks!
Thank you. Eco Farm continues to be an important conference for the organic movement!