Condensed 5 minute version of Food as a Public Work:

LISTEN HERE: Poor Proles Almanac Podcast: Fossil-Free Farming & Food as a Public Work with Maseualkualli Farms

Longer form podcast with background on the farm including some of the economic workings of Food as a Public Work!

LISTEN HERE: 🍊x🍑 Podcast (Lawrence Public Library): How to be an advocate!

Longest, laughter filled joy riding and farm fun facting podcast with info on Food as a Public Work rolling in around 33:13 :)

READ HERE: Farm-to-table for free: The Lawrence farmer and activist making food a public work by Jordan Winter (The Lawrence Times)

From: Douglas County Food Policy Council

Subject: Support for The Peoples’ Century Farm

Date: September 15, 2022

At our June 2022 monthly council meeting, Pantaleon Florez of Maseualkualli Farm shared to the members information about his endeavor to create The Peoples’ Century Farm, which would institute food as a public work in Douglas County. DCFPC members extend our support to elevate this effort to the attention of the Douglas County Administration and Commissioners.

We wish to express our belief that The Peoples’ Century Farm has the potential to advance goals in the Douglas County Food System Plan in many ways, for instance increasing food production on public land (3.2.1)*. Also, there is the potential for increasing equity in land access and economic development opportunities for BIPOC farmers, in addition to increasing food security in our County. Such a program could complement existing farming operations and practices, and co-exist with government services such as SNAP and WIC in addressing food access and food security. Further, promoting environmentally friendly jobs that support a culture that fosters a robust agricultural sector and supports the emerging local and regional food systems is explicitly stated in Plan 2040.

Land Access

The Peoples’ Century Farm could begin to alleviate a history of explicit and de facto restrictions on land access to BIPOC farmers and provide targeted small business support and infrastructure to benefit immigrant, low-income residents and people of color (1.1.6). Roughly 2% of Douglas County producers are non-white. Statewide, less than one half of one percent of farmland is stewarded by BIPOC. Targeting public land for BIPOC access will improve access to farming opportunities that wouldn’t require amassing wealth to participate (2.4.1), while also addressing the privation of land from Indigenous populations, or the flooding of historically Black rural communities to construct Clinton Reservoir (4.1.2).

Economic Development

The project seeks to support both local farmers and meet critical food needs throughout the county by utilizing current economic development strategies in this innovative practice (1.1.7). In addition, cultivating a professional cohort of county-supported, fairly-compensated farmers (1.4.3) on public land would create an inventory of skilled farmers that could develop new farmers who are well-prepared to take opportunities to continue the work of farmers aging out of local agribusiness (1.4.1 and 2.4.1).

Food Security

The pandemic exacerbated food insecurity in Douglas County, with any decreases in the food insecurity rate over the last several years reversed. The Peoples’ Century Farm would add additional resources, in conjunction with existing resources such as food banks, SNAP and WIC, to help increase food access and decrease food insecurity in our County (4.1.6) thus helping to continue to build, support, and sustain healthy food environments, and also acts upon one of the four priority issues outlined in the Community Health Plan, “Food Security and Healthy Built Environment” (3.3.1 and 3.3.2).

The DCFPC commends Pantaleon Florez and his work in developing a framework for The Peoples’ Century Farm, which has the potential to become an agricultural model not only for Douglas County but potentially for other communities across the country in helping broaden land access and create economic development opportunities to BIPOC farmers, as well as assist in increasing food security. The Council looks forward to furthering conversations with County Administration and Commissioners on this noble endeavor.

Sincerely,

Tyler J. Lindquist
Chair, Douglas County Food Policy Council

*Numbers in parentheses relate to the goals/objectives/policies in the Food System Plan which can be found at https://www.douglascountyks.org/fpc/food-system-plan

It’s time to organize and share our stories!

Lawrence is set to spend $436 million on the 2023 budget. Just 0.5% of that could launch year one of Food as a Public Work needing only 0.27% in each year after.

What would people get in return?

SOCIAL:

• $5-6 million in free produce and prepared foods every year in perpetuity.

• Increased local food security for current need and for disaster situations.

• Increase in locally produced, culturally relevant foods.

CLIMATE:

• Reduced carbon emissions via sustainable agriculture & localized food production.

• Perpetually protected, cubically owned agricultural lands and watersheds.

• Sustainable agriculture research and educational opportunities for the public.

ECONOMIC:

• 16 sustainable agriculture jobs implemented utilizing targeted universalism.

• Below market rate usage of commercial kitchen space (Restaurant Incubator).

• Below market rate usage of processing facilities (Processing Incubator).

We need many voices to accomplish Food as a Public Work. Write and submit a letter to our city and county commissions. Here’s how:

1) Write a letter to our city and county commissions explaining why you think we need Food as a Public Work.

If you’ve never written a letter to public officials, you can use the writing workshop prompts at the end of the page. There are two different sets, so feel free to check both of them out and use the one (or the parts of each) that most speak to you. As you write your own letter, encourage others to join you. The more People Power, the better!

2) Email your letters using the contact page linked here. Organizations that would like to submit a letter, find more details below the workshop portion of this page.

3) Once we have strong numbers (ideally 50-100), we will read them at city and county commission together.

Budget season is already well underway and organizing is often a long-term strategy. As much as we might want to create stronger food systems ASAP, we will likely have to be in this for a longer haul.

Would you like to submit a letter as an organization or group? That’s great! Be sure to select Letter Writing Campaign - Org in the contact form drop down menu. Also, please include the number of people represented by your org/group’s letter submission.

This part of the writing workshop is an adaptation of the Center for Community Health and Development Tool Box.

If you’d like to have a look at the original, you can do so here: Writing Letters to Elected Officials.

Many people have asked why I do what I do and why I want the things that I dream of daily. I have taken some time to reflect on this and I decided to post a letter of my own as an example and as a kind of answer to these questions.

This letter is written from a snapshot of my life as it was in 2014; as if I had been approached by future me with the idea of Food as a Public Work.

Dear City/County Commission, 

I am a graduate student in the School of Education studying to become an ESL teacher. In addition to my studies, I work in a state-funded position as the Graduate Affairs Director at KU. I also work part time for the Athletic Department tutoring our International Student Athletes. In order to make ends meet, I find gig work translating and working remotely doing digital tasks for a multibillion dollar tech company. All of this while attending graduate school full time and maintaining a nearly perfect GPA. 

Despite all of my efforts, I am food insecure. I know many graduate students like me who are, too. I have chosen between paying my rent and consuming three meals a day. I linger at student events past their end in hopes of securing an extra slice of pizza so that I can eat something for breakfast the next day. For some reason it’s always pizza but at least they work well in a scramble and beggars who work 40+ hours a week while attending graduate school full time can’t be choosers. 

As Graduate Affairs Director, I constantly sit in meetings with extremely well-fed people. I sat on the Provost’s Tuition Advisory Board staring at the tuition hikes of 2005-2009, the years I happened to attend undergrad, while these well-fed people who paid practically nothing to get their degrees to find themselves in their well-fed positions pointed and laughed at the screens. There is wealth here, but it is well hoarded. 

I study inequity as it speaks at me and as it exists systemically. Though I can speak in more detail about systemic educational inequities, it doesn’t take a graduate student to comprehend the inequities in food systems as outlined in the Peoples’ Century Farm report. I am far from alone in Douglas County. 12.8% of us don’t eat three meals a day. BIPOC like me are 3.6 times more likely to live in poverty here. We live in a city that has the 8th highest racial poverty gap amongst 40 of our peer cities. When something isn’t right, something has to change. 

Less than 2% of farms in the US are owned by BIPOC farmers and this is so clearly by design. In the face of this, I feel the Peoples’ Century Farm plans ask for far too little; it’s far too forgiving of existing systems. That said, if there are BIPOC farmers who want to lead a kind of change that reintegrates private lands into public commons and protections in the name of systemically feeding people who need to be fed, then enable them. They aren’t coming here with narratives that do not have numbers to back them up. They aren’t coming here as corrupted outsiders throwing up an overly priced high-rise in exchange for 1 below market rate apartment to 100 luxuries. They are coming here with a deep understanding of food aparthied and a desire to be farmers truly for the sake of feeding people. 

We need the Peoples’ Century Farm. There are far too many institutions and organizations slapping the word equity all over repackaged oppression. We need redesigned systems like the Peoples’ Century Farm that create true, enduring equity. 

Respectfully, 

Pantaleon Florez III