Sharing Our Roots expands acreage, staff, outreach

FARMER CLIENT RELIEF FUND Last Friday, Sharing Our Roots announced that the Farmer Climate Relief Fund had raised $10,802 with the support of 46 donors: $9,302 through Paypal and a $1,500 offline match. With the donations, they’ve been able to immediately distribute financial aid to farmers and community gardeners whose seasons have been upended by the wettest spring on record. All money raised over our $10,000 goal will continue to be reserved and distributed to farmers, many of whom reported losing more than $10,000 individually in crop failures this season. This fund helps build a resilient safety net for local farmers in the face of continuing climate change. d5cbb218-7c32-4987-97ee-a155611b4869

After two years of draught, the farmers and gardeners growing crops, botanicals and flowers at Sharing Our Roots are experiencing record rainfall, and thus, a downturn in market profits.

In last week’s edition of the Northfield News, we covered how these LGBTQ+ and BIPOC community were handling the situation. This week, our focus is on how the 120-acre original farm has expanded with 43 additional acres and seven new staff members.

Additionally, Sharing Our Roots continues to share its story with an even larger base through social media, word of mouth and expanded farm programs.

Charlie Zieke, communications manager for Sharing Our Roots, said that, despite the horrific flooding this year, there were still a lot of positives happening at the farm that sits north and west of Northfield.

“A lot of hands are at work on the farm,” said Zieke. “That’s really exploded in the last year.”

Also, Zieke talked about how seven new employees and five summer interns are working there now, expanding the impact exponentially.

Lastly, how the outreach of the community farm now includes over 200 farmers and gardeners at 13 farm operations that includes 30 Sudanese farmers and more than 150 families who live off of the produce grown on the farm.

Nic Nelson, natural lands manager at Sharing Our Roots, said the new 43 acres contain biodiversity and rare ecosystems, which account for some of the most ecologically important and endangered wetland habitats in the world.

“These prairie potholes support a diverse range of wildlife, including amphibians, reptiles, and are an oasis for various bird species, both migratory and resident,” said Nelson. “Tall sedge species (like Carex stricta) grow ringing the prairie pothole ponds, forming hummocks (root masses above ground) that can reach up to 5 feet tall. The wet conditions also allow state special concern plants, such as the White Prairie Lady Slipper, cousin to the Showy Lady Slipper, Minnesota’s state flower, to bloom here.”

Nelson added that the wetland complexes are “unique and fascinating ecosystems that require careful management to maintain their ecological integrity.”

Land access a barrier

Despite the abundance of land across the country, access to land is the biggest challenge facing the next generation of farmers in the US, with this barrier being even greater for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) farmers. Nationally, 98% of all private farmland is held by white landowners, despite over 60% of farmworkers being BIPOC.

In Minnesota, that number is a staggering 99 percent. Research supports these barriers with a recent National Young Farmers Coalition survey of 10,000 farmers showing that 65 percent of BIPOC farmers agreed that finding affordable land to buy is “very or extremely” challenging.

Sharing Our Roots has long been working to remove systematic barriers for immigrant, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ farmers and gardeners in Minnesota. It achieves this by providing affordable, multi-year land access, shared infrastructure, and the resources to have a successful farming operation to over 200 local immigrant, BIPOC, & LGBTQ+ farmers and gardeners at the Sharing Our Roots Farm and seven community gardens in Northfield and Faribault.

Since purchasing the initial 120-acre farm in 2016, Sharing Our Roots has actively restored the landscape from a degraded cornfield into a thriving ecosystem shared by plants, wildlife, and people. The addition of the new 43 acres extends the current Sharing Our Roots Farm to the east and raises their stewarded acres to 163 total.

“This is a momentous occasion for local land access in our region. Together with farmers, partners, and supporters Sharing Our Roots is innovating a path towards a more just, resilient and healthy food system,” said Rocky Casillas-Aguirre, development director at Sharing Our Roots. “Our farm serves many functions — aside from being a major land restoration project itself — it’s a place for research and demonstration, a sanctuary for wildlife and community, and a homebase for immigrant, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and emerging farmers.”

This expansion will allow the organization to continue addressing local land access gaps, while also supporting their conservation and biodiversity efforts through the preservation of precious wetland and prairie habitat on the parcel. With this commitment to protecting these essential biomes and the native species that rely on them, Sharing Our Roots’ dedicated restoration will support farmers and gardeners for years to come.