Page 25 - Valley Table- Winter 2025

SEEDS OF
CHANGE
Efforts to reclaim Black agricultural heritage are
reshaping the landscape in the Hudson Valley.
BY LIZ SUSMAN KARP
“I didn’t know it grew on a vine,” recalls Washington, a founder of
Rise & Root Farm, an organic farm in Chester. “I had never seen
vegetables grown before.”
The simple act of growing a bright red tomato led New York City-
KKaren Washington says that growing a tomato changed her world.
bred Washington on an unexpected path to becoming a farmer and a
leading activist in the fight for food justice. The two-time James Beard
Award-winner is part of a burgeoning movement in the Hudson Valley
to revive and reclaim the agricultural heritage that had been taken
from Black people as a result of slavery and land dispossession.
Growing food for Washington, a former physical therapist, was
painful at first because, to her, farming connotated slavery. But she
loved the garden and farm stories of her patients, many of whom had
been raised in the South. “I took that wisdom and energy with me,”
she says, “how going back to the land can be a source of reclamation,
of resilience, instead of a stem of hurt, stress, and negativity.”
Washington began a community gardening movement in the Bronx,
turning empty lots into plots, and a city farms market (both of which
are thriving today), before starting Rise & Root with three friends in
2014. It supplies restaurants, farmers’ markets, and community food
programs in the borough as well as the Guild of St. Margaret, a soup
kitchen in Middletown.
December 2024 – February 2025 | valleytable.com 23