Page 27 - Valley Table- Winter 2025

PHOTOS (TOP TO BOTTOM) BY JUKOVSTUDIO/ADOBE STOCK; ETHAN HAR RISON
501(c)(3) cooperative with 18
full- and part-time, seasonal,
and year-round employees
that steward seven acres of its
80-acre property. Offerings
include solidarity shares (a
no- and low-cost doorstep
food delivery program), an
urban gardening program, farm
education classes, cooking
immersions, builders training,
and an 18-month fellowship for
career-ready farmers.
SFF is also involved in public
education and policy work
regionally, nationally, and
internationally, and has helped
build NEFOC and Black
Farmer Fund, co-founded
by Washington, to connect
growers to land, and financial
and technical assistance.
The debt relief given to
disadvantaged farmers in the
federal Inflation Reduction
Act was “a big win,” enthuses
Karen Washington co-
founded Rise & Root
Farm in Chester.
Penniman, and a result of SFF
and partner organizing.
Washington has also
established Black Urban
Growers, a conference for both
urban and rural Black farmers,
and she recently created a
distribution hub for small
BIPOC (and queer) Hudson
Valley farms that provides
them with top dollar for their
produce and a market they
would not otherwise reach.
These organizations are
born out of necessity, says
Hutchinson, who conducts
advocacy work, educating
legislators on Black farmers’
needs—from land access
to helping change how the
state reaches out to and
connects with them. “A lot
of times, people don’t know
about [available funding]
opportunities because things
spread through word of
mouth,” she explains.
Hutchinson, who is also a
teacher in Newburgh, founded
AgriCultural Education,
a character and life skills
development program for
BIPOC high schoolers there.
Students learn all about
farming in class and in the
dirt; the thousands of pounds
of produce they grow goes to
student-chosen food pantries.
All of this adds up, says
Penniman, to “an ecosystem of
support for rising generation
farmers in the Northeast.”
Washington thinks of
her ancestors and intends
to continue to uplift Black
agriculture and ensure others
can have a fair chance to
farm. She shares a recent field
experience, surrounded by a
mound of collards, kale, and
broccoli. “It was so beautiful,”
she says tearfully, “to stand
here and say that you grow this
food that is so magnificent and
it’s going to be given to people
who look like me, who would
never be able to experience
food this beautiful, that is so
rich, so good. And we did it
with our own hands.”
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