finished keynoting our winter conference and we're going to talk a little bit about her work so i know her coming do you want to just give everyone a quick little overview about what you've been up to these last six years  so basically i left working in health care advocacy and d c and i started farming i got really into the food movement and you know i just really found a need to kind of dig into some stories and into so i was seeing as far as racial inequities and injustices in the food movement and the system itself so i started this project that i called the color of food really i started writing on my blog called  girl farming and writing for growth and augustine in a series called the color of food and that just kind of snowballed into what became a photographic storytelling projects where i interviewed over seventy five farmers and productiveness of color so specifically from black latino asian and native communities and now this photograph it's very telling project has turned into a book and the book comes out a couple months yeah comes out in april published by new society publishers and it's filled into environmental activism after college and was slowly starting to see how the way we grow our food impacts the environment but then i work for the center for american progress in d c i was working to support you activism on college campuses and i had switched focus from environment issues to health care issues because it was right before right when we were working to pass the health reform bill when obama came into office and you know it was my first time really starting to understand the complex health care system but obviously with the knowledge of the status of america's health right now these really high rates of dire related illnesses and then of course as a person of color social justice issues were always at the center of my focus and i could just see that all these issues were just kind of revolving around food and it was the unspoken elephant in the room and that's when i decided to kind of shift gears and ocus yeah and what made you want to take on the storytelling of farming and in the way you've done it you know like such a multi media type of way well i think you know i was working in d c which is a policy have the very wonky kind of place to be you're always reading heavy statistical reports here you're lobbying on congress  always the conferences where panelist educated panelists are shooting out these statistics and i felt like the humanize the issues because we're talking about people at the end of the day we're talking about food we're talking about real community is real people who are suffering with diabetes and whatnot and i just felt like that storytelling piece was really missing and particularly in the food movement again you know when i started to learn myself about ok what's up with the equity is not only  so you can find that information in the agricultural census but i wanted to hear from these folks you know there's so much history kind of involved with you know that dynamic and untold stories so i was just ted talk i guess yeah the danger of a single story and you know there is this kind of prevalent story that we tell in our society about farmers and that's very dangerous to kind of very a lot of other people story thanks for your bringing them to light how do you have you seen kind of tangible shifts in the conversation since you started or you know what are some ways that your storytelling  shifting the landscape for farmers of a liar wow well that's a that's a pretty big goal and i would you know that i am landscape but i think first when i entered the you know when i started this project i myself started looking through this other lens outside of the dominant narrative and saw a lot of folks that have already been doing this work and are already trying to kind of reclaim agrarian identity for communities of color and they have really been shaping and in packaging the landscape for farmers of color names that come to mine or like me ralph page starter monica way there's so many folks that have been doing this work for so long i can only hope that i my work and impact  and and you know just the simple fact of you know all the attention that the project has got and the stories you know the impact that these stories are having on folks every time is and every time i write about it it's really it's really powerful to see folks coming up and saying you know wow black folks coming up to me at the last congress i was sad and saying you know when you started talking about this i had a painful reaction just remembering the history of my family who were sharecroppers and i almost wanted to get up and leave the room because i just was like i can't i can't sit here and talk about this but he stayed and afterwards he was like you have you know this is hearing these stories as shift how i'm looking at this and another a side that i didn't quite answer the last question was not only is the story telling but the photography aspect of it to seeing these faces right repainting the faces of kind of represent with a lot of universities and so young students are coming up and i see faces that look like mine you know this is a place for me i can be involved in this movement and finally when i started the project i also had grand ambitions to create a map and directory of a lot of the farmers i was interviewing and try to get as many farmers of color on there and there are quite a lot of farmers on there and through that i've had hundreds of young farmers of color contact me and say i found a farm to work on to start learning from this farmer this mentor farmer because i wanted to find another black farmer another let's you know farmer and the other is hope so i think in small ways it's definitely me great and i know you highlighted some really great stories in our keynote but are there some like really kind of most dicks i mean what are some of the most exciting ways that you're seeing  farmers of color kind of taking on these issues in their community and you know either addressing access or really pushing on the system well i think that the key is that you know and i also don't like to use the term food just as i like to use food sovereignty and the key to sovereignty is you know you have control over your food system over your sea that's a very your traditional food ways and i think that that's been the most powerful piece to see in these communities that that's what they're talking about and that's the story that they're telling there yes they're concerned about food access and health in the news but it's more an all encompassing goal and you know a lot of the stories that i've found to be kind of most powerful in that way are most creative in a lot of native american communities like the cherokee community that i mentioned at the center for cherokee plants their number one i think it's really cool the structure of their seed bank their propagating and saving seed but they're not sitting on those seeds and seedlings they're turning them into garden kits and giving them out to the residents on the reservation and then that's not all they're doing they're also going around with their mobile classroom and they talked about how they go around to the different and they kind of help educate really educate because these skills you know there they are in the community but they may have been lost over generations of his kind of reminding folks that this is what we used to do and you know let's let's put the blanket outlets in the yard we're here we're we're coming to see you and we're going to talk about these things we're going to do some storytelling and bring t some of the traditional wild medicines and wild food and again like incorporating storytelling with so i'm drawn to the storytelling projects of yours that's great well so it sounds like you know a lot of younger people are also they're really drawn to these stories because they're able to see themselves in those stories and feel like they can be a part of the movement and i think that that's a really powerful aspect of your story is you know it's i think with such a history of oppression in agriculture you know seeing agriculture as a viable work you know to actually see people like ourselves doing that work it's really  and i think it's an overlap aspect of it all but it's really important for everyone getting into farming i was just recently at a conference where j m forte's the market gardener farmer was telling his story of how he got started and i noticed that he was saying  you work down on farms in mexico and in cuba and he was like kind of traveling around and working but where he found his real mentor and he really learned from in new mexico was another frank of another french farmer and there was just you know he wasn't telling the story from that point but that's what i saw and that is look at that connection that he had because that was somebody like him and i think we overlook that kind of cultural understanding connection that's really key when you're learning from someone  really good point yeah great and so it sounds like you've got a new project going on to you but on the road for many years and now you're kind of have a new home base yeah can you talk about what that looks like sure sure so yeah i'm originally from florida i started i was in new york and d c when i kind of started this project and of course all over the place for a couple years on the road doing this project and now i've just gotten married and settled down and western maryland outside of d c and with the book kind of off my plate as far as all the transcripts and writing and and getting it published i'm ready to get my hands back in the soil remember that kind of what i wanted to do when i left my work in d c and  was called to kind of dig into something else other than the soil for a few years but yeah i'm ready to get my hands back in the soil some actually part of the beginning farmer training program with casa the chesapeake association for sustainable agriculture they're in the region and i also you know just kind of going around the community and seeing what was going on as far as food and farming and where my skills might be handy and i was asked to help support an urban farm educational farm and start one in frederick so i'm working with the housing authority there where they already have community gardens of the residents really want to you know enhance their they're growing in access to healthy foods all the supporting that starting over grams that sounds like something so maybe the last question and then like the biggest and hardest and but you know i think a lot about kind of just the institutionalized racism and you know systemic issues of oppression in our food system and it you know in vermont it's you know ninety five percent white eight and i think that the stories that you tell are often really hadn't and how do how do you recommend kind of we as consumers and farmers and buyers how do we help start uncovering the layers so that it's more seen how can we do that here and our money yeah and you know actually one of the students  here just came out to me after the tarkhan asked the same question and first of all that's the first step is just kind of having that like go off in the community and having that desire and will to to go out and cover the stories and it's about finding the folks that are here though they may be feeling members fighting those folks and you know like i said in my speech when folks aren't at the table you know i think a lot of the problems of the movement it's like ok we need everybody at the table so you know come come said at our table why aren't you coming to the table sometimes you have to go knock on their door and ask to sit and listen at their tables right go into these communities where work is being and gather these stories and then just h work and this is a whole nother conversation we can get into and i will be digging into it with the students of the green mountain college residency this week but just about how the movement can start shifting the dynamic of how we do support work like who is in tackle but we can definitely just at least start having these conversations because that's really how we get out amplified and supporting this work well i'm really excited to keep continuing having these conversations here in vermont and really