What happens to the foods that we don’t eat? Composting is a vital part of our food cycles, but it's so much more than recycling our food scraps. This episode takes us on a journey through New York City to explore how this age-old practice is thriving in even the densest of urban spaces, while uncovering how composting can hold the key to food sovereignty for so many.

More about Earth Matter @ https://earthmatter.org/

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Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

In the imaginations of some folks, movements towards food sovereignty live primarily in idyllic community gardens, small-scale organic farms, local farmers’ markets, and farm-to-table restaurants. But the work of sovereignty lives within spaces of deeper complexity – spaces woven together by the seeds of joys, suffering, commitments, creativity, and resilience. Derrick McDonald and Shephali Patel call in the stories and voices that remind us that sovereignty lives in our past, present, and futures.

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Learn more and support Black Star Farmers @ blackstarfarmers.org

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Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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• Derrick McDonald: https://www.hackerarchitects.com/derrick-mcdonald

• StoryMap of the initial seeding of Black Lives Memorial Garden in Cal Anderson

• Coverage on 2021 Black Lives Matter protests and CHOP/CHAZ:

• https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/11/seattle_activists_create_autonomous_zone_near

• https://crosscut.com/focus/2020/11/seattles-cal-anderson-park-microcosm-national-upheaval

• Watch the documentary “As Long as the Rivers Run” to learn about Bernie Whitebear and a legacy of indigenous land and food sovereignty movements in the Pacific Northwest

• Overview of Daybreak Star and the Fort Lawton occupation: https://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/exhibits-and-education/online-exhibits/daybreak-star-indian-cultural-center

• Omari Garrett and the occupation of the Colman School

• Overview: https://www.historylink.org/File/8602

• A complex history:

• https://www.seattlemet.com/arts-and-culture/2008/12/1008-feat-divided

• https://africanamericanheritagemuseumandculturalcenter.org/synopsis/

• Stay connected with Shephali at shephali.earth

Recommended Reading List inspired by Derrick

• Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

• Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

• Kindred by Octavia Butler

• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

• Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna J. Haraway

For the folks behind BK Rot, showing love to their community looks a lot like piles of old orange peels, used coffee grounds, and last week's leftovers — in other words, it looks like compost. BK Rot is New York City's first bike-powered composting and hauling service, run almost entirely by youth of color. It was created in response to the city's failure to bring curbside composting services to their neighborhoods — and to this day, the group plays a key part in their local food cycles.

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Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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The air has grown cooler, and the leaves are falling from the trees. We are in the thick of fall, which also means the thick of transformation. I’ve always heard that grief is something you grow through, so I sat with the soil and mirrored the earth's cycles. I sat with the trees, the falling leaves, and the wind to help me remember. That endings are endings, but they can also seed new beginnings.

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Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

Recovering from top surgery is a chance to heal more than just your body. In this episode, Nino McQuown and friends DREAM Emmanuel, Leah Drew, and Ty Wilkerson talk about how food fit into their processes of recovery, and how sometimes moments of self-sovereignty arrive through openness to receiving care.

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Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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DREAM's Candle Company: We Live in Truth We L.I.T. @ https://www.weliveintruth.com/

Follow Ty's Standup @ https://www.instagram.com/who_theythemty/

Help fund surgery needs for Black trans folks @ https://www.forthegworls.party/home
Get in touch with Nino @ allsoils.net

In the Near East neighborhoods of Columbus, Ohio, generations of Black community leaders have worked together to nurture a center of Black life in Ohio. In this episode, we follow Julialynn Walker as she takes us through the Bronzeville Urban Growers community gardens, markets, and food programs and shares the history of the Near East, and the present and future of food sovereignty in Bronzeville.

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Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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Bethany Bronzeville Church Donations Page @
https://onrealm.org/BethanyPresbyte/-/form/give/now

African-American Settlements and Communities in Columbus, OH @
https://www.columbuslandmarks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/African-American-Comm.pdf

Get in touch with Nino @ allsoils.net

Indigofera is at the root of a fruitful friendship between three land stewards and natural dyers in the DMV area. Sun English Jr., Kenya Miles, and Rosa Chang walk us through the spiritual, medicinal, and historical elements of indigo dyeing. In this episode, we discuss how caring for this plant helps us connect to our ancestors and the soil through craft and stewardship.

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Learn more about Food Culture Collective @ https://foodculture.org

and HEAL Food Alliance @ https://healfoodalliance.org

Take action with HEAL on the U.S. Farm Bill: https://healfoodalliance.org/farmbill/

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Kenya’s Dye Studio @ https://www.bluelightjunction.com/

Sun’s Farm and Apothecary @ https://www.melanatedmedicinals.com/

Rosa’s website and Indigo Shade Map @

https://rosafulgarden.com/
https://www.indigoshademap.org/