Farm Without Harm
Justice, Farming, Agriculture, Urban, Farm, Connecticut, Community Organizing
Our fight for representation in food justice continues. Cultivating Justice was founded with the goal of increasing public education, capital, and infrastructure for urban agriculture. We are organizing across the state of Connecticut to build power to challenge the USDA and redesign the food system to prioritize the demands of underserved people who eat food. We have some specific objectives we are working on towards this goal.
Create public education material about farming, sustainability, and agriculture
Create urban and suburban public/private resources for farms and agribusinesses
Create financing and access to capital for BILPOC aspiring to become a farmer
Promote self-reliance through teaching conservation and sustainability
2024 started with over 350 people attending our annual workshop series, Growing Power. We held 26 workshops for people from more than 30 municipalities on composting, veganism, growing, chicken keeping, beekeeping, sustainability, fishing, and more. Katal Center held the Methods of Social Change training, a group session on conflict and confrontation for systemic change.
Some highlights so far in 2024
Lovie's Farm is a Black owned farm on Randolph Road, Middletown. With 13 acres of privately owned land, they are assisting aspiring farmers with land access and management. They have goats, laying hens, Cornish cross meat birds, quail, ducks, crops, and composting which they make available to families across the state to visit and help with animal care/husbandry.
Building Leadership & Organizing Capacity - Katal’s flagship training program is Building Leadership and Organizing Capacity (BLOC). Participants in BLOC learn community organizing and harm reduction tools and strategies, and how to use them for systemic change; how to build relationships that will increase participation in groups, coalitions, and campaigns; and how to orient organizing and advocacy work toward undoing systemic racism and building movement. The BLOC Program prioritizes the inclusion of young people, women and girls. and people directly impacted by systemic problems who want to enter the community organizing field.
Dees Crafty Bees is a Queer-owned honeybee apiary that has brought honeybees, arts, crafts, and youth farm days to the newly established Miller Street Community Farm located in the heart of the Miller/Bridge Street community in Middletown. This site has honeybee hives, two 32ft raised grow beds with vegetable crops, a chicken coop with 10 layer hens that lay fresh chicken eggs daily, composting, earth science, foraging and even basketball!
All the food and produce from the Miller Street Community Farm is for the local residents. This Community Farm is a partnership established by Dee's Crafty Bees with the City of Middletown and Cultivating Justice to put an unused city park, in an underserved community back into daily community use.
Broad-Based Community Organizing Our membership across the state is diverse intergenerationally, racially, and socioeconomically. Because of the history of exploitation and invisibility of Latiné families in agriculture, we intentionally use the term BI"L"POC to make sure these families are represented in our analysis and in our work.
Towns we have helped people start farming
Windsor Bloomfield Manchester Hartford
New Britain Meriden North Haven
