News from the East Bay Urban Farmer Field School

Dear Friends,

About three years ago, I asked for help to provide the learning that the farmers with whom I worked at Dig Deep Farms needed to build their knowledge and skills.  I reached out to Eric Holt-Gimenez, Executive Director at Food First because Eric spend about 30 years with indigenous farmers in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras learning how they taught each other knowledge and skills using ancient, traditional methods that people now call agro-ecological farming.  Eric wrote about this experience in his book, Campesino a Campesino—farmer-to-farmer.  Eric immediately agreed to help and taught me the history of farmer field schools in Asia as well as Latin America.  Thus the East Bay Urban Farmer Field School—EBUFFS—came to life.

We will hold our first EBUFFS workshop on Wednesday, January 27, from 1 pm to 3 pm, at the UC Gill Tract Community Farm.  The topic will be an introduction to agro-ecology—and not just the technical aspects. Agro-ecology is about community and the culture of cooperation and mutual support.  We want to focus on these values in our first workshop and begin to build that culture among East Bay urban farmers.  We are all working really hard to make our communities more self-reliant and resilient.  Let’s learn from each other about how to do that work better.

We will hold our first EBUFFS workshop on Wednesday, January 27, from 1 pm to 3 pm, at the UC Gill Tract Community Farm.  The topic will be an introduction to agro-ecology—and not just the technical aspects.

We have modest stipends per session for up to 20 farmers to participate in the monthly workshops.  We would like offer these stipends to farmers who can commit to attending all 12 workshops, one per month.  We will have a sign-up sheet for anyone interested in the full-year experience.  We will accept folks on a first-come, first-serve basis.  We also have honoraria for workshop teachers.  Please send us your suggestions for farmers and mentors who can provide the learning you need.  We also have funding for local transportation.

Each month we will go to a different farm, from the farms at Urban Tilth in Richmond to farms in Oakland and close-by rural farms.  If you would like to host a workshop at your farm, please let us know.  We will have a workshop schedule of topics that follow the cycle of the seasons, from seeds to planting to weeding to harvesting and post-harvest handling.

EBUFFS is a grass-roots learning program for urban farmers and growers serving our most vulnerable communities.  We have a vision and mission based on resistance to all forms of oppression and creating alternatives to colonizing forces operating in our communities.

For more information, you can go to our website, www.eastbayurbanfarmers.com, or to our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/eastbayffs/.  On the website we have a survey farm you can use to indicate what topics you need and also what knowledge and skills you would like to share.

Please feel free to contact me at hank@c-prep.org with any questions.

All the best,

Hank Herrera

Board member Food First

President & CEO of the Center for Popular Research, Education & Policy (C-PREP)