Fireside Chats with Disadvantaged Farmers

Happy Pride!

On a Friday afternoon in early spring, I joined several farmers and advocates for a “Fireside Chat” with Michigan Representative Elissa Slotkin and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

The Secretary shared updates about avian flu, the farm bill, and climate-smart agriculture initiatives. His thesis revolved around the viability of small and medium-sized farms by “getting entrepreneurial,” investing in climate-smart initiatives, selling agriculture waste, and more. During the Q&A, a dear friend and one of the only Black farmers in the room asked a question that could be summarized as:

How does this plan work for black and brown farmers?

It’s no secret that the USDA has a long history of excluding black farmers from financial resources or that 13.1 million acres were taken from black farmers by force or coercion. Understandably, this has led to a massive breakdown in trust towards the Department of Agriculture. Even today, many Black farmers experience discriminatory practices when they attempt to access this capital.

One part of his answer was a laundry list of grants and services the department had created for disadvantaged farmers. But this misses the mark.

We’ve repeatedly highlighted that institutions, organizations, or other government entities often have access to funding to support black and brown farmers, but to no avail. Our likeness is used for marketing campaigns, and our data is used for reporting, but far too often, Black farmers do not reap the benefits of this funding or support.

Without real accountability, these programs tokenize Black farmers.

The second part of his answer put the onus on Black farmers to do the work to actualize these resources in their lives. But we’ve done our research, we’ve reached out. The programs are not working. If the department cannot consistently acknowledge the system of injustice it was founded on, any and all meaningful change will only be stalled.

Black farmers often have little to no generational wealth, land, resources, or knowledge. What they have, need, and rely on is community. Community to show up, shop, and advocate for fairness and justice. This community makes our local food system better for everyone.

This is the community we’re building.

Together, we’re building food sovereignty, investing in the local food system, and ensuring everyone has a chance to grow. That’s why we’re investing in our community of growers. When our community has the tools, resources, and knowledge to interact with food and the food system with equity, we show up for one another.

In solidarity,

Julius

P.S. This month, we celebrate Pride, Juneteenth, and the diverse movement builders investing in food sovereignty throughout history and our community. We need all hands in this garden. Join in the movement and help ensure everyone has the chance to grow.

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Georgia Gilmore & The Club From Nowhere

By Julius Buzzard • February 18, 2026

During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when formal fundraising was surveilled and criminalized, Georgia Gilmore organized something deceptively simple: a kitchen network . Known as The Club From Nowhere , Gilmore and other Black women sold pies, cakes, and home-cooked meals to quietly raise money for the movement. Their anonymity was protection. Their food was infrastructure. For over a year, as the boycott stretched on, these funds paid for carpools, gas, and daily survival. While history often centers on speeches and marches, Gilmore reminds us that revolutions are sustained behind the scenes by those who feed people, organize logistics, and keep the lights on. Her kitchen was a site of resistance. Her recipes were tools of liberation. At Growing Hope, we honor this lineage every time we invest in food entrepreneurs, incubator kitchens, and cooperative models. When food businesses are community-rooted, they do more than generate income; they fuel movements . Never underestimate what food can do. And never forget who has always been doing the work.

Fannie Lou Hamer & the Freedom Farm Cooperative

By Julius Buzzard • February 11, 2026

“If you have 400 quarts of greens and gumbo soup canned for the winter, nobody can push you around.” Fannie Lou Hamer said this not as a metaphor, but as a lived experience. In 1969, after being evicted from her plantation home for registering to vote, Hamer founded the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Sunflower County, Mississippi. The goal was simple and radical: Black families deserved land, food, housing, and economic independence, without having to ask permission. Freedom Farm grew vegetables, raised livestock, built homes, and supported cooperative ownership. It addressed hunger and poverty at their roots, refusing the lie that liberation could come without material security. Hamer understood what we still grapple with today: political rights mean little without food sovereignty . Voting doesn’t protect you from hunger. Legislation doesn’t replace land. Dignity requires access to the means of survival. This is why Growing Hope centers farming, education, and entrepreneurship together. Food sovereignty is not just about what’s on your plate; it’s about who controls the systems that decide who eats .

The Black Panther Party & Free Breakfast

By Julius Buzzard • February 4, 2026

In 1969, the Black Panther Party launched the Free Breakfast for Children Program , serving tens of thousands of children across the United States every single school day. Not as an act of charity, but as a declaration. The Panthers understood something the dominant systems refused to acknowledge: a hungry child cannot learn, organize, or imagine a future . Feeding children was a political act. It was protection. It was strategy. Volunteers cooked before dawn in church basements and community centers. Children were served breakfast while learning about Black history, self-determination, and collective responsibility. The state noticed and felt threatened. The FBI labeled the program “the greatest threat” to internal security, not because it was violent, but because it worked. And it worked so well that the U.S. government was forced to expand public school breakfast programs nationwide . Mutual aid didn’t just meet immediate needs; it reshaped public policy . This is food sovereignty in action: communities identifying harm, meeting their own needs with dignity, and building power in the process. At Growing Hope, we carry this legacy forward. When we insist on dignified access to food, when we support farmers markets as sites of connection and not extraction, when we center youth and Black leadership, we are walking a well-worn path. When communities feed themselves, systems change.

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