Food Justice & Cooperative Economics

Greetings Community,

The return of spring always brings new faces to the farm as we support an ever-growing community invested in growing food for themselves and one another. It reminds me why we must invest in infrastructure to support food sovereignty and self-determination.

I am always excited to kick off the season and initiate this programming because it’s a vital piece of our mission as we seek to build a just and equitable food system. Investing in food sovereignty means investing in members of our community. It requires us to move collectively as we imagine an economy that values food, acknowledges our right to it, and brings us together for our collective good. It requires us to consider cooperative economics.

The intersection of cooperative economics and food sovereignty is a dynamic space where community resilience, social justice, and sustainable agriculture converge. Food sovereignty emphasizes local control over food systems, empowering communities to make food production, distribution, and consumption decisions. Similarly, cooperative economics emphasizes the principles of collective ownership, democratic control, and shared benefits among members.

Collaboration between the two addresses food access issues and racial injustice. It empowers communities to define their own food systems, promote sustainable agriculture practices, and reclaim traditional food production and distribution knowledge.

And so, we invest deeply in equipping every community member with the tools, resources, and knowledge needed to have an intimate relationship with our local food system.

Some of this support looks like free seedlings grown at the Growing Hope Urban Farm, free compost and seeds, workshops, and supporting our local community gardens to thrive. This year, we are excited to reenage our Community Tool Lending Library! We have the space ready and have one question for you:

What tools would you like to have available from a tool lending library?

Thank you for reimagining the food system with us!

In solidarity

Julius

P.S. To free ourselves, we must feed ourselves–the Teen Leadership Program, Home Vegetable Program, Farmers Market, Seasonal Internships, and Solidarity Shares are all open to applicants!

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Rooted Again: A National Farmers Market Week Reflection

By Julius Buzzard • August 1, 2026

Beloved community, As we enter the final weeks of summer and back into the rhythm of the school year, it’s impossible not to recognize how hard it’s been to breathe as of late (in every sense). A few short weeks ago, smoke drifted down from wildfires burning across Ontario and settled over Southeast Michigan with force. As air quality alerts stacked on top of heat advisories, everyone from youth to elders was advised to mask up or otherwise remain indoors. In the same stretch, Michigan’s cyclospora outbreak kept climbing past six thousand confirmed cases. Understandably, many have been left feeling paralyzed. Clean air and safe food are not amenities; they are the foundation on which we build food sovereignty. Right now, it feels like that foundation is beginning to crumble, and crumble beneath some more than others. The folks breathing the worst air and eating the least trustworthy food are disproportionately Black, brown, Indigenous, low-income, elderly, young, or some combination of all of it. This pattern is known as environmental racism, meaning the way pollution, contamination, and environmental harm land hardest on communities of color and low-income communities. Whether it’s a decision about a permit, protective rights, or a pipeline, this happens by design. Last month, for example, Michigan's environmental agency approved permits allowing Enbridge to build a new tunnel for the Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, locking in another 99 years of fossil fuel infrastructure running beneath the largest freshwater system on the planet. While this devalues, or even ignores, the long-term health of our climate, economies, and water (another foundational element to life), the environmental harm of this decision is just the tipping point. Construction threatens ground that includes Native American burial sites, and tribes are being handed what one Native American Rights Fund attorney representing Bay Mills Indian Community called an agonizing choice between digging up and recovering their own ancestors before bulldozers arrive, or leaving that work to the state once construction starts. That same attorney, David Gover, put it plainly: "What is more sacred than how we treat our dead?" The grief, rage, and anxiety showing up in our community as a result of these compounding factors is real, merited, and inextricably tied to what’s happening to the land, water, and air on which we, and our food, depend. But it’s not the end of the story. Behind Growing Hope's mission is a strongly rooted belief that communities deserve autonomy within the entirety of their food system. You cannot separate a just food system from a just relationship to place. The cure to systems that poison our air, contaminate our food chains, and desecrate sacred ground is hope that is deeply seeded in community. It's in building a local food system that celebrates the growers, land stewards, and makers that paint a portrait of a vibrant local food system. And that's what a farmers market is, when you get down to it. It's a supply chain you can see with your own eyes. It’s names you know and fields you can visit. It’s fresh produce that arrives from caring hands just moments away from home. It's food grown by people accountable to this community. And when we feel betrayed by the very air and food we need to survive, this is all more important than ever. That’s why I’m excited that this is reaching you right on the edge of National Farmers Market Week, August 2-8, formally proclaimed by the Ypsilanti City Council at their last meeting. Come join us in our weekly celebration of local food at the Ypsilanti Farmers Markets on Saturdays, 9a-1p, at the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace (16 S. Washington St.) Underneath all of it (the smoke, the cyclospora headlines, the pipeline permits) is us. A community vying for a food system where we can gather, cook, and grow together without fear. See you at the market, Julius P.S. Even if you can’t join us to celebrate National Farmers Market Week on Saturday, August 8, you can share your thoughts and help us plan for the future (even get entered to win a great prize) by completing our annual market survey .

From Dream to Legacy

By Julius Buzzard • July 1, 2026

Introducing the growing hope accelerator kitchen!

Return of the Tuesday Market

By Julius Buzzard • June 1, 2026

Beloved community, June is alive in Ypsilanti, and so are we! The farm is buzzing with pollinators, heavy with the first fruits of the season, keeping the produce cart full, and tended by caring hands, sowing hope along with each seed. At the same time, the MarketPlace is filling back up with color and noise with the joy of neighbors who have looked forward to the market all winter. We have so much to celebrate this season! Namely, the Tuesday Farmers Market is back! Starting tomorrow (June 2), the Ypsilanti Farmers Market will run not only on Saturday mornings, but also every Tuesday from 3 to 7 pm, through August, right here at the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace. That means every week we’ll have two opportunities to invest in our local food system while building the community care that makes a market special. This matters more than it might seem on the surface. Many community members have shared that while they love the Ypsilanti Farmers Market, want to support local farmers and makers, and believe in local food, Saturday mornings simply do not work for their lifestyles. Saturday mornings may be reserved for overtime shifts or soccer games, or to recover from a week that didn’t seem to give anything back. For some, they can only get the financial assistance or translation services needed to fully participate on a weekday. For many of our neighbors, Saturday mornings are simply not free. Access can only be actualized when every community member experiences it. It’s as much about time as it is about proximity. We've always said that the Ypsilanti Farmers Market is for everyone in our community, and the Tuesday market is our effort to live that out more fully. The Ypsilanti Farmers Market, in each step toward the future, is a step toward a living vision we have built together. Toward a vision of the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace as a community food hub, an anchor in the life of our city and of our local food system. A place where neighbors come together, build community, and leave united; all while gathering around food. The Ypsilanti Farmers Market is not purely about simple transactions. It’s about practicing what it looks like for a community to feed itself. It nurtures spaces where farmers can move their harvest and where small businesses can grow. The Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace is fostering that mid-week run-in with a neighbor, reminding us that we are not alone. We are grateful to the farmers, vendors, and partners who said yes to this. And we are grateful to our entire market team, who make it possible week after week, with devotion and creativity that continues to humble me. This spring, our Teen Leadership Program launched our second Seed Library, located at the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace, which is available to the community at every market. Because everyone deserves a chance to grow. Seeds hold within them the agricultural knowledge of generations, the food traditions of all of humankind. When we talk about seed sovereignty, we are not simply speaking about the practical reality of who controls the global seed supply (the four corporations that control 60% of the seed and pesticide supply). Rather, it goes a level deeper into the question of who and what gets to be remembered. "Farmers are literally archivists of the land." -Abena Offeh-Gyimah Seeds are stories. They are living reminders of all the ancestors who walked before us. When we save and share seeds, we are practicing reciprocity with Mother Earth, and with one another. The seed library that our teens built is just the beginning. Our hope is that it grows into a circular system . We dream of a future where the seed library at the farm and MarketPlace are filled with self-labeled packets of seeds saved from the harvest of our community. We dream of a food future that sits in the hands of the very community that tends it. This is seed rematriation in practice, and I’m excited to grow with you. In solidarity, Julius P.S. Your support makes this food system possible, whether it is financial, volunteer, or saving seeds; we’re in this together. Keep an eye out for future newsletters for a hands-on seed-saving workshop later this year.

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