b'asked & answered ROOTED IN RACISMHow does anti-racism intersect with food access?Thats a really big question. We did write a guide for farmers who are interested in making their food accessible to low-income people. Its called Sowing the Seeds of Food Justice. You can find it on the soulfirefarm.org publications page. Its free, and it talks about how to stay financially viable while making your food accessible. I will talk about strategies that Soul Fire Farm has used because, obviously, we have a food justice mission. One is for our vegetables, weve used whats called a sliding-scale CSA. And I want to shout out Black farmer Booker T.I was struck by the use Whatley for inventing the CSA,of the phrase food or Community Supportedapartheid in your book. Agriculture, which at theHow did you come to it?time was called the ClienteleWell, Karen Washington, Membership Club. Its basicallywho I think you got to talk to a subscription service whererecently, shes the one who you pay either upfront or ontaught me that term. Shes a a regular basis, and then getmentor of mine, a wonderful a weekly share of vegetables,Black farmer at Rise and Root meats, fruits, eggs, right? WeFarm and the founder of the allocate about half the sharesBlack Urban Growers network. to people who are middleAnd she corrected me when income, and theyre paying aI used the term food desert, little more than market value.which the government uses And about half for peopleto define a census tract that who are low income, whois low income and where its are paying less than marketa distance to a supermarket. value. So it shakes out, right?But, of course, a desert Thats one model that weveis a natural ecosystem. Its used. In the time of COVID,this phenomenon that arises weve actually had such anbeautifully, really, out of increase in food insecurity inthe whole climatic shifts of our area that we have shiftedthe planet. Theres nothing so that were actually, this year,natural about a whole bunch giving away 100% of our food. of people not having enough 12| SPRING 2021'