For a Better World

Thank you for supporting this mill. Together, we are working toward building a sustainable food system here in the South. 

This past week pushed me to think deeply about what sustainable really means; that sustainable must also encompass equitable and accessible.

Our nation's food system has been built upon structural racism, as Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) so aptly states,  From the dispossession of indigenous people from their lands and the mass enslavement of black people for agricultural labor during this nation’s origin period, to today’s food system that relies predominantly on underpaid immigrant and migrant Latinx farm and food processing workers, our society has treated people of color with disdain and violence. And yet most Americans today wouldn’t be able to eat were it not for their labors. Compounding the injustice, this food system does not deliver equitable nourishment to black Americans, who are twice as likely to die from diabetes, and 2.5 times more likely to be food insecure, than white Americans.

For the month of June, we are contributing 5% of our online retail sales to Green Rural Redevelopment Organization  a non-profit founded in 2012 in Vance County, North Carolina, working in a 5-county region to revitalize North Carolina's rural communities through farm school and agricultural services, rural consulting, farming cooperatives, and other community programs. I spoke with founder, Ardis Crews, today. She'd spent the morning handing out tomato plants and seeds to her community, of course. Ardis can describe their work better than anyone, so Ive included the below video.