On May 25th CFF partnered with five other philanthropic organizations to host a funder briefing titled Elevating and Mobilizing Voices from Across New York to Advocate for an Equitable 2023 Farm Bill.
The session highlighted a statewide organizing campaign that engaged over 300 New Yorkers to create a NYS Farm Bill Platform. The leaders of the campaign, Equity Advocates, Black Farmers United NYS, and Food for the Spirit, prioritized outreach to and participation of BIPOC farmers, producers, and practitioners. The resulting policy platform represents a collective voice from NYS community food leaders, farmers, gardeners, land stewards, producers, & advocates.
Bronwyn Starr of New York Health Foundation, one of the event’s co-sponsors and a supporter of this work, opened the meeting with an explanation of how this campaign fits into the overall funding strategy of her foundation.
Then Leah Eden, Co-founder and Executive Director of Equity Advocates, offered an overview of the Farm Bill and its central importance to food and farming efforts across the nation.
From there, three leaders of the organizing campaign talked about their efforts and the resulting policy proposals. Iyeshima Harris-Ouedraogo and Khadhazha Welch of Equity Advocates, and Rebekah Williams of Food for the Spirit explained how other coalitions working nationally on Farm Bill priorities focus on entire bill, while their platform hones in on three titles they believe have the most leverage to impact the priorities they heard about during their outreach.
The session closed with a moderated panel discussion followed by questions from the audience.
The slides used are visible in the video below, but you can also download them here, as well as the speaker bios. See below for additional resources mentioned and shared as part of this meeting.
The following time markers can be used to jump around to different sections of the video:
- Start: Welcome and intro by Adam Liebowitz, CFF Director
- 4:25 – Funder intro by Bronwyn Starr, New York Health Foundation
- 7:35 – Farm Bill overview and framing by Leah Eden, Equity Advocates
- 19:00 – Team presentation on the organizing campaign and resulting policy platform
- 37:00 – Full team panel discussion
- 56:15 – Q&A
Resources
- The NY Farm Bill campaign website
- Short Farm Bill primer video created by NSAC in 2018
- An explainer article on the 2023 Farm Bill by Lisa Held of Civil Eats
- The La Semilla Zine where the artwork for the slides came from
- This opinion piece by Charles Madlock on the 2023 Farm Bill was discussed during the presentation
- The speakers also mentioned the current push to pass the Good Food NY bill