Episode 19 - Rerooting Farms in the City

Growing our own food and supporting local farmers has multiple, interconnected benefits, and farms in the cities can play a powerful role in regional food systems. Soil is regenerated, human bodies and minds are nourished, emissions are reduced, local economies based on fair labour are supported, beauty flourishes in city environments, and communities are strengthened. All of this is possible - and in places like Sundance Harvest, abundant dreams like this already taken root. 

Guest Cheyenne Sundance is a self-taught farmer. She is the Farm Director of Sundance Harvest, an ecological farm in Toronto which she founded in 2019. This 1.5 acre farm in the city grows mushrooms, herbs, vegetables and fruit, and is centered on fair labour, soil health, knowledge sharing, and community building. Sundance Harvest is flourishing and focussing on scaling their model to provide more fair waged careers, especially for young Black and Indigenous people who would like to start a life in agriculture. Cheyenne runs a free urban agriculture program called Growing in the Margins, which nurtures and grows the farm projects of  BIPOC youth from seed to harvest. She sits on the executive board of the National Farmers Union, and she started the first BIPOC Farmers Caucus across Canada. 

To reroot is to root again, or in a new place in a better way. Cheyenne is showing how cultivating small-scale, sovereign farms like Sundance Harvest can root traditional agricultural practices in a better way in new places, like our cities. In today’s conversation, we explore city farming, burnout, imperfection, soil, seeds, self-sufficiency, food sovereignty, and connected communities.