Today we’d like to introduce you to R Roots Garden.
Hello R Roots Garden, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
R. Roots Garden began its operations at the start of the 2019 growing season as Guardin Roots, inspired by Mohamed Ojarigi’s play. Queen was given the opportunity to start an urban farm in the neighborhood that she grew up in that needed a change in the food landscape and better opportunities for the youth and its residents of the underserved community of North Minneapolis. Partnering with Appetite for Change, R. Roots Garden was tilled, seeded, and reaped a tremendous harvest that first year. Awaking the neighbors nearby to something truly positive taking place on a lot that stayed vacant for 15 years. The first year was met with challenges like the lack of financial resources, access to water, land ownership (displacement), culturally related seeds to purchase, lack of access to distribution chains to the very few local grocery stores, generational trauma with sharecropping and other food-related stories, public safety and the overwhelming presence of fast food in an urban city that is held captive to a food desert.
However, all Queen wanted to do was to revive her community through a conscious stream and she dedicated herself to growing food and teaching others how to grow food and feed themselves. Throughout our seasons we have created wonderful memories for a lot of people and built meaningful intergenerational relationships that will last beyond our lifetime. Our produce has been sold at the Broadway Farmer’s Market, Mississippi Mushroom Farmer’s Market, North Camden Farmer’s Market, and Storehouse grocer which provided us with a small budget to keep our operations going to see another season.
We have had the opportunity to share our story and vision for urban agriculture and we’ve participated in conversations about the historical policies and practices that prevent Black farmers of America from the right to an equitable future in agriculture at the Food Justice Summit in Duluth, MN (2019), at the National Young Farmers Convergence in Boulder, CO (2019) and with the Equity or Else Campaign with the Journey for Justice Alliance November 2021. We have been featured in many local news stories like ABC, KARE 11, & WCCO.
Our goal this next season is to continue the work that we have started. Intentionally, organizing a co-op to maximize the opportunity to provide sustainable jobs in Urban Agriculture and a centralized distribution of all the food grown on the Northside and to extend access to locally grown food year-round.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has definitely not been a smooth road due to politics which we were not aware could be present in growing and providing sustainable food.
The first year was met with challenges like the lack of financial resources, access to water, land ownership (displacement), culturally related seeds to purchase, lack of access to distribution chains to the very few local grocery stores, generational trauma with sharecropping and other food-related stories, public safety and the overwhelming presence of fast food in an urban city that is held captive to a food desert.
As you know, we’re big fans of R Roots Garden. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
R. Roots Garden is an urban farm that grows the best greens & green tomatoes, among other things but that’s what we specialize in. We host community events right in the garden but we are very intentional about how we do that. We like to invite local artists, open the mic and serve food either cooked from the garden or that is plant-based.
It is very important to us that we provide the community and all those that visit the garden a healthy food option because our garden is situated in a fast food-dense neighborhood. Our hope is that if we are dedicated, consistent and patient in our leadership that eventually, in our lifetime we will see health improvements in those that are in close proximity to the garden and that visit the garden. It is very important to us to not do charity work but to create change in the neighborhood that deserves to be seen and healed.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
In the next 5-10 years in urban agriculture, I see it becoming more popular and a vitally sustaining thing in underserved communities across the world. Using vacant, tax-delinquent land to create beautiful spaces that reconnect people to the earth and preserve their culture. However, I also see the gentrification of this movement to be renamed as something else and not utilizing the word Urban because of the geographical connotation and palette feel of its definition to those outside these communities as teams are being built right now to inform congress on the urban Agriculture/farm bills that are being presented in the legislature this year. What I mean here is that the US govt. is starting to see the value of Urban Ag, especially since 2020 and the uprising here in Minneapolis.
There is money that is associated with the farm bills and some of it is dedicated specifically to urban areas which are population and fast food dense and growing food, providing access is necessary for renewing the health of those that live in it but there is an opinion that if we change the language from Urban to something else more palatable, that it can include those that live in the suburbs and rural areas as well. This is okay but we know what happens when all the money goes into one pot and then we all apply for it. Those that have the infrastructure and access to the information will get access and use it whereas areas that lack infrastructure and support will get what is left when they find out. We need to make sure that the farm bill is equitable for all geographical locations to grow and provide a sustainable future for all.
Contact Info:
- Website: RRootsGarden.org
- Instagram: @RRootsGarden
