Food sovereignty is one of three guiding nonprofit initiatives that make up our mission here at the Kearsarge Food Hub. It is the ability for a community to have control over its own food supply, and for all neighbors to have both access to that food and a say in how it's grown and distributed based on that community’s values. Food sovereignty is empowerment to care for and connect all the elements that come together to feed and nourish us.
We believe food sovereignty begins with our local farmers.
Farmers are on the front lines of land stewardship and food security. They tend to our resources, their farms and practices have the power to preserve and care for our local lands, they produce the foods we all need to survive - and thrive.
Right now, our farmers are struggling and they need our support.
Last week at our Love Local: Meet your farmers and makers event, we heard from Aaron Lichtenberg of Winni Woods Farm. Winni Woods is based in the Lakes Region here in New Hampshire. They used to grow a lot of vegetables for farmers markets and CSA’s. Due to an abrupt shift in land use, they now focus on cut flowers and jarred goods that they create from vegetables sourced from partnering farms at a shared processing facility called Genuine Local.
Winni Woods has struggled in ways that many small farms do these days. For Aaron, the challenges they face all comes down to access:
“If I were to boil it down to one word, it would be access. It’s access to land and access to markets. We’re still currently on a land lease, so access to land is a big issue for us in wanting to find a farm of our own. The access to markets you know, trying to find enough time and enough space to run a busy flower farm and get all of our jarred goods out into the marketplace.”
The 2017 National Young Farmer Survey found land access to be the number one challenge that young farmers and ranchers face. This is especially true for BIPOC farmers. “Across the country, climbing land prices and competition with the development market have made it increasingly difficult for farmers to find land they can afford—over the last decade the average cost of farm real estate has more than doubled.”
Aaron makes another good point that it’s not just access to land that’s a challenge for farmers, but access to markets as well. This has been cited time and again by our partners as a top challenge in our local food system. That is why we created Sweet Beet Market as a key service of our nonprofit work here at the Kearsarge Food Hub. It’s a way to offer a consistent, reliable, year round marketplace for our producers, while creating food access for the community.
At Sweet Beet Market, we bring in products from 100+ partnering New Hampshire-based producers of all kinds. We take extra care to protect and convey the story of the products through things like source identifying signs and robust communications highlighting products and farmers. But the truth is no one can market their product like the farmer or maker can. That’s why we invested the time into creating the Love Local: Meet your farmers and makers event, and why we aim to do more work like that in the future.
We think it’s so important to use our platform to shine a light on our local producers and give them an opportunity to tell their own stories.
The impact that our recent Love Local event had on our featured farmers and makers is greater than we hoped it could be. Creating this opportunity to share stories helps tap into our collective potential to overcome challenges and become more connected.
Aaron reflects on the event:
“My personal experience of the event was one of wonder and amazement. That's not hyperbole! Most days I generally keep to my endless "work silo" and consequently lose touch with all the great things happening around our state. Kearsarge Food Hub's commitment to highlighting, and supporting, local producers of all types around the State of NH reinvigorated my participation in the local goods network. It reminded me that I am not alone. That we're all out there struggling together to make our communities more connected, and we're all stronger for it.”
Supporting farmers. Connecting our community. Strengthening the local food system in service to food sovereignty. These are central functions to our nonprofit work here at the Kearsarge Food Hub.