Farming in the Margins: Diasporic Preservation and Ecological Resilience brings together diasporic farmers, seedkeepers, land stewards, and food justice activists to explore how farming can preserve cultural knowledge and memory.
About the Participants:
Mandana Boushee: Bridging land, plants, and poetry, Mandana Boushee’s work weaves together the wisdom of ecology, community organizing, and the power of storytelling, drawing on two decades of experience as an earth worker, ethnobotanist, writer, educator, and community herbalist. Whether through her care work as an herbalist, her advocacy for farmers through the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, or her poetry, the heart-mycelium feeding Mandana’s work remains clear: to connect, heal, and protect through the land and the stories that shape it.
Aliana Ruxin: Ali (she/her) stewards two farm sites with the Red Hook Farms team in Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY. A founding member of the Iraqi Seed Collective, she grows and shares Iraqi seeds and their stories with other Iraqi and SWANA heritage growers in diaspora. She also organizes with food, farm, and hospitality worker collective FIG NYC. Ali’s favorite thing to grow this year was ta’roozi, a crunchy, slightly sweet Iraqi cucumber.
Francis Yu: Francis Yu is a queer Asian-American farmer (Star Route Farm) and a food systems + land access practitioner (West Branch Commons). They have a background in urban planning and policy and currently serve as an Adjunct Professor at NYU Wagner School of Public Service teaching about the intersections of race, class, gender, and the history of public policy and segregation in our cities. They enjoy cooking, hiking and foraging, and developing a poetry and writing practice. Francis has roots in Manila, Philippines, and in occupied Patwin territory (Vallejo, California).
West Branch Commons (WBC) is dedicated to advancing equitable land access as a community land trust. At its core, WBC’s mission is to provide secure, affordable land access to marginalized farmers, using an agroecological approach that de-commodifies land and promotes long-term stewardship. It seeks to do so on 287 acres of farmland in Delancey, Delaware County, New York currently owned by American Farmland Trust. WBC works with constellation of resources to educate the public and farmer lessees on farm viability, regional collaboration, and intergenerational knowledge transfer.
Yemi Amu: Yemi Amu is the Founder and Director of Oko Urban Farms, Inc. In 2013 she established NYC’s first and only publicly accessible outdoor aquaponics farm – The Oko Farms Aquaponics Farm and Education Center. She directs all of Oko Farms’ programs including education, design/build projects and community related activities. Yemi is one of NYC’s leading aquaponics experts and is a committed educator. Over the past decade, she has facilitated the creation and maintenance of over 20 edible spaces throughout NYC; created and implemented various culinary, nutrition and gardening programs for both youth and adults; and promotes aquaponics as a tool for environmental awareness and stewardship. Yemi has a M.A. in Health and Nutrition Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2021, Yemi became part of the inaugural cohort of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab created by Theaster Gates and Prada.