A quick update and offerings🌿
Staying Rooted in 2022
January seems to be flying by! We came back from our time off straight into an online Oxford Real Farming Conference. We had co-programmed the justice room with Shared Assets and it was really beautiful watching all the different talks and workshops. We'll be updating our website with all the talks that we were in so stay tuned. We are really excited to slow down and turn inwards this year as we make plans, source more core funding, and continue to nurture and support our ongoing projects and networks. Anyway there's a bunch of cool things we want to share with yous below and we'll make sure to give the full rundown of what's going on with us soon!
Events Featuring LION
Frontlines: Land and the Climate Crisis (Facebook event page here)
Land both contributes and is affected by climate change. It is the frontlines of the climate crisis, it’s where livelihoods, resources and inherited knowledge are fought for against industrial extraction and privatisation, the militarism of imperial ventures, and colonialism’s erasure of indigenous epistemologies. This conversation asks how land is central to efforts to both deepen and circumvent the crisis? For this next #ReconstructionWork event the Stuart Hall Foundation will welcome two leading climate activists to share their experiences, imaginings and reflections around land and the climate crisis.
Tuesday 18th January from 6pm - 7:15pm | BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE
Food Growing Jobs with Ubele
Ubele is looking for a Lead Grower to take up the challenge of planning, development and managing the growing sites that will produce fresh produce for the Black Rootz food growing enterprise, based at Wolves Lane. The deadline to apply is 24 January 2022. Apply here.
Ubele is also looking for a skilled and dynamic food Grower to work alongside their Lead Grower. The grower would ideally have a training qualification and a minimum of one year’s practical experience as a grower a chemical-free, organic commercial enterprise and a commitment to regenerative practices. Apply here.
Building a Formalised Union in Agroecology
LION is sharing an invite to an open meeting on Wednesday 26th Jan at 6-7pm to discuss the possibility of building a more formalised workers’ union in the growing and landwork sector.
There have been a few exciting conversations happening around this recently at various gatherings and conferences, which you may have been a part of.
There now seems enough energy, need, and support to take the ideas discussed further and make them a reality. The aim is to develop a union to improve accountability in the sector, strengthen workers’ rights, organise for racial justice, and improve working conditions, particularly for those who experience oppression.
The Rootz into Food Growing Report recently showed how inaccessible and harmful the sector can be for Black people and People of Colour as a result of normalised low-to-no-pay labour, discrimination, cultures of burn out, exploitation, and gatekeeping that are prevalent in white led organisations.
We want to build a union that challenges these things, is anti-racist, practices transformative justice, offers healing and supports expanding communities of BPOC growers.
We would love your help. If you are a non-management level employee, trainee, freelancer or volunteer in the agroecological sector who would like to be involved with this in any way then please do join us for a meeting on 26th Jan via this zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82858345216.
The zoom call will be open from 5:30 if you’d like to join a bit earlier to ground with us before the meeting at 6pm. We’ll also stay on till around 7:30 for a short debrief / check out for anyone that needs it. Please let us know if you’d like to come by sending a short reply to this email.
For some more detail on what we might be discussing, please see the agenda here. You are also welcome to add to it with any points you’d like to discuss.
In solidarity,
Hari, Zoe, and Jo
(This is an independent project that LION is sharing but not involved in organising or planning)