🌸May Newsletter🌸
Happy Spring and happy full flower moon! We hope you’re all feeling as energised and grateful as we are to the budding flowers and sprouting green leaves. We’ve got some exciting upcoming events, and we hope to see you there!
It’s been a busy two months for us as we hosted the first of several Fallow workshop and began mulching and seeding at our new growing space in Glengall Wharf - we can’t wait to share it with you all. We had a fruitful retreat in Wales, delving deep into firming up our land strategy work. This blissful time was immediately followed by two in-person days developing our care, conflict and governance strategy. The past months have reiterated what we are working for in London - the importance of Black and people of colour using nature as a space for rest, dreaming, and trust in our process as we build alternative structures to what capitalism and austerity have to offer in Britain right now.
Updates
Dandelion Growing Space
We’ve spent the last month mulching and watering our beds at Glengall Wharf Gardens in preparation for planting our seedlings! Some of the seedlings we’ve planted so far include squash, courgettes and corn in our outdoor beds, and scotch bonnet, pimiento de puebla and sweet potato in our polytunnel beds.
In honour of our love for flowers and all things that stubbornly continue to grow, we’ve named this project our Dandelion Growing Space (we also think it’s a brilliant pun!). We’ll be welcoming some of you to the space for our second Fallow Session on June 2nd. We also aim to host monthly volunteering sessions, so stay tuned, and a bigger social later this summer! We’re looking forward to being able to be with you all in the gorgeous growing space!
Jumping Fences Retreat
As part of phase 2 of our Jumping Fences project, earlier this month, six of us travelled to Braich Goch Inn in Corris to spend some time reaffirming our values and working on our land strategy. During our retreat, we explored the process of buying land, asset locks, land governance etc., with Naomi Terry (author of the Jumping Fences report) facilitating many of these discussions, alongside Sam.
After spending so much time on zoom over the last few years, it felt like a blessing to be able to spend so many days in-person together. In between working on our land strategy, it was so joyful to have downtime to be able to truly connect with each other by playing board games, finding waterfalls, and exploring river swims & beaches. It was a delight to work together with an expansive sense of time.
We also had great fun connecting & learning from our dear friends at the Anne Matthews Trust, as well as putting our hands to good use during drumming sessions and in their garden.
Threaded through our chats on reparations, decolonisation and land purchase were local land justice issues, language preservation & the scourge of second homes in mid-Wales. Stay tuned on our instagram for more pictures and reflections from the retreat!
Fallow Soil Meditation
Thank you so much to all of you who joined us with our first Fallow workshop with our wonderful friend and facilitator Dre. It was so nourishing to be able to spend time reconnecting with the earth through a soil meditation, and we’re so thankful for the care and deep consideration that each of you brought to the space. We’re looking forward to spending more time healing and connecting with both the land and with our community through our upcoming Fallow sessions!
Visit to North Aston Organics
As part of our Uplifting Underrepresented Voices collaboration project with OOTL and Farmerama, we spent the day at @organicsnorthaston , luckily the spring sunshine arrived just in time! Thanks so much to Rachel who gave us a fab tour and a lot of juicy farm machinery chat. And thanks to everyone from our OOTL, LION and Farmerama networks who came along. It's always such a treat to be able to gather together and share food, knowledge and inspiration with you all.
Events
Fallow - Community Care for Black and People of Colour - June 2nd | 4pm - 6pm
LION and Dre Ferdinand are back for our second ever Fallow workshop. These workshops centre wellness practices and provide a space to meet and connect with others too. This session we will be outdoors in Glengall Wharf Gardens where we invite you to engage your senses to explore ways of observing nature. This experience is an invitation to deepen your relationship with the land, develop an understanding of ecological processes, and foster a stronger sense of place and belonging.
Fallow is a series of community care workshops for BPOC Earthworkers. This can include herbalists, growers and foresters, fisherfolk, conservationists, nature-connectors and so on. We also want to prioritise organisers in climate, food, land and racial justice and anyone who organises in these intersections and more. And more than anything, we welcome anyone who is interested in connecting to the land (earth, water, air), to food and farming and the ways that they all intersect with racial justice - which if you support/follow us - you probably are!
Reserve your space with a pay-what-you-can donation ticket here - No one turned away for lack of funds! If you need a free spot please drop us an email here sam@landinournames.community.
Opportunities and Resources
CALLOUT FOR RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS: UNPAID WORK ON AGROECOLOGICAL FARMS
Do you have an opinion about unpaid work on agroecological farms? Nell Benney is a PhD researcher at Lancaster University, an active member of the trade union Solidarity Across Land Trades (SALT) and a previous farmworker, paid and unpaid.
Unpaid work for this project means:
Volunteers and stipend trainees / interns
Farmers labouring below minimum wage on their own projects.
This research project is looking to understand the cultural and economic reasons for unpaid work on agroecological farms in the UK, with the aim of providing recommendations to improve working conditions.
Nell is looking for research participants who would like to be interviewed about this topic. No experience of farm work necessary. If either of the following apply Nell would love to hear from you:
You have participated in a volunteer scheme, an unpaid work exchange, or a stipend traineeship
You have seen this work, but have been unable to participate in it
To register your interest, and receive more information, fill in this form or contact n.benney@lancaster.ac.uk
Finding What Is Ours: Recovery, Repair and Cognitive Justice, a Symposium
Decolonsing the Archives is holding a one-day, in-person symposium amplifying ongoing work to recognise, reclaim and develop African heritage knowledge systems. Through enslavement, colonisation and their legacies our lands, our knowledge systems, our cultures, our languages, our communities, our families and so much more are scarred in ways that impact not only ourselves, but the planet we all live on. We must collectively recover, invent and develop systems, techniques and approaches rooted in our own cultural frameworks and understandings. The Finding What Is Ours symposium is an opportunity to reflect on and to stimulate this important work.
Market Gardening Camp Out
Soul Farm is holding a camp out to learn best practices, tools, techniques, and strategies from a range of market gardeners. Learn from a range of market gardeners including Jean-Martin Fortier and Andy Dibben. Spend two days learning, meeting new people, and having a good time!
Sowing the Seeds of Stability: The case for basic income for farmers, farmworkers and food producers in the UK
After 18 months laying the groundwork for this moment, BI4FARMERS has shared their first discussion paper, produced in collaboration with The Basic Income Conversation and Autonomy. Their work draws upon four sessions with farmers and growers about their lived experience and research on basic income and the UK farming sector. It outlines the current challenges in UK farming, how a basic income could uniquely meet the needs of farmers and perhaps most importantly, lays out the key areas and big questions the work to date has highlighted that should form the basis of further work.
Crowdfunder to support people resisting immigration raids, detention and forced transfers to Bibby Stockholm
Over the last month, people across London have come together to support and care for their neighbours and residents seeking asylum who have been at risk of being forcibly taken to the inhumane prison barge, the Bibby Stockholm, targeted by immigration raids and detained at reporting centres. Unfortunately, and in the face of police and immigration enforcement violence, more than 50 people have been arrested and detained by police, while a number of our friends at hostels have become unhoused or faced other repercussions from the Home Office.
Our friends deserve care and community. We reject the Home Office attempts to prevent this. Many of them are already rooted in the local communities, attending education and volunteering for local charities. We want to be able to support them to continue to build their lives in their community and to receive the care they deserve.
Merch
We’ve been working hard on getting ready to launch the next stage of our land strategy. You can support us with our aim of buying land by donating directly to us, or purchasing a T-shirt, tote, zine or badge. All proceeds from these sales will go directly to our land pot, which will fund the buying of land as well as all the other infrastructures we will need on the land too.
We also have a limited number of Huatli prints which goes directly to Red de Amaranto, a community network of agroecological amaranth growers, producers, vendors and consumers. They are working to develop a solidarity economy and healthier food system. Money raised will go towards their 'verano de la nutrición', a space for young people to gather, cook and enjoy amaranth together.
“A World Without Racism: Building Anti-Racist Futures”
IN PRINT: “A World Without Racism: Building Anti-Racist Futures”, is an anthology featuring a chapter Josina co-wrote with At The Root on growing an anti-racist land justice movement here.
You can also check out the Ministry of Imagination manifesto featuring LION members & an extraordinary collection of possibility-infused policies.
While Spring is on us, we want to reaffirm solidarity with Gaza, and all indigenous earth stewards in Palestine currently persecuted & under siege. Participating in events which connect us to global struggles feels especially important right now. We’re proud of LION member Dee attending the #Nyeleni regional gathering of food sovereignty partners in Istanbul and Josina representing LION in convenings on land reparations and developing knowledge exchange between agriculture and architecture.
Wishing you ease & abundance,
Land in Our Names