Wednesday, June 12th 2024
(130 New Scotland Ave, Albany, NY 12208) & Virtual
Steph Wiley
Brooklyn Packers
Steph is dedicated to ensuring that every New Yorker can access healthy food through his worker-owned food distribution cooperative, Brooklyn Packers. His focus is on creating neighborhood food hubs that connect BIPOC farms and aggregators with communities in need. These hubs improve health and economic outcomes while promoting better nutrition. By envisioning worker-owned hubs encompassing wholesale, retail, and agriculture businesses, he creates abundant job opportunities and ensures year-round access to fresh, local, affordable, and culturally relevant food for all New Yorkers. By addressing basic needs and fostering community connections, Steph believes these hubs can foster more resilient neighborhoods that thrive.
Speaking In:
QT*BIPOC-led Food Supply Chains: Disrupting Racism in NYS Food Systems
In recent years, it has become clear that systematic racism has a negative impact on New York’s agriculture and food systems. In New York, nearly 97.7% of producers reporting full ownership of farm operations identify as white. As a result, of New York’s 57,865 farmers, only 1.2% are Queer and Trans and Black, Indigenous and other farmers of color (QT*BIPOC). White farmers are also the only demographic group with an average size, net cash farm income, and farm-related income higher than the state average of $42,875, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture. Additionally, diet-related diseases are the leading cause of death in Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color in NY in the last two decades. Thus, a disconnect between culturally appropriate food produced by the farmers with the ancestral knowledge of those crops and its accessibility, both physically and economically, has decreased food and nutrition security, rural economic development, and environmental sustainability. In this panel, we will learn more about the collaborative approaches and partnerships developed by emergents QT*BIPOC-led food supply chains grounded in solidarity economy and food sovereignty.
3:00 p.m.
Froman 101
Wednesday, June 12th 2024
(130 New Scotland Ave, Albany, NY 12208) & Virtual