We are announcing the launch of our nonprofit The Catskills Agrarian Alliance which we’ve been secretly developing over the past 1.5 years. The nonprofits brings the work we’ve been doing for many years together to promote our local food/mutual-aid movement, which have all been ways we attempt to intervene in a food system predicated on a corporate feudal system. Specifically, The Catskills Agrarian Alliance encompasses (1) Community Organizing & Mutual Aid (2) Land access for BIPOC farmers (3) sustainable food production and alternative distribution and (4) farm to school work.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS! This past year we grew and donated 17,543# of food to our partners with the help of your donations, sales, events,  and grants! It was also the first time we farmed with a majority BIPOC crew including @iridiscentearthcollective. We grew black beans, potatoes, garlic, at our new forever-farm we purchased in 2021. Nuestra Mesa held weekly farm stands in the city with Mexicano Unidos and La Morich with free produce  and cooked food, to further active community support for a more food-sovereign world. Over the 2022-2023 school year, the CAA distributed 30,000 pounds of local product to K-12 schools across the region.

While grassroots initiatives build local food economies and  local models of food production can sustainably meet peoples needs, small-scale, ecologically-based farming is in direct opposition to global agribusiness and receives no funding from the USDA. The Catskills Agrarian Alliance is our fighting strategy towards real diversity at every level and hopefully a story about strengthening  ecological responsibility in a world characterized by ongoing environmental/social irresponsibility.