The Catskill Agrarian Alliance: Where Mutual Aid and Food Sovereignty Meet

The Catskill Agrarian Alliance is a non-profit organization based in the Catskills focused on increasing food sovereignty in the region by building connections between local farmers as well as to their consumers. Mutual aid serves as a guiding principle, alongside the belief that every person — regardless of income or zip code — has the right to healthy, culturally-relevant and sustainably-produced food. The Alliance oversees three major initiatives: their own agroecological farm Star Route Farm; 607 CSA, a whole-diet CSA made up of local farms in the Northern Catskills; and West Branch Commons, a community land trust that focuses on connecting up-and-coming BIPOC farmers to affordable farming land. Radio Catskill’s Julia Kim spoke with co-executive directors Tianna Kennedy and Francis Yu about the nonprofit's mission of mutual aid and food sovereignty, issues of food insecurity amid federal cuts and the USDA’s historical discrimination against BIPOC farmers.