The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute Equity and Justice Statement

The Berry Center Farm & Forest Institute is committed to serving diverse populations, including people of color, veterans, rural residents, first-generation college students, queer students, and folks underrepresented in farming. We depend on diversity to address the Farm & Forest Institute’s most pressing question: How can we foster inclusive, land-conserving communities in which people can afford to farm well?

To begin answering this question, we recognize a history of violence against the land and the people. We take stock of the roots of racism, sexism, and classism--of the “inordinate desire to be superior” and the “wish to rise above the bother and sweat of taking care of anything,” as Wendell Berry writes in “Racism and the Economy.” 

We envision resilient, healthy, inclusive communities by cultivating neighborly leaders, cooperative economies, and equitable cultures. This requires diversity: of ecology, race, gender, age, marketing, economics, history, religion, education, and political affiliations. So we call together farmers who produce for conventional markets and those who farm for alternative markets. We work to close gaps between rural and urban. We hold up at the front of our learning spaces as much as possible, people underrepresented in farming, people disenfranchised from and often beleaguered by agricultural institutions and practices.