A preview from our 2024 NOFA Symposium speaker

By: Annie Sholar

On March 29th and 30th, the NOFA Virtual Symposium will bring together featured keynote speakers from across the Northeast to talk about important topics in agriculture and our food system.

NOFA/Mass is honored to present Deborah Leta Habib, of Seeds of Solidarity in Orange, MA, as our keynote speaker at the Symposium.

Seeds of Solidarity began over 25 years ago with a mission to awaken the power among people of all ages–from toddlers to teens to people who are incarcerated– to Grow Food Everywhere to transform hunger to health, and create resilient lives and communities. The non-profit runs alongside Deb and her partner Ricky Baruch’s agroecological farm.

We spoke with Deb about her work and her upcoming presentation. Read on to be inspired!

PLUS: after the interview, we feature Deb’s tip about growing salad greens in a kitchen tool you probably already have!

NOFA/Mass: You’ve talked about how staying rooted in community is one of the core values for Seeds of Solidarity. Can you share how that value shows up for you in your work?

Deb: I would say that in all the pieces of our work – which includes the Seeds of Solidarity non-profit, and a separate family farm, and the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival – all that work comes from a core value of starting small, being creative, and taking important risks for the things you believe in and then finding others with whom you work well and effectively to expand your vision and then growing outward from there. I think sometimes people feel like they have to take on a massive thing to make a farm work – they’ll go into debt because if they don’t have a ton of machinery, they don’t feel like they’re real farmers. Or in non-profit organizations, people jump to every grant that they see and can sometimes lose sight of their mission, or worse, swallow the work of other, grassroots organizations without acknowledging those smaller nonprofits.

I like the phrase, “moving at the speed of trust.” I’ve not found confirmation of the original source, but I’ve heard it used more and more in thoughtful community organizing work. To me, that means focusing on building relationships and partnerships in the community. I think it’s key to really take the time to be present in your relationships and partnerships, and to be thoughtful about your actions, or programs, or farm products, whatever it is. Especially in smaller communities, whether rural or urban or whatever, building relationships is essential, because word travels fast. If you take the time to really build thoughtful reciprocal relationships, word of that gets around. On the other hand, if you make promises you can’t keep or. step on people’s toes or approach things with a lot of arrogance, that travels fast, too. It’s easy to move too fast and do too much and think too big and then the ego gets involved and it’s hard to repair when those things happen. It’s important to first, start with making sure your values are intact. I think it’s especially important for people who have more privilege in this society, be it skin color privilege or language privilege or class privilege to not take up too much space.

Can you tell us about the Grow Food Everywhere program and mission?

Seeds of Solidarity  started on land where people said, “Oh, they will never be able to grow food here because it doesn’t look anything like a farm.” The reason we ended up here is because it was essentially the only thing we could afford. Before starting Seeds of Solidarity, my husband was a co-owner on a 20 acre organic farm in upstate New York where it was much more typical looking farmland: deep rich topsoil, flatness, all of that. But where we are now, we had to figure out how to really build soil from the ground up if we were going to make it as farmers. There was nothing to go down into, and we didn’t have much land.

That’s why I think what we do is also really applicable to urban settings – where you have to think, well, how am I going to grow intensively from the ground up?

Grow Food Everywhere is our tagline and we use it a lot for our work, both in our teaching about farming methods and in our programs where we work within communities to support people in growing food in all kinds of settings for themselves, for their families, for their organizations, what have you.

The “grow food everywhere” concept is that we have to decentralize food production in all our communities to make fresh food more accessible, and we have to figure out how to use no-till, climate resilient practices to both keep food affordable and sequester carbon rather than continue to release it into the environment.

We have to make the places we live better than when we found them. A lot of destruction has been done through colonizer mentality and consumptive, capitalist ways of being. I think that one way we can participate in remedying that – one of many needed ways – is by building beautiful, healthy soil that is both good for people and the land and the atmosphere.

Can you give us a preview of what you’ll be speaking about at the upcoming NOFA Virtual Symposium on March 29th, in your session titled “Passion, Purpose, and Fresh Paradigms?”

What I hope to do is focus on the importance of everyone – be it individuals or couples or organizations – really spending time to think about, “what are your values?” What’s your niche in this larger ecosystem, what does the world need now?

It doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s; just really think about what your contribution is to your community and the planet at this time.

The presentation will include images of what we have done at Seeds of Solidarity with values at the center, followed by conversation where people can think about and share their own process and values, in a creative and forward-thinking way. And, think about how those values contribute to fresh paradigms.

Fresh, not new. I was intentional to not use “new” in my title, because nothing that’s happening or needed now is particularly new. At this time, we’re in a particular state of humanity-induced climate related crisis, where we need to take some kind of bold but meaningful steps to do things differently.

I mean, it’s easy for the small farm dream to turn into a chaotic, massive, consumerist project, becoming all about branding and quickbooks and all that stuff. It’s easy to lose sight of why we’re really doing things in the first place.

We wrote our book, Making Love While Farming, thinking about these kinds of things and wanting to make a guidebook, a workbook, for thinking through these topics, relationships and values.

It is easy, especially for new farmers, to fixate on informational workshops, and the how-tos.

Meanwhile, relationships fall apart, and physical and mental health suffers. It is vitally important to balance work with wellbeing, and seek support when needed.

I hope that this topic appeals to people, especially people who are always going to the “how to.” Because we can do the “how to,” but the “how to” is not going to sustain us for the long haul as farmers and community workers.

It’s the “who with” and the “why” and the fresh ways of working together and the partnerships and the love and so much more that’s going to sustain us for the long haul.

Grow Food Everywhere

As part of their Grow Food Everywhere mission, Seeds of Solidarity wrote a Recipes for Wellness booklet highlighting simple, accessible tips for growing and eating good, local food.

Included is this great idea: grow your own salad greens in a colander!

A colander is deep enough so small plants can grow, and the holes provide good drainage.

Here’s How:

1. Use a spare metal or plastic colander – look for one in thrift stores or yard sales!

2. Fill the colander with organic potting mix or garden soil and moisten it well.

3. Sprinkle your favorite salad green seeds (like lettuce, arugula, or mustard greens) over the top of the soil. Mix and match – choose the greens you like to eat most!

4. Cover the seeds lightly with more soil, and water gently.

5. Place the colander in a sunny spot, indoors or on a porch.

6. Gently water the colander every day until you see seeds starting to sprout. Then, water every other day or just enough to keep the soil moist but not soaking.

7. When the greens are about 2 inches high, trim them and enjoy!

8. Don’t pull the plants out just yet – continue to water the colander and they’ll regrow, perhaps a few times!

You can also use this method for growing herbs like basil and parsley, seeding only 1-2 plants per colander.