There are a number of organizations across the US that are advancing the causes of food justice, ecological restoration, and regenerative agriculture. There are also grass-roots lead movements fighting oppression and seeking to shift power all over the globe. Often these are groups led by people of color that do not receive the news, credit, or funding they deserve. As a community committed to furthering regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and right livelihood for people, we want to highlight and share some of these community-focused food and justice organizations with all of you. 

Here locally our beloved Susquehanna river and Appalachian neighbors have been under attack by unconventional gas exploration (aka fracking) for over a decade. The latest form in this harmful boom and bust economy is the construction of large pipelines to move the fracked gas to the coastal market for export overseas. Currently there are two major pipeline projects cutting through the river valley: the Atlantic Sunrise Project and Sunoco's Mariner East II pipeline. Our farm sits within 5 miles of both lines. Seeing the destruction and out of state work trucks is a daily reality for us. 

Once these pipelines are built they will allow more drilling to occur within the shale fields furthering ecological and public health degradation. In a recent compendium of studies compiled by Physicians for Social Responsibility, overwhelmingly "more than 80% document risks or actual harms caused by fracking". The negative effects include but are not limited to: increased rates of premature births and infant mortality, cancers, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, road accidents, worker sudden death episodes, and increased crime rates. The corporations leading these projects have clear-cut intact forests, taken private property by eminent domain, contaminated streams and drinking wells, and divided rural communities while bullying small family farmers into submission.

In 2016 the Holleran family lost 90% of their sugar bush, from which they farmed maple syrup in Susquehanna County, to the Constitution Pipeline which was never built. While non-violently defending their home U.S. marshals armed with automatic rifles arrived to assist the workers in felling the sugar maple trees. The Mohn's, organic hay farmers in Conestoga Township in Lancaster County, have filed against Williams Partners for violations against their contract for ignoring safeguards set in place to ensure they maintain their Organic Certification that they've worked many hard years to obtain and keep.

In Columbia County, Hearts and Bones Farm, a young family that operates a vegetable CSA outside of Bloomsburg, had to suspend their farming operation for the 2018 season until pipeline construction is complete. The pipeline will cut straight through their market garden and green house, and trenched across Fishing Creek in their backyard. Once a bucolic setting to raise their children, steward the land, and live the good life, their livelihood has been literally uprooted. All of these farmers had their land seized by eminent domain for corporate profit. Lancaster Farmland Trust, in a statement read at a rally last year, said the pipeline would "impact the county's farm families and diminish the value of preserved farms in its path".

Resistance in the river hills has been empowering, though. An on-going tree-sit in Huntingdon County within the Gerhart family's preserved forest, called Camp White Pine, has been blocking the Mariner East II line for over a year. An order of Catholic Nun's in Columbia, PA, the Adorer's of the Blood of Christ, have been hosting non-denominational vigils at a small hand built chapel where the Atlantic Sunrise crosses their property and have filed for an injunction to the federal court to halt operations in accordance with their faith. Lancaster Against Pipelines have been organizing and leading the county in mass participatory non-violent direct action. They've hosted a myriad of training's, speaking events, sit-in's, blockades, demonstrations, an encampment, and organized with CELDF (Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund) attempting to advance the rights of townships and give the power to the people and the land.

Although there's been a lot going on, it never seems to be enough when facing a seemingly impossible opponent like multi-national corporations who have so much leverage over the government agencies who are supposed to be regulating them. Fossil fuel pipeline infrastructure isn't just a local issue. The majority of exploitative land grabs are happening to Indigenous peoples, as we can recall the Dakota Sioux having their treaty broken and calling for support at Standing Rock. Currently the Ramapough-Lenape have been maintaining the Split Rock Sweetwater Prayer Camp on their ancestral lands in so-called Mahwah, NJ, along the proposed path of the Pilgrim Pipeline. There are many resistance campaigns like these in North America and around the world working hard to put an end to invasive energy consumption.

It is important to act both as hospice for the dying system that's grasping to hold control, and as midwives for the birth of the new dawn. Every one of us has a role to fill right now to defend the land for generations to come. Whether its donating money/supplies, attending a rally, calling Governor Wolf demanding a moratorium, doing door to door canvassing, learning how to monitor workers at job sites, being a legal observer at a direct action protest, or one of the brave folks putting their body on the line, your help is needed. Please take time to check out the links provided, ask yourself what you have to offer, and find out how you can plug in or donate.

There are a number of organizations across the US that are advancing the causes of food justice, ecological restoration, and regenerative agriculture. Often these are groups led by people of color that do not receive the news, credit, or funding they deserve. As a community committed to furthering regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and right livelihood for people, we want to highlight and share some of these community-focused food and justice organizations with all of you.  

The Black Permaculture Network and the National Black Food and Justice Alliance are two such groups. I encourage you to look at some of the work they are doing, support their causes, and offer any resources you can make available. Reading the Black Permaculture Network Solidarity Statement is a great place to start!

http://www.blackpermaculturenetwork.org
http://www.blackfoodjustice.org/about