Someone I love dearly is an avid writer. They write about everything - their funky thoughts, food (they wrote a whole two pages on eggplants) and about the world. When I am with them, a line from the musical Hamilton comes to mind when Eliza says, “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” This person fills up notebooks with their dreams consistently. This same person once wrote: Love is best shown through little consistencies. 

I have not been able to get those words out of my head. 

Many individuals I speak to day to day in the urban agricultural world say they love the land and the earthworkers who steward it. I feel the same way. I then think: what little consistencies do I practice to show the land I love her? That I appreciate her earthworkers?  How do we embody little, loving consistencies for agriculture in our daily lives? 

Farmers within our communities often face many of the same barriers year to year: from land theft to lack of water access, on top of historic processes of agricultural exclusion on the basis of citizenship status, ability, sexuality, and skin color. Farmers show up to grow consistently, despite and through these barriers - now we have the opportunity to show up for them. 

Over the course of the last year, AUA has undertaken work to distribute grants to farmers throughout Chicagoland. Recently, we launched this survey, in partnership with the Harvard School of Education, to pinpoint funding barriers and identify how we can best support the farmers who keep our city fed. As part of this initiative, we are recruiting for a BIPOC focus group.to discuss systemic barriers to funding access for farmers of color*. This has been a long and ongoing process, filled with generative conversations with wonderful producers throughout the region - these are AUA’s little consistencies.

We invite you to join us by supporting our farmer support initiatives today. 

With care and love (through little consistencies), 

Bea and the AUA team 

*Interested in the BIPOC focus group? Please email Bea Fry at Bea@auachicago.org by 3/24/21 to receive information on how to participate!