Dear Community & Friends,
The Community Agroecology Network (CAN) works in close collaboration with Tierras Milperas. Since 2015 our youth group, Growing Justice, has worked alongside campesino families in food justice efforts and reconnecting to their agricultural traditions in community gardens. In 2020 Tierras Milperas,140 farmworker and campesino families, re-organized as a grassroots organization to self-direct these gardens. Since then CAN has supported as their fiscal agent, and more recently, in their struggle to remain at one of their oldest community gardens after the Episcopalian Diocese El Camino Real abruptly terminated their garden contract based on unfair and unsubstantiated allegations that Tierras Milperas made the property dangerous.
CAN and Tierras Milperas received a 15-day letter to vacate from their oldest garden and accompanying office space. Together we have asked for an extension through Feb. 2024 in order to harvest crops already sown, and carefully relocate garden infrastructure and plantings to a new site.
Join us in solidarity with the organized farmworker community of Tierras Milperas!
Agroecology and Food Sovereignty is not possible without an organized community and secure land tenure. We need your support for Tierras Milperas in this urgent time. Learn more about Tierras’ Milperas struggle in this recently published Civil Eats Article.
Visit tierrasmilperas.org to know about their community GoFundMe campaign
The farmworker families of Tierras Milperas have nurtured this garden for 13 years, cultivating a space abundant with food, culture and community. This is agroecology, built from the ground up, through dignified labor, community autonomy and care for mother earth. The Pajaro Valley economy, built on a broken and unjust food system, continues to exploit land and labor. Community lands stewarded with the depth of care and knowledge shown by Tierras Milperas families hold the promise of repair.
