Rock Steady Farm Shares Inclusive Mission With Kent Library
Rock Steady farmers will talk its unique, inclusive approach to farming at an online event hosted by Kent Memorial Library.
Rock Steady Farm & Flowers in Millerton New York, is a small farm with a big mission. Not only is the diverse team at the farm harvesting a beautiful bounty for their rapidly growing CSA community, they are also using their farm as a platform to advance discussion and action around the issues of food access and social justice.
Local community members will get the chance to learn more about the LGBTQAI+ and BIPOC (black, indigenous and people of color) who run the farm, its work, and its mission at a free online Zoom event Wednesday, April 28 at 7 p.m. on Zoom, hosted by the Kent Memorial Library.
Rock Steady co-owners Maggie Cheney and D. Rooney founded Rock Steady in 2015, and now manage 12 acres. In addition to their holistic and regenerative farming practices, they work to increase equity in the food system and create safer spaces for queer and BIPOC farmers. The farm runs a 450-member sliding scale CSA, which includes free and subsidized shares made possible through a donor-driven Food Access Fund. They also offer wholesale produce to select restaurants, food pantries and other support organizations. Additionally, the farm is developing community partnerships with other land-based projects, neighbors, and nonprofits who work to build equity regionally and beyond.
Photo: Walter Hergt
“We originally did these events in person. This is a way for us to do something online and connect with the local community and tell our story,” said Maggie Cheney. “It’s a public educational opportunity for us to have a conversation with people. We have to be proactive if we want to make safe spaces.”
Among the many causes Rock Steady supports is the Ancramdale Neighbors Helping Neighbors Association (NHN). The farm helped launch a fundraiser to raise money to allow local families in need receive individual full CSA shares. The farm also works with the North East Community Center, which coordinates a weekly low-income CSA program that reaches 70 families through three area food banks. NECC also run a summer youth program that brings 10 high-school age youth to the farm two days a week during the summer called The Farm & Food Internship. Additionally, the farm delivers to Community Access, which is growing urban farming programs in assisted-housing communities. Rock Steady also supports a number of LGBT organizations, offering CSA pickups at The Center and donating a full season CSA to the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center that provides sensitive, quality health care and related services targeted to New York’s LGBT communities.
Cheney says they see Rock Steady’s community support and social justice work as part and parcel with the farm business and that it’s important to acknowledge where issues of social justice and food access intersect.
Brittany McAllister, adult programming director for the Kent Memorial Library, and Rock Steady CSA member, took over the position at the Kent library in January after a tenure in development in the New York City Public Library system. She said she wants to bring new topics to the community and the farm offers a recognizable gateway for attendees to start a deeper discussion about social justice.
“People will be able to learn or get involved in an open dialog,” McAllister said. “Someone might say, ‘Yeah, I’m an ally, but why emphasize this in farming?’ After everything we’ve been through, with the pandemic, with the past administration, now the more we’re talking with each other, the more we are making room for others.”
As more young families migrate upstate as a result of the pandemic and the increased viability of working from home, McAllister believes libraries great and small have an obligation to provide programing that appeals to and challenges all demographics. Rock Steady’s story resonates now but is also a glimpse into the more inclusive and progressive future of rural agriculture in the region.
