Seeding A New Way
Birthed out of a need to reclaim stolen narratives and co-opted work at the height of the COVID pandemic, 22 organizations came together in the summer of 2020 to pen an open letter to food system funders calling out exploitative grantmaking practices and uplifting corrective measures. However, this call to action wasn’t only a catalyst for philanthropy, but it seeded the beginning of a more coordinated effort led by grassroots food system *solutionaries to drive systemic change across the funding landscape.
Liberating Investment in the Food and Farm Ecosystem (LIFE) is a resource mobilization vehicle founded by a collaborative of critical food and land justice organizations representing and directly accountable to frontline voices across the U.S. Put frankly, frontline communities have fought at the margins to win policy battles that rewrite legacies of divestment and protect waterways and soil health, while also cultivating infrastructure for community self determination across the foodshed. While we know this to be true, many seeding transformational work in our food system still remain grossly underfunded.
LIFE is building power at the center of the funding landscape to revolutionize resource redistribution behind frontline food system *solutionaries across the US, including tribal communities and island nation states. For us this looks like, advancing food and agricultural justice, organizing our people, and building critical systems while also transforming philanthropic practices that threaten to hinder our progress towards driving real solutions in our communities.
LIFE’s organizational heartbeat is sustained by leaders representing AgriCultura Network, Castanea Fellowship, HEAL Food Alliance, National Black Food and Justice Alliance, La Semilla, Manzanita Capital, Minnow, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, Operation Spring Plant, RAFI- USA, and Soul Fire Farm. As a collective of membership based alliances, farmers, organizers, and advocates, LIFE’s grassroots relationships reach over 490 organizations touching more than 4 million urban and rural farmers, fisherfolk, food hub operators, food chain workers, community organizers, and advocates, across the United States including indigenous territories and colonized island states.
*We honor Grace Lee Boggs when we use this term.
"So many institutions in our society need reinventing. The time has come for a new dream. That's what being a revolutionary is."- Grace Lee Boggs
Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs once wrote that "solutionaries are today's revolutionaries." In doing so, Boggs recognized that individuals who are creating alternative modes of work, politics, and human interaction can collectively reshape the fabric of society for the better. This is what it means to be a solutionary, and we are doing this for our food and farm ecosystems.
As we look towards navigating a future that's been forecasted to be riddled with multiple "once in a century" challenges, alongside the greatest wealth transfer in human history, we are mobilizing to rise to the occasion. It's time we revolutionize the field of philanthropy underpinning our food system.
