by DANIEL COLTEN SCHMIDT
The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) gives away locally-grown, organic vegetables and herbs to neighborhood residents for free. The Farm Team sets up a folding table in Cedar Field Park across from Little Earth and writes a list of produce on a whiteboard under the words, “Free Vegetables!” and “Vegetales Gratis!” The team lays colorful foods across the table and joyfully encourages passersbys to take home whatever they want in upcycled cloth bags.
The last time I attended a food giveaway, our team discussed increasing the amount of food we give away and the number of people we engage. Someone suggested setting up a table at the farmer’s market, to which Kieran Morris, EPNI’s Farm Team Coordinator responded, “I’ve talked to them, and they don’t want us there. Our free vegetables will reduce the sales for the farmers.” EPNI’s Farm Team agreed that attending the farmer’s market wouldn’t be appropriate; we don’t want to negatively impact small farmers, many of whom are BIPOC.
EPNI can give away food because of grant funding. But why should EPNI receive grants and subsidies if this undercuts the private market? On the other hand, how can it be wrong to give away organic, locally produced food in a neighborhood where over 30% of residents experience poverty?
The problem with this colonial economic model is described by the adage about the carrot and the stick. A carriage driver ties a carrot to the end of a stick and hangs the carrot in front of a mule. As the mule walks forward hoping to get a tasty bite of the carrot, it pulls the driver, the carriage, and a heavy load all around town. In our society, the carrot is money, and the stick is the ever-increasing cost of living, unreasonably burdensome debt, and state sponsored violence.
When EPNI’s Farm Team gives away organic, local food to people in need, EPNI challenges the very fabric of the modern American economy as we pluck the carrot right off of the stick and hand it directly to the mule, who begins happily eating the sweet, crunchy treat. The mule starts to think: “where have I been walking for all this time, and why?”
There’s a different way to structure the economy altogether which does not depend on wealth inequality to spur productivity, and it’s rooted in the land. Robin Wall Kimmerer—scientist, professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation—recently published a book called The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World in which she describes the “gift economy.” Explaining how capitalism perverts freely abundant earthly gifts, such as serviceberries, into commodities which can be hoarded and sold, she writes, “It seems absurd to me that someone could own water, a free gift that falls like the proverbial manna from heaven. Could you sell manna without spiritual jeopardy? I don’t think so.”
Kimmerer challenges her readers to think about how to change this colonial economic model. She argues that people on the ground know their communities best and have the ingenuity to create unique solutions.
EPNI and the Urban Farm project’s vision is a promise for a culturally vibrant, climate resilient, and self-determined future in East Phillips—a population that has experienced environmental racism and discrimination for over 100 years. This is part of the movement for a more equitable economy that residents have been fighting for, but the transition from a solely market-based economy will not be easy. How, for instance, will big agriculturalists respond to an influx of affordable, locally produced vegetables and fish in East Phillips? How will Xcel Energy respond to hundreds of homes receiving affordable, renewable power from the new solar array? In other words, how will these old systems recalibrate—or resist—as local gift economies take hold in communities across the country?
The shift that EPNI is bringing to Minneapolis is not intended to disrupt the work of small farmers, but rather to break the cycle of scarcity which causes inequality, division, and competition. Creating decolonial systems isn’t easy, but one should be encouraged by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who says: “In these urgent times, we need to become the storm that topples the senescent, destructive economies so the new can emerge.”
