I'm an engineer by training, a software developer. I've spent 30 years of my life working on systems that didn't change the lives of anyone, really. I just received a paycheck, raised my three children, took vacations and life was good.
Then in 2014, I realized that our food systems evolved in an era of mass market advertising and are simply broken around the world. I found out that 60% of the cost of a head of lettuce is transportation costs.
There are a lot of problems in our world today and we know there are no simple answers.
We believe the transformation of our food system through a multi-sided marketplace that brings local food producers, “Foodpreneurs” and local consumers together for mutual benefit and minimal “Food Miles” can change more than just your diet … or your financial situation … it can change the real world in which we live.
So, we started this GoFundMe campaign. We call it … “¼ Acre and a Chicken” … You can find it at GoFundMe.com/FarmYourYard
Have you heard the phrase “40 Acres and a Mule” ? It holds special significance for African-Americans because that was the promise to former slaves to allow them to achieve self-determination and move forward with their lives.
It was Union General William T. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, issued on Jan. 16, 1865. It’s a staple of black history lessons, and it’s the name of famed film director Spike Lee’s production company. The original order didn’t include a mule and well the 40 acres never really was implemented widely. But the promise … The Promise … was a brilliant and systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its time.
In fact, such a policy would be radical today, a massive confiscation of private property — some 400,000 acres — formerly owned by Confederate landowners, and its methodical redistribution to former black african and caribbean slaves. What most of us haven’t heard is that the idea really was generated by black leaders and pastors themselves from a fundamentally correct assumption that self-determination, self-worth and the very real need to feed yourself and your family requires access to the means of production … growing food and raising animals.
I don’t think I have to tell you that it never quite happened … American history would be quite different today if that promise had become realized.
Today there is a crisis in our food system and many people in every community, Urban and Rural are not quite sure about their power of self-determination or how to make ends meet or even if they have money …. the quality of their food.
http://GoFundMe.com/FarmYourYard
We Thank You
“¼ Acre and a Chicken” pass it on and let’s change our world, together.