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Farmers, earth-workers and growers from across the Finger Lakes region are invited to gather together for an upcoming farmer wellness event, hosted by our Growing Together project.
Join us to make new connections, invest in self-care, and expand your toolkit of wellness practices before launching into the growing season. The Farmer Wellness Sampler will take place at the Foundation of Light in Ithaca, NY, on Tuesday, April 29 from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Our facilitation team of farmers and earth-workers will lead sessions featuring Qigong longevity exercises, instrumental sound healing, co-creating with cut flowers, and Kripalu-style yoga.
This free event is hosted by Growing Together, a project of the Cornell Small Farms Program. Space is limited, please register to ensure your spot below.
Schedule
After participants arrive and enjoy some appetizers and fellowship, the event will have an opening welcome before breaking into different wellness sessions.
Session 1a: 16 Longevity Exercises
These exercises have been used as a traditional method of rehabilitation and sports therapy; they are easy to learn and easy to practice. The 45 minute set combines breathing techniques, gentle stances, and coordinated movements to improve range of motion, flexibility, balance and circulation; every joint of the body is mobilized over the course of the set. The exercises can be practiced seated if standing is not possible. The reputed Doctor of Chinese Medicine, Wang Jiwu, created this series of exercises in the 1930s to serve as a front-line therapy at his busy clinic in Beijing. Distilled from the centuries old method of Xingyi Quan (“form mind boxing”), the Longevity Exercises artfully combine physical movement with intention to stretch and “clean” all the joints of the body while balancing the energetic system.
Facilitator: Connor Youngerman, Cornell Small Farms Program
Session 1b: Sound Healing
Participants are welcome to rest, sit or dance in whatever way you’re moved during this unique sound healing session with drums, flutes, stringed instruments, gongs and singing bowls. Damon and friends bring an improvisational approach to sound healing, tuning in to the energy of the music and the room to guide the musical sounds and vibrations.
Facilitators: Damon Brangman, Scott Pardee and friends
Transition Time | Fellowship
There will be time to reconnect as a larger group, before again breaking into different wellness sessions.
Session 2a: Yoga: Root Down, Rise Up
This Kripalu-style yoga session is all about connecting with the energy of the Earth, rooting down and rising up. We’ll start with some breathwork, then some gentle exercises to warm the body and flow into a series of postures designed to exercise and invigorate the entire body before settling into a restful savasana. You’ll leave feeling centered and prepared to engage with your own Earth work with renewed joy and vigor.
Facilitator: Himanee Gupta-Carlson
Session 2b: Co-creating with Cut Flowers
Those of us who sell cut flowers are skilled in quickly and efficiently constructing dazzling bouquets. But as we scramble to fill orders and make sales, we can sometimes overlook the beauty and magnificence of our flower companions. In this session, we’ll start by simply slowing down and becoming present. We’ll bring our awareness to the beauty and energy of the cut flowers around us, taking time to really notice and appreciate their offerings. Then, we will create bouquets with the flowers that speak most to us, focusing on creativity rather than technique. Bring a bouquet home, and offer a second one as a gift to another participant in the closing circle.
Facilitator: Violet Stone, Cornell Small Farms Program
Closing Circle
We will then come together for a closing circle before leaving this shared space and bringing our learnings with us back into our day to day lives.
About the FacilitatorsDamon Brangman. Born and raised in the island of Bermuda, Damon Brangman a farmer/educator and musician founded Roots Rising Farm to offer hands on garden education through school and community gardens. Damon started farming at a young age, and his inspiration to grow food was his grandmother’s love of fresh vegetables. Through the curiosity of other youth in the community, he felt inclined to share the knowledge he was gaining from gardening, and also give them the opportunity to connect to the land. Damon traveled to New York City to study music production in 1997, and while there he became sick, and decided to attend a body/mind retreat in Ithaca, NY during the summer. The experience of a raw food diet, meditation, and yoga, encouraged him to make changes in his lifestyle, and eventually move to Ithaca a few years later. Having a strong background in music, and determined to continue healing from Crohn’s disease, he produces music with the intention of healing himself while also assisting others on their own personal healing journey. The earth is healing itself, and we play an important role in allowing the process to heal us, if we can only stop for a moment and listen.
Himanee Gupta-Carlson is a farmer, writer, and professor who sows seeds to provide food, uses words to form ideas, and creates thoughts to help guide herself and others through learnings to sustain future generations. She also has written, spoken, taught, and pondered extensively on the relationships between land, food, and spirituality and has drawn on her own experiences as a farmer and daughter of immigrant Indian parents in reflecting on her place in North American settler-colonialist spaces. A desire to contribute to the healing of historic intergenerational violence and ongoing trauma led her in 2022 to the Cornell Small Farm’s Reconnecting With Purpose Retreat, from which she was motivated to rekindle prior work with Reiki and to fulfill a long-held desire to transform her practice of yoga into teaching it herself. Since becoming certified through the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, she has led yoga workshops at numerous academic conferences and in community classes in the Saratoga area, where she lives, farms, and teaches at SUNY Empire State University. Her hope is to meet students where they are at, and to guide them to find peace, grounding, rejuvenation, contentment, and hope.
Violet Stone leads a wide range of retreats and workshops for the agricultural community drawing on themes of connection, wellness, purpose, integrity and courage. She sees this work as contributing to a more inclusive ‘culture’ of agriculture where all voices are warmly welcomed, honored and celebrated, including the voice of our intuition or inner teacher. In this highly technological age of automation and artificial intelligence, we have much to gain from the act of offering one another genuine listening, open-hearted attention, and wonder. Violet has led programs for the Cornell Small Farms Program since 2007 and has also served as the New York Northeast SARE Professional Development Coordinator since 2009. All of her programs are aligned with the principles of the Center for Courage and Renewal.
Connor Youngerman is a certified instructor of xingyi quan, bagua zhang, and qigong through the North American Tang Shou Tao Association and has been training and teaching traditional martial and medical arts for 17 years. Connor is the agroforestry and mushroom production specialist for the Cornell Small Farms Program, and grew up on a small family farm in Prince Edward Island, Canada.
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(WASHINGTON, D.C., April 2, 2025) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is launching agricultural trade promotion programs for 2025 and accepting applications for four export market development programs. USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service has opened funding opportunities for the Market Access Program (MAP), Foreign Market Development Program (FMD), Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops Program (TASC), and Emerging Markets Program (EMP) that will help U.S. agricultural producers promote and sell their goods internationally. This action follows U.S.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Laura Zaks, Associate Director of Communications and Development
Tel: 347.563.6408
Email: press@sustainableagriculture.net
Release: New bill introduced in the US House and Senate proposes bipartisan solution to the farmland access crisisWashington, DC, April 1, 2025 – Today, the bipartisan New Producer Economic Security Act was introduced in the U.S. House and Senate by Representatives Nikki Budzinski (D-IL-13), Zach Nunn (R-IA-03), Joe Courtney (D-CT-02), Don Davis (D-NC-01), Eric Sorenson (D-IL-17), Jill Tokuda (D-HI-02), and Gabe Vasquez (D-NM-02), as well as Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), to support young farmers and ranchers in accessing farmland. The legislation would authorize a new pilot program to address the interrelated challenges of land, capital, and market access for new producers through innovative, locally-led solutions. The bill helps secure our domestic food system by establishing a pilot program within the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA).
“Land access is at the root of, and deeply tied to, many of the barriers farmers and ranchers face, including market access, access to operating capital, and day-to-day challenges such as changing weather patterns, mental health, and housing,” said Michelle Hughes, Co-Executive Director of the National Young Farmers Coalition. “The New Producer Economic Security Act comes at a time when farmers need us the most. The bill comprehensively addresses the greatest barriers young and beginning farmers face while elevating local leadership, securing our domestic food system, and delivering material benefits for new producers.”
“The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition applauds the introduction of the ‘New Producer Economic Security Act.’ Land access is one of the biggest challenges for young and beginning farmers all across the country – from small-scale dairy farmers in New England, to livestock and grain producers in the Midwest, to specialty crop producers across the South. This bill will allow investment directly in an array of efforts aimed at improving access to land, capital, and markets for young and beginning farmers and ranchers across the country,” said Nick Rossi, Policy Specialist at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
For a deeper look at the bill, see this release from the National Young Farmers Coalition, an NSAC member.
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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/
The post Release: New bill introduced in the US House and Senate proposes bipartisan solution to the farmland access crisis appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
(ATLANTIC, IA, March 31, 2025) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins today announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will release obligated funding under the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program (HBIIP) for 543 projects totaling $537 million in 29 states.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Laura Zaks, Associate Director of Communications and Development
press@sustainableagriculture.net
The Cynthia Hayes Memorial Scholarship honors the co-founder of the first network for African American organic farmers in the United States.
Washington, DC, March 28, 2025 —Last week, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and the Southeastern African American Farmers’ Organic Network (SAAFON) opened applications for their annual scholarship in honor and memory of the late Cynthia Hayes, co-founder and former director of SAAFON.
The scholarship welcomes applications from Black and Indigenous undergraduate and Masters students from all Tribal Nations, US states, and territories. Applicants should be prepared to discuss their interest in food justice, sustainable agriculture, and how these issues impact Black and Indigenous farmer communities in the United States.
“SAAFON is proud to announce the 2025 Cynthia Hayes Memorial Scholarship, in honor of our visionary founder and her immeasurable impact on the sustainable agriculture and Black food justice movements. We look forward to continuing our investment in the next generation of leaders in partnership with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, for this year and well into the future,” said Whitney Jaye, Co-Executive Director at SAAFON.
The Cynthia Hayes Memorial Scholarship will offer one graduate and two undergraduate students a $5,000 award. Scholarship recipients will also have the opportunity to connect with sustainable food and farm advocates and become more involved with the partnering organizations and their networks.
“The Cynthia Hayes Memorial Scholarship is a powerful way for NSAC and SAAFON to honor Cynthia’s legacy, especially when programs that uplift Black and Indigenous students are under threat,” says Tyler Edwards, Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator at NSAC. “With this scholarship, we are investing in the education of Black and Indigenous advocates who will go on to support diverse and resilient food systems around the country.”
To be considered, undergraduate students must have completed half of their respective programs by the end of December 2024, and graduate students must have completed at least 4 courses by December 2024. Applicants will be evaluated on their interest in sustainable agriculture, policy, and grassroots organizing, and must have demonstrated knowledge or experience in racial equity and an interest in pursuing leadership or a career in the sustainable food and farm movement.
The deadline to apply is May 1, 2025. To apply, visit our job website.
Questions related to the Cynthia Hayes Memorial Scholarship should be directed to scholarship@sustainableagriculture.net.
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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/
The post Release: Cynthia Hayes Memorial Scholarship Now Accepting Applications appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Laura Zaks
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
press@sustainableagriculture.net
Tel. 347.563.6408
NSAC Applauds Bicameral Reintroduction of the Save Our Small Farms ActWashington, DC, March 28, 2025 – Today, the Connecticut congressional delegation, led by Representative Johana Hayes (D-CT-5), reintroduced the Save Our Small (SOS) Farms Act. Rep. Hayes was joined by Representatives Larson (D-CT-1), Courtney (D-CT-2), DeLauro (D-CT-3), and Himes (D-CT-4), as well as Senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Murphy (D-CT).
“The SOS Farms Act includes common-sense reforms to remove burdensome red tape that prevents small, specialty crop, and direct-marketing farmers from accessing permanent farm safety net programs, namely the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) and the Federal Crop Insurance Program,” said Billy Hackett, NSAC Policy Specialist.
Among other provisions, the SOS Farms Act:
- Establishes a simplified, revenue-based option within NAP to streamline access for farmers who are unable to enroll due to excessive acreage reporting and paperwork requirements;
- Creates an “on-ramp” for farmers without production history, including beginning farmers, to transition from enrollment in NAP to a Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) crop insurance plan;
- Authorizes the Farm Service Agency to pilot projects within NAP, data from which may be used to create new crop insurance options in coordination with the Risk Management Agency;
- Includes a suite of improvements to WFRP, the first crop insurance policy available nationwide and that insures revenue loss for an entire farm under a single plan, as first introduced in the WFRP Improvement Act; and
- Directs USDA to research and develop a weather index-based crop insurance pilot that would issue payment to participating farmers impacted by a qualifying natural disaster within 30 days, as first introduced in the WEATHER Act.
The bill introduced in the House of Representatives includes all of the aforementioned reforms, while the Senate bill includes only the sections relevant to NAP.
“The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) believes the SOS Farms Act is the most comprehensive proposal to keep farmers farming in the face of uncertain economic and weather conditions, modernizing pivotal USDA programs to reach farmers before disaster strikes,” continued Hackett. “We invite collaboration with any and all policymakers who want to keep family farmers on the land.”
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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/
The post NSAC Applauds Bicameral Reintroduction of the Save Our Small Farms Act appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
(Washington, D.C., March 28, 2025) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins will visit six international markets in her first six months as Secretary to expand markets and boost American agricultural exports. At a time when the agricultural trade deficit is at nearly $50 billion following the previous administration’s little to no action in the international marketplace, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working to diversify global markets, strengthen existing markets, and hold existing trading partners accountable for their end of the deal.
(Washington, D.C., March 27, 2025) — Today, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins sent a letter (PDF, 44.6 KB) to Governor Gavin Newsom announcing a review of federal funding California receives intended for research and education. This letter comes as part of an effort spearheaded by President Donald J. Trump to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not spent on programs that violate federal law and parental rights.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Laura Zaks
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
press@sustainableagriculture.net
Tel. 347.563.6408
Release: NSAC Commends Defense of Farmers Amidst Ongoing Unlawful Contract FreezeWashington, DC, March 27, 2025 – Today, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), Representative Gabe Vasquez (D-NM-2), alongside others, introduced the Honor Farmer Contracts Act of 2025 in response to the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) ongoing federal funding freeze, staff layoffs, and office closures. The bill would require USDA to unfreeze all signed contracts, make past due payments as quickly as possible, and prohibit USDA from canceling contracts absent a failure to comply with the terms of the contract. It would also prohibit USDA from closing county and field offices without justification to Congress.
“During the last several months, countless farmers, and the community-based organizations who serve them, have had their livelihoods thrown into doubt as USDA has deliberated whether or not to honor its own legal contracts. From conservation and supply chain investments, to domestic market development and local food purchases, USDA’s hesitation to honor contracts has destabilized rural and urban communities nationwide,” said Mike Lavender, Policy Director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), adding that: “The Honor Farmer Contracts Act unequivocally reiterates a bedrock principle – USDA must honor its word, and swiftly meet its legal obligations to farmers and organizations by immediately releasing funding on all signed contracts. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition thanks Senator Booker and all Members of Congress standing alongside farmers in asking USDA to honor its commitments.”
The introduction of the Honor Farmer Contracts Act follows months of uncertainty and widespread coverage of the mounting impacts. For more resources and information, visit the NSAC blog.
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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/
The post Release: NSAC Commends Defense of Farmers Amidst Ongoing Unlawful Contract Freeze appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
(Washington, D.C., March 25, 2025) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will release previously obligated funding under the Rural Energy For America Program (REAP), Empowering Rural America (New ERA) and Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) programs. This announcement underscores the Trump Administration’s commitment to rural communities — including the farmers, ranchers, and small businesses at their core — and their essential role in building a stronger, more energy secure America.
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