The most important things you can do for food?

Ask questions. Be curious. Be critical.

This has been a hell of a year and it’s still going strong. Protests against police killings, corrosive politics, intense wildfires and hurricanes, all with an unimaginable pandemic as backdrop. Partway through we memorialized John Lewis with a reminder to “get in good trouble”. What will we do with this reminder if not point ourselves towards risk, and radical change?

This is our first newsletter in some time, and with it we share questions we’re asking ourselves:

How can we shift more of our design work towards collaboration with underserved individuals and communities?
How can we commit to self-generated research, sharing insights about equitable, sustainable food systems?
How might we, as a design team focused on food systems, be part of positive change?

And if we hold ourselves to those goals (and especially if we are going to name-drop John Lewis):

How can we grow our accountability to the people we work with, learn from, and design around?
How can we grow accountability and trust with communities that we are not part of?

This summer, we worked with these questions as we partnered on an agricultural education vision in Kenya, sought advisors of color for our farmers market survey of North Carolina, and gained insights from a Black-led farmers cooperative in Caswell County NC.

Now we are asking ourselves how we re-structure our firm itself, to have more positive impact on people. We are asking about how to design our work for inclusion, humility, relationships. Accountability. Space to innovate and lead. Getting away from a client-driven model and investing more in radical, human-centered visions.

Why do this? Because our food system needs radical visions if we are to eliminate chronic hunger, to repair our climate, to champion justice, to grow our health, to bridge rural and urban divides. How can we learn from 2020’s punches, keep people and communities at the front of solutions, and help create the food system of the future?

We are working to find out. If you have ideas to share or projects in mind please let us know. We are at your service.

+ Read our full newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/d7567eaa2029/fall-2020-newsletter