Black Farmers Collective: Growing Food and Supporting Urban Farmers in Seattle

“Being able to grow a little of your own food is one of the best things you can do for your health… the community that's built around that, the real physical connection, connection to the soil. Especially in urban spaces, we can feel that we're not connected to the environment at all. Certainly, the food produced is important, but I think it’s a space for people to really come and connect to nature and each other.”

It all started seven years ago with a 1.5-acre plot of land along the I-5 by Yesler Terrace. Ray Williams, one of the co-Founders and Executive Director of the Black Farmers Collective (BFC), was a biology environmental teacher and was helping to build community gardens when the city of Seattle put out an RFP. “Seattle Housing Authority was redeveloping Yesler Terrace housing projects into a mixed-use neighborhood and they looked at the freeway right of way as an opportunity to increase the green space.” This project eventually became Yes Farm and BFC was born.

Yes Farm grows food for the community, hosts community garden beds, and provides growing space for Black urban farmers. Connecting people intimately to food, nature, and each other while promoting food sovereignty are important missions of the BFC. They also work with school groups in the hopes of impacting the next generation through their educational programs. Ray recalls some of the students he had when he was a teacher, “I had a lot of students that would have had value in spending the day outside doing something, producing, having control over what you’re doing, building empathy, caring for plants and animals, and understanding how science works from an agricultural point of view.”

He is excited about the next cohort of volunteers starting this spring. He shares, “We’ve elevated some young folks from volunteer, to volunteer assistant farm manager, farm manager, to the Viva Farms Beginning Farmer Training program. We’re very excited about planting this spring along with hosting lots of different school groups and general community groups.”

Yes Farm is currently working on an urban forest restoration project in the area towards South Jackson street. “We’re pulling out ivy and blackberries and other weeds and putting in native plants. That is a space that folks in the Chinatown International District can be a part of the farm and really improve the sort of bleak area under the freeway,” Ray explains. They’re hoping the space will eventually become a native habitat for pollinators and native species.

In addition to Yes Farm, the BFC leases 4 acres of farmland from King County in the Sammamish Valley called Small Axe Farm. The farm provides opportunities for new BIPOC farmers by serving as an incubator to support their businesses. Ray explains, “We're really expanding. We may have 8 or 9 different farming businesses on the site. We have a model that provides some of the infrastructure for private enterprise to be able to do that. The price of farmland, the cost of the infrastructure at every level of the food system, and the very narrow margins economically, really create a need for somebody to be able to step in and support that along the way. We have hopes of getting more farm space and be able to expand that model.”

While BFC originally started as a community project, their support for BIPOC farming businesses means they are now becoming more of a collective. “It might have been a misnomer at the beginning,” Ray explains, “It was some community folks who wanted to support people growing some of their own food in the city.”

Beyond the opportunity for people to connect to their food and nature, the farm is an opportunity to connect to the community where “you’re outside, you’re meeting people, folks come and learn about each other’s lives,” Ray explains, adding that the farm enriches people’s lives. He explains, “Our cultures are primarily language but second is around food—what we eat, how we prepare it, and how we eat it…So, the idea is huge for human health.”

The project also gives people a tangible way to understand their place in the food system and promotes food sovereignty, which is particularly important for under-resourced communities that experience food apartheid or lack of access to fresh and healthy options. In addition, Ray explains that we rely on land too far outside our communities for food, such as Eastern Washington, South America, and beyond.

The potential impact of climate change and other natural disasters on our food supply can create harm or worse, as evidenced by the bird flu currently causing egg prices to skyrocket and Covid when we had disruptions to food access and price instability. Many economists believe that increased tariffs on imports could dramatically effect food prices. Ray warns that there can be “potential shocks of some natural disasters to the food system itself and the globalization of the food system is going to leave lots of folks with no food.”

While BFC welcomes everyone to participate, the organization is especially important to the Black community, who has historically been connected to agriculture. “All you were really taught was that folks were enslaved…and then you think I don’t want to go back to the farm,” Ray explains, reminding us that “African origin folks really fed the country in the beginning with rice, they fed the economy with their labor…there’s actually been quite a lot from George Washington Carver and other folks who contributed to agriculture. So, I think if you can paint a better story for young Black people today about the contributions and history, then you have a better sense of our connection to it [farming]. The African American contributions were immense and that’s something you should be proud of.”

BFC is a non-profit organization and needs community support to continue their work. They would like to build an ADA accessible pathway to Yes Farm, which currently is on an incline, as well as expand their BIPOC farmer incubation program. They encourage the broader community to come to their volunteer events on Saturdays, as well as to support them financially to sustain their small staff and operational expenses. Their efforts to expand their work to preserve more green space that serves the community seems even more pertinent now with Seattle’s exponential population growth, density, and gentrification.

Visit their website to learn more and donate here. You can follow their Instagram to learn about special events and volunteer opportunities. You can join them from 10-2pm on Saturdays except the 1st Saturdays. The April volunteer dates are the 12th, 19th, 26th at Yes Farm at 715 Yesler Way (visit our Event Calendar for details).