You Don't Have to Grow It All: Build Another Door to Food

Y'all, somewhere along the way, food independence started sounding like everybody needed five acres, 47 raised beds, chickens, a greenhouse, a pressure canner and enough tomatoes to survive until 2037.

Baby, no.

That's not what I'm asking you to do.

Some people don't have land. Some people live in apartments. Some people don't have the time, money or physical ability to maintain a garden. Some people can grow tomatoes but can't grow enough wheat to make bread. And some of y'all don't want to grow a damn thing.

You still deserve more choices about where your food comes from.

That's why I want us to stop thinking only about self-sufficiency and start thinking about an ecosystem.

Because food independence doesn't have to mean doing everything yourself.

Sometimes independence means knowing where the other doors are.

🍃 Can't Grow It? Find Somebody Who Can.

This might be the most important thing I tell you.

You do not have to grow something yourself to participate in a stronger local food system.

Find the person growing it.

Farm Fresh 24/7 was built to help people connect with local farmers, gardeners, growers, bakers, makers and producers.

Maybe somebody near you has eggs. Somebody else grows greens. Another person has honey. Somebody has fruit. Somebody makes bread.

Buy directly when you can.

And don't forget something our grandparents understood very well: barter.

Maybe you don't grow tomatoes, but you have something somebody else needs.

Food systems existed before grocery-store loyalty cards.

We can remember how to trade with each other.

🍃 Want to Grow It? Start Where You Are.

Now, you already know I'm going to tell you to plant something.

That's what we do at Plant & Heal.

But I'm not telling you to replace Publix by Tuesday.

Start with one thing.

A bucket counts. A balcony counts. A patio counts. A windowsill counts. A backyard counts. Five acres counts too.

Grow lettuce. Grow herbs. Plant peppers. Choose quick-maturing crops when you need to see a harvest sooner.

Yesterday, maybe somebody else supplied 100% of your food. Today, maybe it's 95%. That's movement.

Grow with what you got.

🍃 Don't Know How to Grow It? Learn.

Nobody comes out of the womb knowing when to transplant a tomato.

Gardening is learned.

And we have more access to agricultural education today than our grandparents could have imagined.

That's part of why I created Gardening Under Influence. Across our platforms, we teach gardening in real life.

What do I plant? Why are my leaves turning yellow? Can I grow this in a bucket? What the hell ate my collards?

Those questions count.

And I want you learning from more than me.

PharmUnique, created by Dominique Kinsler, is another resource I want people to know about, especially beginners and people growing in containers and smaller spaces.

One teacher isn't supposed to know everything. That's the whole point of an ecosystem.

🍃 Sometimes You Don't Need to Become the Farmer. You Need to Find One.

This is another reason I believe agricultural directories matter.

You may be looking for produce. Seeds. Plants. A nursery. A farmer. An agricultural educator. A producer. A service. An organization.

You need to be able to find the people already doing that work.

That's what The Black Agrarian helps us do.

Yes, strengthening Black agriculture matters deeply to us. But this isn't only about telling Black people to support Black farmers.

If you need a farmer, find a farmer. If you need a producer, find a producer. If you need seeds, find somebody selling seeds. If you can't grow the food yourself, find somebody who can.

Every independent producer we can actually FIND gives us another possible door.

🍃 What If You Want to Become the Farmer?

Now we're talking.

Because if we're going to complain about having too few choices in agriculture, eventually somebody has to create some new ones.

Maybe that's you.

And farming isn't only knowing how to put a seed in dirt. You need to understand business. Markets. Customers. Production. Pricing. Branding. Risk. Infrastructure. Money. And the thousand things nobody tells you before you start.

One resource I want beginning farmers to know about is The Black Girl's Guide to Building a Boutique Farm by Clarenda "Farmer Cee" Stanley, founder of Green Heffa Farms.

It's the kind of resource that helps bridge that gap between "I want to farm" and "I'm building a farm business."

And then keep learning. That's part of why GrowFluencers exists.

Agricultural entrepreneurs need information. We need connections. We need resources. We need people we can call when we don't know the answer. We need to understand how to turn what we're growing into something economically sustainable.

Because we don't only need more people growing food. We need more people who can afford to KEEP growing food.

🍃 And Some Problems Are Bigger Than Your Backyard.

This is where I really want us thinking differently.

One household cannot build a regional food system. One farmer cannot feed everybody. One community garden cannot solve food insecurity. And one Black-owned business cannot rebuild an agricultural economy.

That's why Collectively Sustainable and stewardship-centered models matter.

What happens when we share infrastructure? What happens when communities create places for growing, learning, distributing food and connecting people? What happens when somebody has land, somebody has equipment, somebody has knowledge, somebody has seeds and somebody has customers?

Now we're not talking about self-sufficiency anymore. We're talking about collective sustainability.

Stewardship centers. Community gardens. Food co-ops. Buying clubs. Seed libraries. Seed swaps. Shared growing spaces. Community food programs. Local markets. Bartering. Resource sharing.

That's infrastructure.

🍃 And Sometimes the Door You Need Today Is a Food Bank.

I need to say this too.

Food independence is NOT about making people feel ashamed because they need help.

If you need a food bank, use the food bank. If you qualify for SNAP, use SNAP. If your community garden gives away produce, take the produce. If there's a seed library and you can't afford seeds, get the seeds. If somebody has an extra bag of collards, take the collards.

We're talking about feeding people.

You don't get extra points for struggling unnecessarily.

The goal is not proving how independent you are. The goal is making sure you and your family have food while we build stronger systems around us.

🍃 This Is What Food Independence Looks Like to Me

It isn't isolation. It's connection.

Can't grow it? Find somebody who can.

Need it locally? Farm Fresh 24/7.

Want to grow it? Plant & Heal.

Need somebody to teach you? Gardening Under Influence and PharmUnique.

Need to find farmers, producers, agriculturalists or resources? The Black Agrarian.

Want to learn how somebody built an actual farm business? Start with Farmer Cee and The Black Girl's Guide to Building a Boutique Farm.

Building an agricultural business and need education, resources and community? GrowFluencers.

Want to strengthen the whole community instead of only your household? Collectively Sustainable and the people building stewardship centers, co-ops, community gardens, seed libraries and shared food infrastructure.

See what we're doing? We're building doors.

🍃 We Don't Need Everybody Doing Everything

We need somebody growing. Somebody teaching. Somebody selling. Somebody processing. Somebody distributing. Somebody building technology. Somebody creating directories. Somebody growing seeds. Somebody raising livestock. Somebody building businesses. Somebody preserving knowledge. Somebody creating infrastructure. Somebody buying from them.

And we need ways to FIND EACH OTHER.

That's the part I don't want us to miss.

Because when we can find each other, support each other and move some of our food dollars through people and systems that give us more choices, something starts changing.

Maybe you still shop at the grocery store. I do too.

This isn't about pretending we're going to disconnect from the American food system tomorrow. It's about not having only one door.

Maybe yesterday the grocery store supplied 100% of what your household ate. Then you start growing herbs. You find somebody local for eggs. You buy greens from a farmer. You grab seeds from the seed library. You learn how to grow lettuce in a container. You discover a producer you never knew existed.

Maybe you're still dependent on the larger system for 90 or 95% of your food. That's okay. Because now you know another door. And another. And another.

That's how ecosystems become stronger. Not everybody doing everything. Everybody bringing something.

🍃 Grow something.
🍃 Find somebody.
🍃 Buy directly when you can.
🍃 Barter when it makes sense.
🍃 Learn something.
🍃 Teach something.
🍃 Support somebody building.
🍃 Build something yourself.

You don't have to grow it all.

We just need enough doors that nobody controls the only one.

Plant something. Heal something. Build something.

Grow food. Grow community. Grow freedom.