'Future of Food' Urban Farming Field Trip to Explore Urban Ag Endeavors in Inland SoCal
Slated for Saturday, May 20, 2017 the 'Future of Food – Urban Farming Field Trip' will visit a series of innovative urban farming ventures in Inland Southern California that have emerged to grow the local food marketplace, increase food access, advocate for food equity, and improve health and nutrition. The field trip hosted by Seedstock, a social venture that seeks to foster the development of sustainable local food systems, will also include lectures from experts in urban farming.
The tour is the third in a series of Seedstock ‘Future of Food’ field trips that was recently launched to facilitate the exploration of food system innovations that are generating economic and community capital.
Early Bird Discount Tickets are available for a limited time, so grab your tickets before it's too late!
**Profit generated from the trip will be donated to the participating organizations below**
Scheduled Field Trips Stops include:
• Sarvodaya Farms is the educational, community-based urban farming initiative of The Growing Club, based in the Pomona Valley of California. Through this initiative, The Growing Club seeks to demonstrate how urban farms can be centers of social, economic, and ecological regeneration and healing in (sub)urban centers. The farm’s goal is to educate the community about regenerative urban farming through its farmer training program, community events, and workshops.
• Huerta del Valle operates a 62 family community garden and 2.5 acre urban farm in Ontario. Its mission is to create healthy food access for low-income community members, create community empowerment through food, create job opportunities and educate community members about sustainable agriculture. Huerta’s overarching goal is to provide all 160,000 people in the city of Ontario with accessible organic food.
• Amy’s Farm is a real, working polycultural farm focusing on sustainable, organic methods to farming. The farm provides fresh produce to the local community and offers education with hands-on, guided tours to visitors of all ages through its educational 501c3 non-profit organization. Amy’s Farm was founded in an effort to provide residents of San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles Counties and surrounding areas the opportunity to visit and experience a true operating urban farm.
Confirmed Speakers include:
• Rishi Kumar - Urban Farmer, Co-founder and Director of The Growing Club
• Arthur Levine - Projects Manager at Huerta Del Valle Community Garden
• Randy Bekendam - Farmer and Manager of Amy's Farm
Swan encapsulates the function of reaction videos, especially within the K-pop fandom, by arguing that it is “a dynamic community that imagines itself as transcending national boundaries” (Swan, 549). The collection of reaction videos on Youtube is a community itself because it engages people through an online space that is accessible to all without trying to “negate the significance of one’s situatedness within a specific nation and culture” (Swan, 549). In this sense, reaction videos are encouraged from people who are far removed from Korean culture to promote its popularity that is legitimate enough to span out of Korea. Reaction videos are forms of self expression in which people feel related to those who are reacting because viewers anticipate sharing the same reactions towards a common affinity. Reaction videos are also fan rituals whenever a music video releases, as they are celebrations for supporting the same group of artists. Black Youtubers, as Oh states, have become polycultural pillars in the K-pop community who give validation to fans who are international. Non-Asian fans look to these individuals as sources of verbal affirmation, especially because those content creators do not speak the language nor are they from Korea and are accustomed to the social stigmas of the industry. They also give validation under the assumption that Black masculinity is heavier rooted, and to have a Black man celebrate male K-pop groups elevates the masculinity of the male idols as well. Black reactors introduce polyculturalism with code switching between African American Vernacular English and Korean phrases and the non Romanization of the idols' real names. They also identify what feels familiar in K-pop choreography, music style, and clothing to that of their own culture. On the other spectrum of cultural crossover within the reaction video community, white Youtubers avoid speaking on their cultural differences in reaction to the music videos. Oh speaks on their willingness to evade racial conversations "because the embrace of superficial difference prevents discussions of systemic inequality and racism" (Oh, 2277). White Youtubers tend to push the colorblind agenda as a means to promote the blur of racial lines in order to not be held accountable for speaking on the racial disparity between East Asians and Caucasians. However, this postracist talk "articulates easily into their experience as locally privileged members of their respective dominant racial orders," therefore acknowledging their power dynamic and creating a strain between the reactor and the viewer (Oh, 2277).
