What we are about
Kind Agroecology is a publication of sustainable farming and crop lessons and discussions on healing our collective relationship with nature. These lessons are meant to help close the gap in accessibility within farming and gardening education while also encouraging critical thinking skills to better understand the current state of our food systems in America. The research published here takes place in Houston, Texas.
What is 'Agroecology'?
Agroecology refers to a systems thinking model for integrating nature and agriculture through ecosystem merging and creation. How can the systems of nature function in a farm setting and what can we do to encourage the growth of both cultivated and wild ecosystems? Through these lessons and discussions we aim to demonstrate the ways in which we can apply principles and practices from agroecology to our own growing spaces and lives.
ABOUT KIND AGROECOLOGY
My maternal grandmother, Inez, was born and raised in Texas, same as my mother, Marlene Stubler and myself. The three of us share a unique and special relationship founded in a deep admiration and curiosity about the very land that made us all. I am endlessly grateful the wisdom and love of them both.
My granny is one of the smartest and most learned people I know. In the spring, we harvest dewberries along the tree line of her property and in the summer, my mother and I gather muscadine grapes near the road. Her land is a beautiful sanctuary, as is her love. As a young woman, my grandmother was married at 14 years old and never completed her education. Much of the information I learned while in school were things I knew prior because of my grandmother's wealth of knowledge and proclivity to generosity. Since I graduated and moved home, we've spent hours talking about the fruit trees, the birds in her yard, and pondering the varieties of strange plants neither one of us remembers getting but somehow managed to find its way to her greenhouse. My mother and grandmother alike are privy to gathering seeds and clippings, offering them as they can to friends, family, neighbors, and strangers. Seed saving and gifting is a wonderful metaphor for the gifts we all stand to gain when we commit to sharing our knowledge and skills however we can.
To my mother, your kindness and creativity know no bounds; you are truly spectacular. I am forever grateful that we have committed our lives to growing wilder together, loving each other and the land.
My goal in creating these lessons and this curriculum is that someone, anyone, even my grandmother, could walk away having learned something new and important. The idea is create the bones of knowledge and lay the foundation to a deeper understanding of our food systems and the role we all play in them. Seeing as we all participate in these systems, we all deserve the knowledge to participate in conversations surrounding them.