Chicory Center, 2004: To attack food injustice, open doors to constructive, radical social action.

 

The anarchist Chicory Center was founded on April 30, 2004 to attack food injustice while opening doors to constructive, radical social action, growing out of a do-it-yourself ethic. The project serves as a nucleus for acting upon local and regional food and social justice issues from an anarchist perspective, while fostering self-sufficiency and community well-being. In practice, the project's On-the-Fly Farm serves to model a kind of solidarity that works closely with individuals, poor people, activists, organizations, and communities of color overcoming economic, social, and political oppressions. We believe in sustainable, democratically run food systems not controlled by the state, food systems that function independent of wealth and privilege.

Recognizing that capitalism and corporations like Whole Foods exist to profit the few and have no interest in making quality healthy food available and affordable to all, we work to support a grassroots, class-conscious, people-powered food justice movement. The role of the United States government in generating and maintaining non-democratic, non-participatory, and corporate-controlled food supplies and agricultural policies puts us all at risk of radical food insecurity. The USDA's corporatism makes even the minute trickle of research and funding directed towards supporting sustainable, community-powered agriculture appear as little more than a sugar-coating to keep non-profit, progressive, radical, and revolutionary critics silent or at bay. The Chicory Center and On-the-Fly Farm support flying in the face of conventional wisdom in an effort to show that people acting creatively, on their own initiative, can not only feed themselves but in that effort further the struggle for a just and liberated society.

At present, the Chicory Center runs On-the-Fly Farm, a 15-member Community Powered Agriculture project delivering fresh organic produce to weekly paying subscribers, while donating around 20% of our crop to support community organizations working for systemic change in Chicago. Our Resistance Coffee roasting project raises funds for groups ranging from Chicago's Latino Union, West Town Bikes, Radios Populares, and the Chicago Women's Health Center. We are also in the slow but steady process of forming a small farmers confederation in Southwest Michigan called Just Farming to promote small-scale organics with a focus on justice in the production, distribution, and consumption of healthy organic food. 

The Chicory Center also serves as a retreat available to poor people, activists, and artists. We are engaged in a unique process of experimenting with what a vital, coherent, healthy village might look like in these times - one that is inclusive, not exclusive.

Participate in the On-the-Fly Farms CSA!

[In the Spring of 2004, the Chicory Center rented a farm in Southwest Michigan, beginning to till the soil on April 30 of that year. By July 1, we were delivering produce to a dozen subscribers in Chicago . . . ]

By the seat of its pants, a small group of activists is starting the On-the-Fly Farm CSA. CSA stands for Community-Supported Agriculture, and means city people get to take a more active role in the production of their food, while supporting organic, sustainable practices. This could mean a thousand different things, and as On-the-Fly Farm is happening on the fly, we’ve only come up with a couple so far. New ideas are welcome, send them on!

One current option is this: On-the-Fly Farm is growing organic vegetables and fruits at its farm in Bridgeman Michigan. As those crops mature, we will get them to the city one way or another, and either deliver them to your door by bicycle, or you can pick them up. Pricing is subject to barter, trade, or some kind of work exchange. This informality is due to the farm’s on-the-fly nature, and to a desire to contribute to the overthrow of capitalism to the highest degree possible.

As planting is just now taking place, it will be at least several weeks before greens are available, and as the season progresses, many other crops will become available: carrots, tomatoes, blackberries, pumpkins, peppers, squash, melons, watermelons, beans, a hundred other veggies, some herbs, and even flowers!

What will be a unique addition to On-the-Fly’s offerings, will be fairly-traded, organic things, particularly those created principally through processes of mutual aid, co-operation, and liberation-seeking.

One of the fairly traded items, available now, is home-roasted coffee, roasted at On-the-Fly today, tomorrow, or whatever day you want it, the freshest coffee imaginable. Currently, green coffee beans are coming from the Mut Vitz Coop, a Zapatista project within the Autonomous Indigenous Communities in Chiapas, Mexico. The cost is $6 for a half-pound, $10 for a pound.

Also from Mut Vitz, available now, are 23 oz. jars of honey, made by bees feasting on the coffee flowers on the Zapatista coffee plants! Tasty. These are $7.

The other item, available now, is fairly-traded, organic olive oil from Palestine. This oil is a project of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), which prioritizes purchasing oil from those farmers most affected by the construction of the apartheid wall, and those most affected by Israeli closure practices. This olive oil costs $15 for a 750 ml bottle, and is the tastiest olive oil! Part of the proceeds go to PARC’s Rural Women’s Development Project, and part to the Chicago chapter of the International Solidarity Movement, to help send a volunteer to Palestine.

In solidarity.