Our first NY Foodways Gathering in Poughkeepsie, January 2024!
NY Food Ways Gatherings
In the fall of 2023, three projects (Rock Steady Farm, Brooklyn Packers and Tierra Viva Collective) pooled a small amount of funding to plan and host two gatherings annually. Gaby, Maggie, and Steph and D, specifically, organized these gathering spaces to support resource sharing, communication, and collaboration to build and organize the NY food/farming ecosystem we are all in. We have had 3 gatherings todate, totalling 220 participants!
We hope to craft a space where participants can weave opportunities to better support current food projects among each other and QTBIPOC farmers specifically. NY Food Ways Gatherings is a space for sparks - ideas, collaboration, networking, celebration, momentum, inspiration, and long-term strategizing for more collectivization and coordination of our work.
Leaders from Rock Steady Farm, Tierra Viva Collective and Brooklyn Packers specifically have the roles to help hold the container - curate/party planners/ structure day/facilitate... We are not decision makers - each project that comes to these gatherings is separate from us, and we act as the hosts/ organizers of the space.
We invite you to learn more below and register for our 2025 NY Food Ways Gathering & Buffalo Bypass Network Launch!
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These gatherings are cross-sectoral, so people from all areas within the food supply chain who are trying to support QTBIPOC farmers in NY State are invited. We loosely define farmers - but ultimately, a farmer are those who are trying to feed 25 or more families outside of their household and distributing food in a public way via CSA, wholesale, or markets. Policymakers, community organizers, and non-profit workers directly involved with cooperatives and big-picture system work are welcome. Distributors, food hub workers, purchasers, and sources are welcome to this space!
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We hope you will join us for a powerful weekend of learning, sharing, and connection at the Buffalo Bypass Network Launch & the 2nd 2025 NY Foodways Gathering!
This two-day event, held on March 22 & 23, 2025, marks the beginning of the Buffalo Bypass Network, a coordinated food systems effort in Buffalo, building on years of local food systems organizing and modeled after successful Bypass Network projects in Connecticut. See the attached flyer for more information.
We are partnering with NY Foodways Gathering organizers to convene everyone invested in strengthening food access and sovereignty in east Buffalo, a predominantly Black community where the Tops 5/14 shooting underscored the urgency of food justice and local resilience. QTBIPOC growers are especially encouraged to attend to build connections and map the intersections of our regional food systems, economies, and collective resilience. More broadly, we invite farmers, growers, food workers, food distributors, retailers, logistics experts, philanthropists, aligned organizations, and food justice advocates tojoin us in strategizing and strengthening this network from both Buffalo and across the state.
The Buffalo Bypass Network aims to co-create food value chains that provide high-quality, local food from QTBIPOC growers to East Buffalo residents while ensuring fair wages and sustainability for producers and workers. Here’s what you can look forward to during the event:
Connecting with QTBIPOC food justice folks across NY State
Contributing to food justice, equity, and regional value chain solutions
Helping shape the Buffalo Bypass Network, a new effort in food access & worker dignity
Discussing food apartheid, Black farming legacies, and systemic solutions
Resource sharing, asset mapping & educational opportunities around cooperative development and collective ownership models
Day 1: NY FoodWays Gathering & Jesup Wagon Mapping Activity
Introduction to the Buffalo Bypass Network, connecting QTBIPOC farmers & strengthening local food systems
Activities: Identifying Needs & Gaps, Landscape Assessment, SWOT Analysis
Day 2: Buffalo Food Justice Tour
Highlighting local community efforts in the fight for food justice.
To ensure everyone can show up and fully participate, we will provide simultaneous Spanish-English interpretation, Saturday lunch and Sunday breakfast. Limited travel stipends available (upon request).
To request ASL interpretation, email info@foodforthespirit.org before March 14, 2025
COVID: This will be held in an indoor space, we will provide tests at entry. If you have access to a test beforehand, please take one on the morning of the gathering. Masks are optional if you test and required if you do not test.
Data & event partners include: Food for the Spirit, Red Tomato, African Heritage Food Co-op, Buffalo Go Green, Brooklyn Packers, Rock Steady Farm, UB Food Lab, Tierra Viva Collective
With support from: Growing Justice Fund, Wildseeds Fund, Western New York Foundation, USDA-RSFI NY
Optional Pre-Readings:
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This is a registration survey for anyone interested in attending the March 22-23 Buffalo Bypass and NY Foodways Gathering, as well as collecting additional information from farmers about their wholesale needs and current socioeconomic information.
