Of Seed and Soil
Hosted by Sommer Sibilly-Brown, founder of the Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition, “Of Seed and Soil” seeks to digitize the often untold and uncelebrated stories of farmers, fishers, producers, and food advocates from across the Virgin Islands and wider Caribbean. Through heartfelt interviews and candid conversations, the series invites listeners to reflect on the deep relationship between food, memory, identity, and resistance.
Of Seed and Soil
Episode 8 | Land Is Memory, Land Is Power
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In Episode 8 of Of Seed and Soil: Unincorporated Voices of Food, Farming, and Freedom, we are joined by Tarik McMillan—a son of St. Croix, a licensed trauma clinician, and a powerful voice in the movement for land stewardship and justice in the Virgin Islands.
Tarik brings a deeply rooted perspective as both a mental health professional and an advocate for land ownership, cultural preservation, and resistance to gentrification. With a background in trauma-based counseling and community healing, he speaks candidly about the emotional, spiritual, and generational connection to land, and what it means when that connection is threatened.
In this episode, Tarik explores:
What gentrification really looks like in the Virgin Islands—and how it differs from development
The role of land stewardship as a form of self-determination and healing
Why community-based land ownership must be central to our food and freedom movements
This is more than a conversation about policy—it’s a grounded and necessary discussion about belonging, sovereignty, and the right to remain.
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Welcome to Of Seed and Soil, podcast that captures the unincorporated voices of food, farms, and freedom from the U.S. Virgin Islands that we hope will span across the Caribbean and begin to capture the stories of farmers, fishers, healers, and just the everyday lives of people and as how it relates to food. On this episode, I have the privilege of having with me again a new guest, Tamara McMillan, and guest who's been on the podcast before, Tariq McMillan. And did I say I'm Summer Sibley Brown, your host? Well, I'm Summer Sibley Brown, your host, if this is your first time watching us. And um, I am here with the co-founders of Greater Changes LLC, and we're about to jump into a conversation about wellness and farming. Hi, Tariq. Hi Tamara.
SPEAKER_02Hi.
SPEAKER_00Um, that almost sounds like rehearsed. Do you guys have a chance to do that often, like the double highs?
SPEAKER_02I think it'll happen with a site together too.
SPEAKER_00Really? Like as a like, like like this is interesting, like as a coupling, like hmm. Those. Those. Okay. Well, um, Tariq, you are no stranger um to obsed and soil, so welcome back. Thanks. Um, and Tamara, um, you will not have seen the episode yet because it's not launched, but we talked about you, so I don't think you're a stranger to obscene soil either.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to Mara.
SPEAKER_00Welcome back, Tamara. Does that feel strange? Mean like we talked about you.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no. If if Tariq was in the room, I know my name was there.
SPEAKER_00So is that a good thing or a bad thing?
SPEAKER_01It's a wonderful thing. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00Um, so this is this is a this is also in a in a previous episode. We had um a husband and wife, and she had taken so much pride. This is the episode with Lindsay and Randall, and ironically, we ended up talking about land, which is what Tariq and I talked about. Um, but she was so proud to like to carry the moniker of like Randall's wife, and the two Io being like, oh no, it's a it's a good thing. I like it when it happens, is also um adorable.
SPEAKER_01Adorable story, yeah. Yeah, it is. No, um Tariq definitely uh introduces me way better than I do myself. I remember one time he called me a breath of currigen, fresh air. Loved it. You said it.
SPEAKER_00You said it? He's like, I am look, he was so impressive himself, he was like, B, you got game. We can see how he got you.
SPEAKER_01Um but uh I'm Tamara. I'm yes Tariq Soy. I am co-founder of Greater Changes. I'm a counselor, I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I am a Kushan woman. Um, I am Fred and Darisdava. Um yeah, that's me.
SPEAKER_00Um, so just because you named yourself um as all of these things, the moniker that stuck out to me was I'm a Kushan woman. And I want to come back to that. So like think about when you say I am a Kushan woman, what it means. And Tariq, I want to give you a chance to introduce yourself because today somebody new might be joining the episode, even though you're a repeat visitor.
SPEAKER_02Yes, um, I am a co-owner of Greater Changes. I am Tamara's husband. Uh it's Fila Amara child, Sally Jacob's grandson, and Biko amount, Mama brother. And a therapist, I'm a farmer.
SPEAKER_00Ah I'm a farmer now. Oh, I'm a farmer now. So I'm I'm happy because in the in in the other episode we have together, you're like, I'm a farmer. Yes. And like you like, I thought about it. I'm a farmer.
SPEAKER_02Well, Tamara's here now, so I feel more comfortable saying I'm a farmer because she doesn't give me a lot of courage. I'm a farmer. Through all things tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00Okay, enough for the cuteness. Enough for the cuteness. I am extremely happy for you. This is good. Um, and like, so one of the reasons I wanted to have you both here is because I wanted to talk about um, one, your work at greater changes and its intersection um or the intersection of mental health and wellness with the farming community, right? Um, I want I want you to kind of unravel for people how we got here, right? And just your overall understanding of what are some of the challenges, right? Because you came in as a third party, right? You're not in the farming community, but really building a relationship with it. But first we gotta get back to Khrushan woman. What does like when you say Khrushchewan?
SPEAKER_01Um I mean Ibania, right? Like first. But I feel like my existence is the culmination of like so many people's uh I wanted, I guess, dreams, you know. Um, my grandparents wanted uh I don't know if it's a better life, but a specific kind of life. Um my father wanted uh independence and freedom and um to forge his own path, and then everybody went through their journeys and I'm here, and I'm like the first one to be born here, uh, of my mother and father together. So wow.
SPEAKER_00Can I ask where where is your family from?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my mom's family is from Vegas. Um my dad's uh family is from Trinidad, and then it goes beyond two everywhere. Um my uh great-grandparents are from India, um but uh and Trinidad and Porgan Mecne.
SPEAKER_00Trini and Portuguese. We didn't talk about this before, but same exact thing.
SPEAKER_02Same exact thing.
SPEAKER_00As in where is your family from?
SPEAKER_02My grandfather and his family is from Vegas, and then my father family is from Trinidad and Tobago.
SPEAKER_00Really? The same exact thing, and so I also want to highlight because hopefully we have listeners who are listening from all over, right? So when we say Crucian, that's what we'd call a person or the people of St. Croix, right? We'd have call them Crucians. Um, so then when she says I am a Khrushan woman, I was just trying to get to the texture of that. Ironically, I feel like I am a Kushan woman, and I love the fact that you're shaking your head because there are those that would differ. Because I was born on the island of St. Thomas, which technically um is a Saintomian by birth, but knowing myself, I came here when I was two, right? So all I know how to be, right, is a is is a Khrushan woman who have Saint Tomian heritage, lineage, and definitely love for St. Thomas, but I don't I don't identify with being a Saintomian, I identify with being a Kushan woman, so that's why I kind of like wanted to like what's a Khrushan? Just for those who might be joining us who have um never been to the Virgin Islands or don't even know where St. Croix is, much less what a Kushan is. Um an A Khrushan woman is a what it is, Tariq, a Caribbean one?
SPEAKER_02A breath of Marside.
SPEAKER_01A breath of Caribbean, fresh air.
SPEAKER_00Well, we don't know if Adam is that, but we would hope. We would hope. But okay, into Greater Changes. Um, what is Greater Changes?
SPEAKER_01Um, well, I guess Greater Changes started as Tariq's baby, right? Like his um vision for the Vajan Islands and health. And you could talk about that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, there you go.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. Um, Greater Changes is uh liberation focused um behavior health and wellness agency. Um want to talk about agency in mental health, it's a lot of like the organization, right? Like the structure. It's uh uh a business that provides specialized services on behalf of somebody, right? But like agency for greater changes is more than that, right? It's like autonomy, it's liberation, it's freedom. Um, and greater changes is uh a movement, um, a vessel towards that.
SPEAKER_00So Terry, what makes greater changes unique, if if at all? Do you think greater changes is unique and what makes it unique?
SPEAKER_02I I think so. Um I I I think the thing that makes us really unique is well there's a lot really, but the things that come to mind, there's a huge focus in being able to understand what the core issues are, um, even when we don't have like a full grasp of it just yet. Like, there's so much work that goes into learning like what are the the actual core issues to address, not just getting caught up and following the symptoms of it. I think I think that's that's kind of what makes us really unique. Um one of the things that that we have now we could call it like a blessing to have gone through is being forced to grow really slowly um because as the company was developing, like we just didn't have a whole bunch of resources. Um I tell a story all the time. Like the when we started, um, and I wasn't sure, and I'm not sure if it was if it was just me at this point, but we're making like $35 a week. Like that was it. I had one session a week on Saturdays, and then that was it. And to look at where we are now, like we've had to do so much with like very little resources that like it put us in this place where I don't know, like like we have to do so much of the we we get the small thing right first. Like we do so much work in getting it right on a small scale because we can't afford to just like try all these different things and then not and just get them wrong or or just try all these small things. We have to like like plan and think through what's the most feasible way to do this thing and then go and do it that way. I think that's what I think that makes us like really unique.
SPEAKER_00Well, there was something I was specifically hoping to tease out of you, but I will also go ahead and say, um, in my understanding or my experience of greater changes, um, and I've had the benefit of also seeing you all pitch your company, right? Um, the culturally relevant therapy piece.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, how we just leave that alone.
SPEAKER_00I I don't know, but I said okay, I mean I'll I'll be a champion of it.
SPEAKER_02Like you know, one of the things that makes us really unique is this focus on on cultural intentionality.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, and it's it's yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I guess I guess I guess uh in and in some state, like like I did say this, like there's so much focus, I'll dig into it. There's so much focus in understanding what the core issues are, and when you get into what the core issues are, it it is culture. Like there's a way that we view mental health culturally that we've done a lot of work around understanding that. So when we when we do programming, when we work with clients, even when we talk about mental health in general, like all that is is based on the learnings that we have on the culture related to mental health.
SPEAKER_00So I feel like there's two things that I feel when I hear um greater changes. This is my personal feeling, right? That it culturally relevant to me means that I can go into my therapist's office and talk crucial and you know, use common language and therapy and actually be a hundred percent myself. Like there's you know, I've been to other therapists, right? Um, and they were all good, but in order to communicate with them, I I had to code switch, right? I had to code switch and put my issues and my understanding in a lens that I felt they understood. So I'm going into therapy, bridging something already, right? With the weight of bridging something versus talking to someone who represents me who has lived a life similar to me. So that's just one less filter I have to work through because in therapy I'm already carrying, like, oh my god, I got tell this pulse in my business, or this is really bothering me. And it's it could be nerve-wracking. So, like, culturally relevant therapy to me felt like, oh, one less filter. I could go in and as a crucial woman, talk to a crucial woman, and like she may have just a little bit more understanding of what I'm sharing because in some contexts we have walked in the same places, we have been in the same circles, and maybe even seen or experienced similar things. So she's not gonna think I'm crazy, right? She's gonna be like, Oh, yeah, that's not yeah, that's not a good thing, but I get it. I've seen it as a behavior pattern in our community, or I've even lived it as a behavior pattern. Yeah, that's something we Kushans that do, or Balgin Islands that do, or Caribbean people. So, like to me, that's what I think of when I'm like, hmm, this is why greater change is kind of warms my heart, because it's like it's like a safe space for me to be all of me, and um, I just think it's just a little bit more work when the person is not from our community. I could also see it being a challenge because we are a small community. So, do you guys that's a barrier?
SPEAKER_01Um well, I mean, I think we've grown and now we know where all our clinicians aren't from here. Um, they're they weren't born here, they weren't raised here, uh, but they understand the concept of like cultural humility and putting their lens to the side, you know, and looking at life through their clients' lens, um, lenses. So it's it's been a little bit of a shift that way. Before it was like all of these VI clinicians providing services, and now we have clinicians from New York and clinicians in Atlanta, um, they are aligned in that way where they're able to be like, no, no, no, like this thing that I'm thinking of that I'm interpreting, it's through my lens, and I need to like switch it over to the clients. Um, and instead of it being the burden being put on put on our clients to do that work, that's that's our work to do, you know.
SPEAKER_02There's a um like when we started, I don't think we started saying cultural intentionality. I think we had started with like how everyone else was saying uh like cultural competence and and relevance and everything. And the more that we did this work, that's when the language shifted to intentionality because we could be from like so Tamara and I both born in St. Croix, grew up on St. Croix, but we've had we've had completely different lived experiences. Even to show like the proximity, like so Tamara's mom and her father own a store in Fredericksad, uh in like the Frederickstead mall. Yep, and she has been there all her life. Like, like Tamara would be there and it'd be in a store. Around the corner, I would be in Yuka, right, with my father. When we like a few years ago, ask Tamara like, have you ever been to like the the Fayabun events? Yeah. And Tamara's like, I don't know what what you mean, right? But what we're like across, like we're like around the corner from each other. So the more that we realize that like you could you could be from St. Croix and some and your client from St. Croix and you have no idea of what the lived experience is. We've had clients who live in Frederickstead who have a completely different idea of police brutality than somebody who lives in Christians. Right? And and maybe somebody in Christianstead also experienced the same thing, but that's that's the example that that we've seen. Like when you ask somebody, and this is like I'm referencing a specific conversation where somebody on Facebook commented that I don't, it was during like 2020, I don't know why we're doing this uh Black Lives Matter thing. We don't have a police brutality issue, and the person like shared that post and like I don't know what you're talking about. I've always known police brutality growing up in Project said. Wow, right. So like there's this completely different shift, and and if we don't take those things into consideration, you end up saying, Well, I'm a virgin islands clinician, I could definitely work with you because you found Virginia's or you found St. Corey. And that's that's definitely not the case.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for clarifying that because I think I would have thought that that was the case, like right, that was my interpretation that everybody from my home should be better suited to serve me. And so I am going to let your two terms, right? Tamara said cultural humility, right? And that work being on the clinician and cultural intentionality, right? Um, being the way in which you work. So yeah, that's that's helpful. And when you brought up police brutality, my eye was like, that'll happen, right? So I'm one of those people who who feel like because of my experience, right, I would have been like, that's not a thing in the Virgin Islands. Um, and so it's just a reminder to like be open. And I it's going to be a weird segue, right? Because we're gonna go from police brutality to farming, but not because I think farming is well, foi brutal. It could be brutal, right? When you have to go through a lot of things. And but what I want to say is what the leap I was trying to make is that maybe a lot of people don't know that much about what the farming community goes through, in the same way that there is a lens where people, that person in Frederickstead and that person who did not live there did or just didn't have the same experience, right? I think a lot of Virgin Islanders don't have the same experience as the farming community, and I think a lot of farmers, it's not a homogeneous experience. So, how did greater changes even get involved with the farming community in the first place? And how would you describe the role that you took on? Yeah, Allah Tamara definitely jump into that.
SPEAKER_01That was it, but it was his connection, it was a connection for him that sparked the conversation of providing mental health like consultation work um with the farming community. Um, who were pulled into uh project um Sage VA to provide uh resources for farmers, ranchers. Um am I missing someone? Farmers and ranchers uh to address uh stressors and mental health. Um blanking.
SPEAKER_02No, I I think that that that that's like it in a in a nutshell. We were brought in to help understand where are the areas, like what are the what are all the stressors that what Tamara said um and what are the resources that that won't be a uh a bandage, it'll actually like get to the core of it. Um we'll we'll get into what happened to the the program later, but um it was I think our first real introduction into uh agriculture from this side of it. Like, what is the the farmer's experience? Because we had we did like surveys and we and I'm not going to to the market on Saturday and like having conversations with farmers, which was really cool because a lot of the farmers like I grew up going to the market with my father every Saturday as a child. So going to people in the market, it wasn't like I was speaking with this random person. It was like, oh, little feeling, come, oh what was that? Little Feel, you know, so like they they have all this this reference point of me being like this small child, like asking my father to get tamar balls, and and now here I am with like a survey telling you about what we're doing here. So it was that's that's how we jumped into it.
SPEAKER_00So let's let's jump into that. Um, high-level themes, right? First of all, how long was this opportunity to serve the farming community or get to know them? And then like what were the high-level themes that if you were to pop them off your head, like that you learned?
SPEAKER_02Uh was it was it a year?
SPEAKER_01It was um roughly a year.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, about a year. Um one of the things that that stands out a whole lot, every farmer that we spoke to described something that was like extremely sad in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and like how how impactful it was to their entire livelihood. Like there were far so this was 2023 or 24, I guess in 23 or 24. And there were farmers who the impact was still felt so like significantly in their life because either they they hadn't recovered because the their water storage was. completely destroyed and there's no way to actually like like have have a farm if you can't access water. Right. Um there were people who so us outside of the how catastrophic it was on on like the infrastructure level the the fear of jumping back into this thing where this might happen again next year.
SPEAKER_00So two things we did um BI Good Food um so you know I'm here as the host of of Seed and Soil which is sponsored by like Wild Seeds because we run an organization called Virgin Islands Good Food which I have the privilege of being the executive director of and post or Maria we worked with Iowa State University and we did I believe 93 interviews right um and the word sad I can say that as we sat with individual farmers one-on-one immediately post storm there were lots of times that I cried um not in front of the farmer but like you leave and you feel the weight of this person's burden and um what felt like the invisibility of the disaster recovery process because there's not a lot of space for farmers in it. And um yeah so I I like what you're saying about one theme being like the deep impact of hurricanes and hurricane seasons um on farmers and you can imagine like that's that that's like people talk about post-traumatic stress is active traumatic stress a thing because I feel like a chronic stressor like this is just it kept on going it keeps on going right and I feel like it keeps on going for the Virgin Islands or Caribbean community right hurricane season is a thing where anxiety is raised but yeah that theme of what it means to farmers um I think people don't realize that post those disasters suicide rates in farmers went up and that was one of the the motivations of like the actual program and when you look at uh I think the statistic was that farmers do have like the highest rates of deaths by suicide.
SPEAKER_02I can't remember like like amongst what group but in like in that profession it's like really high um when you consider the isolation when you consider that like a bad day if you have a bad day at work for I don't know in certain agency or job here that you don't run like your your bad day ends maybe at five o'clock and you you go back home but like a bad day on a farm where like nothing was done you you you couldn't get water you this this is has been a huge issue for the last week and this is someone's livelihood like the the entire day is just messed up. You consider that the the average age of these farmers I think it was like like 61 or 62 or something like that. And it's like the first of all the the wear and tear on a body after farming for for this amount of time you mix that with poor health infrastructure in the territory you mix that with high cost of living the concern of a next hurricane season not being able to access your resources and you have this person that's primed for this life of just survival and I think that was one of the things that that stood out so much like like how how just hard how hard it was and how hard it is their description of like life at the farm and don't get me wrong it wasn't that there was no enjoyable anything like like that it was they they love it and I think that's what made it so hard like I love farming but it's so hard for all of these other reasons.
SPEAKER_01So Tamara my question um any themes that stood out to you the the need for or the desire for like community and said to be seen you know um for people to understand like where their role is in the food system. You know tell the story about was that a focus group that we went to um where there was a child at all the setting where they couldn't make the connection between the chicken that's purchased in a store and a chicken that's outside.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow you know um and not recognizing like the role the farmer plays in that um and support like just having that community support so like that's the reason this podcast exists right truly because in my work and I've been doing this for 12 years um I felt like we have invisibilized the farmer right even for those of us who know not only invisibilize them but we minimize we minimize them as um people and a lot of conversations when we go to public forums we hear um our local leaders um address them and or address community and be like ah farming is a business and I need to be business people and I need to get out there and do it you know like and there's this connotation as if the farmer is not doing enough and that'll be in my head like you think a person will wake up five o'clock every morning before because a lot of our farmers have jobs but you think a person will wake up five o'clock every morning go out in the field plant tend re do whatever they got to do go to their next job come home do that again and then on Saturday and Sunday go to market or be in the field all day because they are not a serious business person right um so I've heard of I feel like it's shifting but I in the past there was a lot of like that type of energy towards our farming community that I was like no man like do we know that these people have degrees do we know that these people are whether by apprenticeship or formal training are like some of the most innovative smartest people that I've met like these are like scientists and engineers like they're building structures do we know um and so one of the things that we wanted to make visible is this but like also I don't know if this is our appropriate question but I'm gonna ask it and you could tell me if it doesn't work like this how would you rate the wellness of our farming community like on average I think I would I would rate it exactly where I would rate like the overall wellness of the Bojan Islands community it's not very good.
SPEAKER_02I think there's a huge lack of resources that would make life a lot more enjoyable. I want enjoyable it's more bearable to get to that place where it's more enjoyable. One of the things that we had planned to do was have trainings for farmers to be able to mental first aid trainings for farmers to be able to identify what these warning signs of stressors or like like mental health disorders that if caught early would like you'd be able to to deal with it before like it became a much larger issue. Like I said before like we began this journey thinking that therapy was like the the goal of it like we need to get as many people into therapy as possible because that's what everyone needs and we still feel like it's really important but there is a Tamara jump in and whenever you want um there is a lot of power in building community and having a space where people feel safe to have that those conversations.
SPEAKER_00So we have partners in the States um Safon specifically and they they also partner with Island Food Security and many people may not realize that island food security is also a subset or a part or a parallel part of Sejar Farm. And so Safon when they came down and when I go up to visit one of the things that they talk about right is like where is the community that supports agriculture so when we see a they work to bring farmers together so farmers can be in relationship right and these are self-organized groups they're not forced relationships right but they spent a whole I believe year just prototyping like if we gave this group of farmers $2000 and they could do anything with it how would they build community right and across across the many of the different places and hopefully Alcy and Whitney J could tell their own story people did different things there were drum circles they were potlucks there were all these different things that were happening but the the goal was to foster community um to I don't even know if they thought they was combating isolation but just as they see it as part they would call it um afroecology as part of black agrarians right as part of the culture of in the South for them being black Southern Americans that togetherness was important and so when they come here we often talk about like where who is holding the fiber of community for farmers because we hear a lot of conversations about the production needs we hear a lot of conversations about USDA we hear a lot of conversation agriculture needs to do this differently right but who's holding farmers um that is something that VI Goodfood is endeavoring to do gently um because one you gotta know if people want to be held but like it's it is a new behavior like when I go to VIKs when I go to Puerto Rico like I experience the collective so much differently right like the farmer to farmer human and we have some strong farmer to farmer relationships. I'm talking about like not just your circle of five farmers who walk together because yes that is a subset of community like you got 20 people you got farmer to farmer brigading they have like mutual aid networks and resource sharing and these are some of them are formal practices but others is just like skill building and sharing and so we've been doing research um to figure out hmm what could that look like in the Virgin Islands? What could that look like across island um so so the your point about community this is my long-winded way of saying is well taken right like there is a definite need to cultivate community and that doesn't mean that none exist um but we need more of it so we're talking about the project in past tense um and I just think it's important to understand where it is and maybe why because and I gonna say this a lot of times things happen and they don't happen here but they impact here but on the farmer level all they know is that the local agency of VA good food start something and didn't finish so yeah you have to jump into all I mean the I guess the long and short is uh given current climate funding changed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah and it was taken away yeah um the resource to be able to continue providing the programming went away and I guess we're also trying to figure out how we continue doing that work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and that that was one of the hardest things because at the there was so much work in building trust to start with because one of a major theme was just distrust of government and and I and I'll say like that's where um Fila you come in to to play because it was because his face was there.
SPEAKER_01It was like oh okay I won't give a chance because it's you but if it wasn't you I don't know if I would really you know there was some familiarity there and then like work for like the rest of us to be somewhat accepted you know and then for funding to go away and for us in this place where it's like yeah we said we're gonna do something and we didn't you know like and and the feeling like the the weight and our responsibility it feel it feels like our responsibility to continue it but so I feel I feel as a person who very recently um learned that funding I had to continue something and to do the good work and you've been out into community and you know you're doing all the work to press release it and publicize it and go and build trust with farmers around a program and then have federal funding removed from you right I understand it's like oh I actually have to go say something about this to community and two all the trust I built right it just true true true true your trust meter went down because at the end of the day it was a thing that you just didn't get done it was a thing that you just didn't get done and people whose livelihood depends on it and you they send for you they ain't send for you you come that's the other thing right like our community I don't know if this is farmers all over but like who sent Kalio right so you came you offered help you convinced me I could trust your help and then you still didn't help and then it reaffirms that distrust right like it it it's real world evidence of why it should be I didn't want this in the in the beginning like you should never waste my time doing this and it just it feels terrible because like like we want to we want to do the work it's just we we wouldn't be able to sustain it.
SPEAKER_00So how do we as people who aren't primarily farmers who obviously now feel some level of investment and care for the farming community like what do what can we do in and I know this is this is just like partnership right now what do you think we can do to continue to show up for the farming community and be like hey we're here and would that be even be sufficient?
SPEAKER_02I don't know if there's if there's a thing that is done to rebuild or maintain what was like taken away um but I do think that there is making sure that you go to the market and get stuff to eat making sure that when a post is shared by a farmer who does use social media that you share that post as I guess as often as you can or whenever you do see it. I think like small things like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah that builds an awareness piece that's something that the the being seen right like I think that we could help farmers be seen by sharing posts by sharing pictures of things that we bought from you know to encourage other people to also purchase because it's there is livelihood you know so I think that's super important and I like I just shift in my seat because a lot of the times the answers seem so big or so far and are so complex because this is a complex issue for as long as I know myself the Virgin Islands importing 98% of its food for as long as I know myself um the grocery store and I don't have anything against grocery stores but it's the primary mechanism in which Virgin Islanders buy food and many grocery stores support farmers right so but like the role of the farmer's market the role of the direct to consumer market right sometimes our impact in going and spending our money directly with the farmer is also overlooked and when you purchase directly from the farmer um they get a hundred they get a hundred percent of that into their business um so that's like one way I agree it it's as it's a small solution right but cumulatively cumulatively over time that small solution could help maybe not make a farmer millionaire but like totally keep their business going how do you think it would increase their wellness though so what comes to mind is when when it's direct to consumer there's a there's a relationship that's built like even even when you have some of the conversation like I've I've gone to the farmer's market and when I plan to just kind of be there for 20 minutes like I spent a half hour talking to someone just because like whatever happened that week or that morning is just so interesting and we're just talking about it there's there's one person in particular um I I every time I've I've gone to the market like like we have a conversation and it it's it's not that it's always like this heavy or insightful conversation but it's just like I don't know like like you're speaking with a person and even like the other person is if I remember like you're speaking with a person I think that part's really important.
SPEAKER_02So as we round this conversation right um I'm gonna ask each of you one specific question what has this experience changed in you Tamara in terms of we had a contract to understand some of the core barriers that impact farmers and now that I've done this work I am in one word changed right like I have a different perspective because for me farming was like more of at home backyard or grow some things that you like you know transformed perspective wise on and my role in the food system what the food system means for wellness on a whole and I think on a personal level outside of the the perspective like the the the world perspective it's I think it's deepened our relationship because at his core like he's a farmer you know um he'd grow things he'd cultivate things greater changes is a part of that right um and I think it deepened my relationship with him to understand a little bit more about about him um oh man that's beautiful I thought so too Tariq your answer mine is not as beautiful um you're not a Caribbean breath of fresh air no not not in this one not not in this breath um I think that the thing that that happened after like the funding was pulled and I think that's the big one of the biggest things that stands out um it reinforced my my scarcity mindset um and this need to whenever there's a plan to develop a thing make sure that there is a a revenue generating aspect of it that can be poured back into to the system the program the pilot or whatever it is in the event that the initial funding goes away there's something that gives us a little more time to like figure out our next move rather than it just shut down um I I know I said scarcity it it just it sounds I hate to use the word resilient I don't like the word resilient because I think it'll get overused so much and it just becomes like this um oh you're resilient keep going um but it it does make me think deeper into how we maintain whatever it is that we build especially in this time where funding is all up in the air so I think if I could wrap it up right like in the journey towards liberation in the vehicle which we drive food systems and the vehicle which you drive wellness there is both this need and desire to think of the redundancies that have to happen um in one the way humans show up in relationship to build community and two in in the way we resource the revolution that is getting us to liberation.
SPEAKER_00I want to thank you both for spending this time with me. I want you to know you won't be strangers to this podcast because if I can um I will invite you again because I just think there's so much to this wellness piece that you know we will begin to uncover more. So just thank you very much. And if you have for the first time joined the podcast of Seed and Soil, I want you to like, subscribe, comment, tell me something, um, and also share. And to Terry Kantamara's point, I hope this you know short time has changed or transformed you in some way where you might feel motivated to go out to a farm stand um to support a local farmer directly. And when you get there, let your 10 minute conversation take up 30 minutes because that relationship can go a long way in promoting wellness.
