We know that moving from systems of oppression and creating equity in our communities and the systems at play around us is hard work. Through our Equity in Practice in Regenerative Agriculture Collabathon, OpenTEAM experimented with various traditional leadership and management tools for solving the challenges we all face personally, organizationally and institutionally as it relates to our work particularly within the agricultural and climate sector. The information presented in this resource guide are what we explored and what we hope can spark new mindsets, frameworks, and learnings that can support your equity work in practice.
We want to form the foundation of fusing these management frameworks with the equity work we have to do, but we recognize that we are in various stages of our own awareness. Learning about equity and how to apply it in practice is ongoing work. As western capitalist systems remain dominant globally, articulating language and concepts surrounding equity and the context of this work is important for creating more equitable outcomes. By introducing a system lens through this resource guide, we hope to help neutralize a lot of this language and these frameworks, making it more accessible for all to apply in practice.
While this guide is an educational resource, it primarily serves as a living document of our learnings, sharing applicable actions that individuals and organizations can use themselves to enact equity in their lives and in their work. As we continue to learn and evolve, so will this guide. By collectively sharing our knowledge, experiences, and perspectives, we can foster the growth of more equitable systems in agriculture and technology.
The remainder of this toolkit is divided into three sections: Foundations, Leadership Tools, and Implementing Change.
It is important to remember that this resource guide is a collaborative document. We invite you to contribute and provide feedback on each page as it is continually developed and improved. We encourage the use of this resource alongside other toolkits, materials, and discussions within your organization and community.
OpenTEAM (Open Technology Ecosystem for Agricultural Management), facilitated by Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment, began in 2019 to build an agricultural technology ecosystem that supports adaptive soil health management for farms of all scales, geographies and production systems. As a nonprofit, Wolfe’s Neck Center is stewarding networks such as OpenTEAM and the Maine Soil Health Network to benefit the agricultural community both regionally and globally. Through historical regenerative farming practices, innovative soil health research, and visitor interactions, the land is used as an educational resource for the Center’s visitors and nearby farmers. Drawing upon this rich history of innovation, experimentation and education, Wolfe’s Neck Center is building an interoperable ecosystem of tools for land stewards to combat climate change and improve soil health through OpenTEAM.
As part of our mission to create a shared, open and accessible agricultural technology toolkit, we are incorporating an equity lens into our work. We acknowledge that agriculture has a troubled history of colonization, desertification, slavery and extraction. In the United States, less than two percent of farms are owned by farmers who identify as Black. Similarly, under two percent of farms are owned by Indigenous land stewards.
Our future agriculture must be liberating, not confining, and we must consciously work to undo both the historical and ongoing institutional injustices that have limited our shared potential and disproportionately affected communities of Black, Indigenous and people of color.
In order to harness the shared innovation that happens every day on every farm and realize the vast potential for sharing across a rich and diverse global network, we must democratize the code for agriculture and the knowledge it takes to farm regeneratively.
At OpenTEAM, we define equity as achieving fairness in treatment and outcomes by striving to provide varying needs of support and assistance with regard to race, class, gender, or other defining identities. Equity in practice is everyday engagement that ensures equity is upheld in our system. We recognize that any project or initiative must have equitable foundations and begin with an equitable perspective and address the historical and current perpetuation of harm towards people of color to avoid using the label of “equity” only to satisfy societal expectations.
To benefit us all in this agricultural space we work in, we must have equity and trust. We each need everyone everywhere to have access to the most current and diverse agricultural knowledge because together we have the capacity to improve soil health faster than we thought possible and thus improve all livelihoods that depend on it.
Read the full OpenTEAM Statement on Racial Equity in Agriculture here.
The Equity in Regenerative Agriculture Collabathon laid the foundations for this resource guide. Over the course of five weeks, the participants worked to build new skills and create the outline of a toolkit for viewing their work through an equity lens. Much of the discussion focused on how a better understanding of ourselves and others can help bring equity into our daily work, projects, and organizations. These concepts have been documented and expanded upon in this guide.
Prior to the collabathon, the Equity in Practice & Technology working group served as a starting point for this work in OpenTEAM. This group, which meets once a month and is open to all OpenTEAM members, was created with the goal of amplifying the work of our members and supporting collaborative efforts toward racial equity and inclusion through OpenTEAM community members.
This resource guide continues to be a collaborative process. The initial guide, released in March of 2022 came together thanks to the following individuals, building off of the work of the collabathon:
All citations for specific articles, videos, and external resources are included at the bottom of each section. We could not have created this guide without these external resources providing necessary information, perspectives and knowledge.