Q&A with Sanam Zahir

 Haleh Zandi and Gavin Raders, co-founders of Planting Justice, dedicate their time to community organizing, urban food production, and shifting local and international policies towards more just and sustainable solutions for all. They organize free community work-parties and low-cost educational workshops at schools, transform yards into edible gardens and create jobs through training the community to create sustainable, replicable gardens with complete nutritional diet in the city. PAAIA sat down with Haleh to learn more about her work as the co-founder of Planting Justice, a non-profit organization whose slogan is “Grow Food, Grow Jobs, Grow Community” and is founded on three guiding principles “Food Justice, Economic Justice, Environmental Justice”.

Haleh, it’s a pleasure sitting with you and talking about your accomplishments as a young member of the community. I first learned about Planting Justice through my conversations with you and Gavin. After reading more about your organization on your website and articles such as the one featured on Food First, I felt it imperative to share your work with the community.

Let’s start by introducing Planting Justice to our readers!

Q: Where did the idea behind Planting Justice come from and how did it form?

Planting Justice grew out of an edible landscaping and ecological design company Gavin Raders and I started in June 2008 called the Backyard Food Project. Whereas the benefits of edible landscaping and permaculture have thus far been restricted to those who can pay a premium for it, we were determined to make healthy food, edible landscaping, and ecological education affordable and accessible to low-income urban residents. From the start, we organized friends with canvassing experience to raise donations and volunteers house by house, and in their first year we created 40 urban permaculture gardens for both full-paying and low-income clients that recycled greywater and harnessed precious rainwater to efficiently produce thousands of pounds of fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey, meat, herbs and edible mushrooms, all while providing relevant and inspirational environmental education and outdoor experiences for low-income youth and families.  The high demand for our services convinced us to scale up this work by organizing an income-generating 501(c)3 non-profit that could create green jobs in edible landscaping and grassroots organizing, while increasing food security, community building, and environmental education in economically disadvantaged communities. 

Q: Who are the main participants?

At schools, community centers, prisons, housing complexes, and private residencies, Planting Justice empowers disenfranchised urban residents with the skills, resources, and inspiration to maximize food production, economic opportunities, and environmental beauty in our neighborhoods.

Q: What projects are you currently working on?

Since March 2009, Planting Justice has been in collaboration with Mandela Marketplace and West Oakland Youth Standing Empowered (WYSE) to develop an educational food forest at Burbank Community Garden in East Oakland. During the 2009-2010 school year, Gavin and I led a weekly afterschool program called “Food Justice and Culinary Arts” in collaboration with the East Lake YMCA program and 12 African-American students at Explore College Preparatory middle school. We have also been in collaboration since March 2009 with the Insight Garden Program at San Quentin State Prison working with 35 inmates twice a month to mentor them in edible landscaping and ecological design. We are effectively working with San Quentin authorities to develop a space, beyond the existing native plant garden, for these men to grow food and gain job-training skills to enter into the green economy upon release. During the 2010-2011 school year, Planting Justice will be collaborating with Mandela High School in East Oakland to develop a weekly food justice/ecological entrepreneurship course with juniors through their social justice internship. Since February 2010, Gavin and I have been leading bi-weekly urban gardening workshops at Keller Plaza in North Oakland with low-income and elderly residents, 90% of whom are Eritrean and Ethiopian. Having knocked on over 50,000 doors in 5 states to organize on a range of national and international anti-nuclear, anti-war, human rights, and environmental causes, we also train other environmental grassroots organizers to canvass for Planting Justice. Lastly, Planting Justice transforms the front and back yards of private residents for both full-paying and subsidized clients, and has started over 60 gardens in the past 2 years.

Q: Where does the funding come from?

Planting Justice generates much of its own revenue through its programming, including the door-to-door outreach program and the edible landscaping fee-for-service program called Transform your Yard. As a 501(c)3 organization, Planting Justice has received several small grants that help sponsor community garden projects. Also, Planting Justice has a dedicated monthly sustainer program in which people give $5 or more per month to help fund this important work towards food and economic justice.

Q: How do you envision Planting Justice in a few years?

Planting Justice aims to show how hundreds of jobs in food production, value-added, and retail can be created in and near every U.S. city; jobs that regenerate local economies, natural resources, and the bodies, minds, and spirits of urban residents. By implementing tangible, innovative solutions to the interlinked crises of urban food injustice, economic injustice, and the climate crisis, Planting Justice intends to demonstrate that cities such as Oakland can not only produce healthy and sustainable food for those who currently lack access to it, but do it in a way that simultaneously creates dignified, living-wage jobs for economically disenfranchised people and shows a viable alternative to the industrial food system that is itself at the root of health inequity and the climate crisis. Our long-term goal is to support a radical legislative, cultural, and physical shift in the way our country feeds itself, towards a local, sustainable and just food system that enables all people to have access to affordable, nutritious food that heals rather than ails them. We envision Planting Justice to be in cities across the U.S. such as Los Angeles, New Orleans, Washington D.C. and Detroit.

Q: How can the community help?

The community can help in several ways.

1) To hire our Edible Landscaping team to transform your yard into an abundant, nutritious landscape that demonstrates permaculture design and helps to alleviate our individual food miles. For every 3-4 full-paying clients, Planting Justice can implement one garden for free for a low-income household! Just fill out the form.

2) Become a monthly sustainer at $5/month or more. If we have 1,000 people giving a little each month, Planting Justice would be able to implement gardens commissioned by the community without having to wait or rely upon foundations who live outside our community.

3) Collaborate with Planting Justice on food justice issues. Planting Justice is always looking for ways to empower disenfranchised urban residents with the skills, resources, and inspiration to maximize food production, environmental beauty, and economic opportunities in our neighborhoods.

4) Spread the news about Planting Justice. Tell your friends and family to become monthly sustainers or to hire Planting Justice as Edible Landscapers.

Thank you, Haleh for sharing your time with us. Needless to say, your work is inspiring for our young activists and philanthropists.