Cicada Calling is a 2-acre diversified vegetable and cut flower farm in Southeast, Louisiana.
Our Story
As two young, queer farmers in Louisiana, our vision is to be able to not only invest in the land and ecosystem, but in our community as well. For us, making the decision to start this farm is an investment and intentional decision to not only maintain ourselves, but our home which is threatened by climate change.
Our goal is to develop Southern regenerative farming practices of growing food and find varieties that better fit the extreme rain and heat we experience. Throughout this process, we are committed to documenting and sharing knowledge to support other young farmers along with working with organizing groups to help better develop our local food system.
Thank you for joining us on this experience and we look forward to growing collectively towards a food sovereign Gulf South with you.
Love,
Becks and Sierra
A food sovereign Gulf South.
“Food sovereignty is the right of all peoples to healthy, culturally appropriate and sustainably produced foods, and to the resources they need to produce food.” -Food First
We believe that everyone has a right to good quality, fresh food—yet our society and capitalist food system perpetuate inequalities and prevent people from accessing the resources needed to be well. This system is intentional in its exploitation of people, labor, and land. The priority is production, not quality; rather than support small farmers who can sustainably provide quality, fresh food for their communities, the system rewards industrial-scale farms that destroy land and habitually violate the rights of workers.
Although our farm by its nature buys into a capitalist system, we strive to build, support, and learn more about alternative forms of supporting ourselves and our communities. Through our work with Cattail Cook’s food relief, we learned more about mutual aid as a form of exchanging goods, services, and ideas with our neighbors and community members to help shift the power and resources not dependent on financial transactions. To be clear, mutual aid is NOT charity but rather extremely political, intentional and in solidarity with our community fighting hard to survive and thrive under nearly impossible conditions. We encourage you to read up on this and to learn more about the legacy of Black, Brown, and indigenous organizers in mutual aid.
For us, growing food and creating structures for all people to have access to is direct resistance to an industrialized and capitalist food system that exploits both land and people. As climate change continues to threaten our existence here in the Gulf South, it’s now more than ever that we need to adopt alternative systems that bring our community together to provide mutual aid and support to one another. We must fight for this.
As we build this farm and this community, we will strive to invest in our community and alternative forms of mutual support and aid. Although we are all forced to participate in capitalism and these systems of harm to put food on our tables, we encourage you to continue to educate yourself and organize with your community to incorporate mutual aid into your business and daily lives.
Follow our journey.
