Since 2018, the Food Systems Leadership Network has been connecting, supporting, and resourcing food systems leaders from across the country to strengthen their efforts at creating more equitable food systems. Over the years, the FSLN has interviewed a handful of the many leaders in this field and in the network. Willful Wildflowers is a compilation of these interviews that celebrates the passion, dedication, and tenacity of folks leading food systems change across the country.

Check out the profiles of Qiana and other food systems leaders across the nation in this series.

This report illuminates the experiences, struggles, and recommendations of regional community leaders and small scale farmers in their ongoing and diverse efforts to increase SNAP/EBT redemption and food access within local direct farm to consumer models such as farmers markets, CSAs, and farm stands. This report was prepared by QJM Multiprise along with co-authors Qiana Mickie, Maggie Israel, Hannah Tackett, and Charlotte Voelkel.

The book lifts up the impacts of the pandemic on our food and agricultural system, but also highlights alternative solutions and strategies from grassroots leaders and activists from around the world. The US contribution is my chapter, “Solidarity, Not Charity: Emergent Strategies from the Front Lines on Fostering a Food-Based Solidarity Economy in the United States”.

When the pandemic first hit in the U.S., lines at food pantries and banks spiked, the unemployment rate exponentially increased, and COVID-19 began to hit communities of color the hardest.