June 13, 2024 • 25 mins
Today's guest is Trey Ford, Supervisor for the Duval County Soil and Water Conservation District. He covers the many programs that they have going on to encourage farming, uban argiculture and communtiy engagement. He also discusses his work with Eartha's Farm and Market.
RELATED LINKS:
https://www.duvalsoilandwater.com/
https://www.clarawhitemission.org/earthas-farm-market
https://www.instagram.com/treysolo7/?hl=en
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Sustainable North Florida.
I'm your host, LaurieannSantamaria.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Whatever resources that you know you got to grind
to get to Capricorn if you'renot somebody who's just
well-resourced, rich and stufflike that.
If they're serious aboutfarming, we want to be able to
take them to a start-up farmingprogram and then have a start-up
farm that very next year.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to Sustainable North Florida.
I'm Laurieann Santamaria, thehost of the show, as well as the
chair of the JacksonvilleClimate Coalition.
Our guest today is Trey Ford.
Trey serves on the board of theDuval County Soil and Water
Conservation District, which iswhy we originally asked him to
join us.
However, as you'll see, Trey'sroots in Jacksonville go way
(00:44):
deeper than that.
He's a strong advocate formultiple important issues, and
today we're going to focus onthe intersection of
sustainability, access tohealthy food, environmental
justice and agriculturalpractices.
Seems like many differenttopics, I know, but they're
actually all intertwined andTrey is a great example of how
all of those things cometogether.
Trey, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, thank you, it's an honor to be on here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
And I just want to let everybody know that you're
definitely a hands-on kind ofperson.
You're talking to us right nowfrom the greenhouse that you
have right.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I am.
I'm here on site at Eartha'sFarm and Market over here on
Moncrieff.
I grow some stuff too.
So I've got a fish pepperbusiness and a African basil
business that I'm showing mydaughters how to grow and
propagate with African basil.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
But first, maybe if we could start with a little bit
about your background, likewhat's your origin story?
How did you come to be in yourcurrent role?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So I'm going to.
I'm going to make a long story,medium size, hopefully.
Hopefully, this is so.
When you say origin story, Ihave to go all the way back to
fourth grade.
I was living in Miami and I wasgoing to a school called Miami
Country Day School.
The thing about education isthat it all stems around the
individual educators and theydon't all come in the same.
(01:59):
Quality is what I'll say,quality is what I'll say.
And I just had such anoutstanding fourth grade
instructor in science that hehad us in a group of kids, a
group of those fourth graders,doing hydroponics, and our group
won a trip to New York tocompete as far as the things
that we found in our hydroponicsand what we grew and stuff like
(02:20):
that.
So through that opportunity, itwas actually my first time
going to New York City as well.
So I'll say that from a veryearly age I learned that
agriculture can open up somedoors.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's nice when you have somebody that impactful in
your life.
You know at that age that'sreally cool yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And I'm an educator's child.
My mom taught at Raines HighSchool.
Down the street from or downthe street from Earth is Farming
Mark and I'm on Crete and I'llfast forward education wiseinker
School of Construction and Iwent to the University of
(03:05):
Florida when we were winningeverything.
Tim Tebow was there and itwasn't just the football team
but the basketball team, thetrack team.
We were just winning everything.
Olympic medals at University ofFlorida was a great place to be
.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And I had a lot.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yes, go Gators and I had a lack of discipline there
at the time.
It's hard to be there with allthat going on and not have
discipline.
So my GPA was negativelyaffected by all the fun I was
having, and when it was time forme to go up to the junior year
in Rinker, I did not have theGPA to move on and so I had to
switch to the College ofAgricultural Life Science.
And I'll say, even though itwas my knucklehead mistakes that
(03:40):
caused that transition, Ibelieve that it was definitely a
God move.
Because I'll fast forward againto campaigning for Ashante
Green when she was running forDuval Soil and Water.
She was successful in herattempt to be elected and then
she turned around and recruitedme to also join the board of
(04:01):
Duval Soil and Water, and sothat's how I got into Duval Soil
and Water.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
It definitely seems that the path that you had,
although it kind of might seemsecuritous, it seems like it was
definitely the right path foryou, right?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I always hear hindsight is 20-20.
So, when you like you have toget there, and then you look
back and you realize why certainthings had to happen for you to
be where you are.
Yeah, in the right place at theright time.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So Trey, I think, the Duval County Soil and Water
Conservation District, so that'sthe official name.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
What do you call it in short, duval, soil and Water.
I think we leave off theconservation district part.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Okay, so Duval Soil and Water, I think that a lot of
our listeners aren't familiarwith, so can you tell us about
the history of these kind ofconservation districts and what
you guys are currently doing?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yes, so I don't know how old all of the conservation
districts are.
In Florida there are about 50or so.
Specifically, the Duval Soiland Water Conservation District
just turned 70 last year.
It's a special district ofgovernment that was started for
the people, by the people, tohave people in politics that
were advocating for land ownersand users, which is pretty much
(05:06):
everybody.
I'll say this, I'm going totalk about it in technical terms
, but I'm also going to talkabout what I've observed, to
just make it more layman terms.
So in technical terms, we haverelationships with the USDA,
with the city council.
We run very similar to anonprofit, so we're able to
apply for grants and getsponsorships and things like
(05:27):
that that are more attractive tosome of those larger
organizations or writers andthings like that, and the way
that that money is appliedreally depends on the supervisor
that are currently on the boardin my perspective.
And so a lot of times whenpeople run for Duval Soil and
Water or for any soil and waterconservation district, they have
some connection to farming orconservation, cleaning they and
(05:52):
so with a board of five, there'snaturally going to be different
skill sets and different,different talents and different
interests, and what the boarddoes is as a collective we work
on things and then also as anindividual we champion things.
But we're really facilitatorsof resources, whether that
resource is information orwhether that resource is fun.
(06:14):
And I don't like to use toomuch alphabet soup.
I think a lot of people knowwhat USDA is, but NRCS is
National Resource ConservationService.
They're kind of like a part ofUSDA.
It's kind of one organizationthat functions different things
separately.
No-transcript.
(06:46):
A lot of people don't know thatthere's help out there that is
allocated for you because theydon't have access.
So a lot of what we do is wetry to get people access to the
information but also to thefunding.
So what the funding looks likeis the previous board was able
to secure some grant money to dosome regeneration on a
(07:09):
basically some infertile soil.
That's on the S line, which isa very important thing in
Jacksonville.
That's going to kind of tie thecity together from a
transportation perspective andkind of everything in
Jacksonville is elevated rightnow and so as part of that S
line there's a park that theyregenerated with the soil,
called Regeneration Park.
It's on Moncrieff and 13th andso in that instance we got to
(07:33):
get that land managed to get thebad soil excavated and the good
soil put in, and so that's whatit looks like when we're
getting resources.
Another thing that I know thatwe're going to champion in
Jacksonville, because there's abig thrust on food security.
Uh, not just in impoverishedareas, but just in general.
Food costs are going up.
So there's a thrust, I thinksocietally, of people trying to
(07:53):
grow their own food, and no, wecan support that through, you
know, maybe a community gardengrant, partnering with farms to
get education out there and, uh,connecting uh farmers with
other farmers.
We're like a galvanizing,centralizing unit of people,
bringing the people out of thesilos and into collaboration so
that everybody benefits.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So you're a supervisor for Soil and Water
right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Correct, the positions are five supervisors
and each of the supervisors hasa role on the board, which would
be anything from secretary tochair or treasurer.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And you're a treasurer.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I'm currently the treasurer.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yes, Okay, and so what was the process?
How did you come to be asupervisor?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
We had to run, so we had to go to the supervisor of
elections and fill out paperworkand, to be honest, I was walked
through every single process.
It's a good amount of paperwork.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So how is Duval Soy on Water?
How are you guys funded?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
A hundred percent through donations, grants.
We we have certain we havecertain stakeholders that
consistently like fund projects.
That are collaborations, likean example of that would be the
St John's Riverkeepers.
They they host certain eventsand co-host things with us, but
they're also able to supportfinancially when we're
(09:08):
galvanizing on a project, maybeabout river cleanup and things
like that.
And then the city I would saycity council and the mayor does
participate well with us.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And you mentioned helping people that have
different projects in thecommunity, helping them to get
access to grants.
Do you guys have a grant writeron staff right now?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
No, we don't.
So the opportunity right nowwith Waterboard, is to
restructure in a way where wehave five committees and one of
those committees will be afundraising committee, and so
what that looks like is thefundraising committee will then
be facilitating the work ofgaining sponsors.
Gaining donors, they'll berecruiting grant writers and
(09:48):
recruiting even other nonprofitsthat have similarity, to
co-write grants.
Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
All right.
So in preparation for this call, I did a little bit of digging
and I was really impressed withso many different programs that
you guys have.
So I thought we'd do a littlespeed round and I'll pick a
topic and you give me theelevator pitch for what each one
is.
Okay, perfect, all right.
Envirothon.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So Envirothon is a team brain brawl competition.
It is available to 9th through12th graders and it's a team of
students and one teacher as well, and they go through different
stations and they're used in thebrain to solve problems or to
answer questions, and again,those questions are about the
(10:33):
environment, so it'll range fromwater to soil to plants.
Questions are about theenvironment, so it'll range from
water to soil to plants and Ithink usually 4-H comes out,
which is another organizationthat does educational programs
for students.
And you know, the more teamsthe better, because ideally, you
know, we want Jacksonville torepresent on a national level
and the best way to do that isto have the best of the best
competing against each other.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
That's great, okay, cool, all right.
Next one speech and postercontest.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So the speech and poster contest this last year I
love the theme because it wasmade the forest be with you.
The speech and poster contestWell, I'll say the poster
contest first is available forthrough 12, and they're awarded
cash prize for placing andthey're separated into you, you
know, age group divisions orwhatnot.
(11:17):
So, with speak, what I loveabout poster is that everybody
gets to be involved, and I justlove art and I feel like, uh,
culture is translated throughart, and history is translated
through art, and education istranslated through art.
And who doesn't like star wars?
Probably a lot of people.
I like star wars and uh, so, maythe force Be With you is good,
and each theme is somethingdifferent, and so each year we
(11:39):
find out the theme and thenstudents have usually about
three or four months to come upwith their poster Speech is
available for six through 12.
And similar concept, thoughthey're going to compete against
their age group and they'regoing to deliver a speech about
the forest, and really the ideais to allow the student to
really imagine what it is thatthey think should be talked
(12:01):
about, because I think it's alot that we can learn as adults
from children, just in howthey're seeing the world.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Okay.
So there's one thing that I sawon there.
I did see something that was arequest for technical assistance
and that seemed actually prettyinteresting.
So is that still something thatyou guys provide?
It was basically a form that alandowner could fill out saying
you know, I have this issue.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yes, that's one of the most important things about
soil and water because peopleneed to know who that is and
sometimes we don't have thedirect answer but we always know
who has the direct answer.
So I think the top question thatwe get is usually about well
water and irrigating their youknow, their homestead or their
land, and typically we pass thatthose questions.
(12:44):
Our office is located in theUniversity of Florida IFAS
Extension Office on McDuff andsome of those questions it's
good that we get them becauseyou know that's one of our
stakeholders and partners aswell.
So a lot of those questions endup going to Dr Genevieve over
at UF IPAS.
Some of the questions end upgoing to the master.
We have the master gardener UFmaster gardener garden over
(13:05):
there on that property as well,the University of Florida IPAS
Extension Office.
They do a free soil test.
It's mostly pH, but there's amore robust soil test that's
under a hundred dollars and ityou know you're only going to
spend that if you're you'reserious about what you're doing
with your land.
So, um, I think that's the mostimportant component because a
lot of people just don't knowwho to ask.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, all right.
Last question, the speed round.
What is hug a farmer day?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Oh, I love hug a farmer day.
Farmer Day is a partnershipwith the Murray Hill Farmers
Market.
The Murray Hill Farmers Marketis run by a young lady named MJ
who is focused on communityregeneration, and Hug a Farmer
Day usually kicks off our StartFarming program.
That's one of our strongestprograms in potential and we're
(13:54):
trying to take it to the nextlevel.
So hug a farmer day is wherepeople can come out to the
Murray Hill farmers market andactually meet the actual farmers
, because farmers work hard andsometimes they they have to send
a staff member out to vend, andso this is a day where we make
sure that the actual farmers andthe leaders at the farm are out
and people get to meet them andhug them.
Because most of the food that weeat comes from local farmers
(14:15):
and small farmers and you knowthey they're very underpaid and
sometimes underappreciatedbecause you know the reality is
a lot of people just don't havelike a real awareness of where
their food comes from.
You kind of know, but you knowin talking to adults and
children I can tell that there'sjust a gap in understanding.
So hug a farmer day is a way togive exposure to people on what
(14:39):
farming really is and who thefarmers really are, and when's
the next one?
Next year.
So each year usually in May,april, the spring, and again it
kicks off the Start FarmingProgram and I'll articulate the
Start Farming Program.
The start farming program andI'll articulate the start
farming program.
It started kind of like a moreof like a cohort workshop based,
(14:59):
um, you know, maybe 10 weeks or14 weeks where they get to go
learn different things and whatI would, and so some of those
people end up turning into maybecommunity gardeners and and
things like that, start growingstuff at their home.
Some of those people alreadyhave land if they get in the
program program why they'reinterested.
What I would like to see in thenext year of start farming is to
(15:20):
start calculating how manyfarms are we starting this
program, making it a little bitmore exclusive and making the
qualifications a little bitstronger so that if 10 people go
through the start farmingprogram we can start to get data
as to how many farms start fromthat program in that very next
year.
And what I would really like tosee is, at the end of the
program, being able to get thatstart farming graduate some type
(15:43):
of stipend to get them started,whether that's even if it's
just a thousand dollars to gettheir farm number.
They can just whateverresources that you know you got
to grind to get the capital forif you're not somebody who's
just well-resourced and rich andstuff like that.
If they're serious aboutfarming, we want to be able to
take them to a start farmingprogram and then have a start a
farm that very next year.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to put some rigor
on that.
I mean, that's a great way tomake sure that you are focusing
your dollars on where you'regoing to have the most amount of
impact.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
We are going to need food sources bad in the next few
years.
We got to shake the table sothat we can get some new results
.
Yeah, do the same thing overand over, uh, and expecting
different results is what theycall it insanity.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, yeah, Um.
Okay.
So, Trey, you've got abackground um in film.
Can you tell us about how youuse that to advance some of
these agricultural issues thatwe've discussed?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Absolutely so.
My background in film starts atan early age.
Me and my aunt would my kidsread books, but not everybody is
(16:59):
just going to receive theinformation and act on the
information in that way, and somy thought process on film is I
just remember when I was born in87.
So the cartoon that I grew upwith that I love was Captain
Planet, and I feel like that waskind of the seed that made me
care about glittering and mademe curious about how things grow
and maybe not want pollution,things like that.
(17:24):
There's a film I recently saw inDetroit.
I had a film go to the DetroitBlack Film Festival called Art
of Flow.
It was an art film.
It didn't have anything to dowith agriculture, but while I
was at that film festival I sawa movie called Gaining Ground
and it was a documentary aboutreally about two things.
It was about the predatorypractices of the USDA government
(17:44):
entities and just the people inpower as it relates to black
landowners and them losing theirfarms and losing their land on
a just crazy cliff, veryintentionally, and but part of
it was a lack of knowledge inhow to uh pass down legacy, so
they're called heirs propertiesand what happens is grandma
owned farm, seven siblings andthey're not on the same page now
(18:08):
that family farm is gonebecause, you know, some tax
building or this or that orthird, or they decided to sell
it and so there is this dramaticreduction of black farm
ownership land which is andpeople don't know this.
You don't know until somebodytells you you know.
That's basically why the USDAturned around and gave two
billion dollars, or allocatedtwo billion dollars, to try and
(18:30):
alleviate that.
They confessed to not givingthe black farmers loans.
They needed certain things tostay afloat.
Farmers get bailed out all thetime by the government, but it's
only the big boy.
So that film was very inspiringand enlightening to me, because
the film is called GainingGround.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Because we're trying to get that.
So is that sound?
Maybe this is too simplistic,but is that kind of like the
agricultural equivalent ofredlining?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Absolutely.
That's a great comparison.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And isn't locally.
Doesn't LISC have a programthat's associated with theirs
property?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I don't know if they have a program associated with
LISC with heirs property, theymay.
But I'm glad you highlightedLISC, and I want to highlight
Wealth Watchers as well.
Those are two close friends andpartners of the Earth, this
Farm and Market, as well asDuval Soil and Water, and I'm
going to bring up LISCspecifically.
Lisc was able to help Earth,this Farm and Market, hire a
marketing person, and so Ialmost think that LISC functions
(19:29):
in similar ways to Duval Soiland Water from the standpoint of
being a resource for otherresources, so that people get
you know what they need.
Wealth Watch is the same way.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So you mentioned, earth is Farmer Market and
that's definitely somethingimportant that we wanted to
cover here.
So we are going to be having aseparate episode focused solely
on that, but can you give us alittle bit of a background?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yes, so Earthers Farm and Market is a department of
the Clara White Mission.
The Clara White Mission wasestablished as a nonprofit or as
a business, so it's 120 yearsold on paper.
But the work started beforethen with Clara White, when she
was a slave and feedinginitially I think she was
feeding soldiers, feeding thehomeless.
Claire White adopted EarthaWhite because her family didn't
(20:19):
want her.
She was a mixed race and soClaire was willing to adopt her,
you know, because she waspartly Black and so Eartha,
because you know theEmancipation Proclamation and
also because she was veryfair-skinned, eartha was.
Because you know theEmancipation Proclamation and
also because she was very fairskinned, eartha was able to
maneuver in a dynamic way.
And just when she had such agreat heart I think they called
(20:41):
her the Angel of Mercy orsomething like that and what
happened was while she was asecretary for AL Lewis, who
started American Beach, starteda huge insurance company,
abraham Lincoln Lewis.
He started a huge insurancecompany, abraham Lincoln Lewis.
She was able to salvage somepapers that would have been
damaged in a fire and they inturn, you know, either sold the
(21:04):
property for near nothing orgifted it to the property.
And the property initially wasvery vibrant.
It had a natural spring wherepeople were.
You know, this is where blackpeople could swim.
Because, again, this is, thisis the, this is the late 1800s,
going into the early 1900s, youknow, into the 1930s.
So, uh, the, the status of theworld was different at that time
.
So this was I would almostconsider Moncrief Springs
(21:26):
similar to black, black wallstreet in Tulsa from the
standpoint of a vibrant, black,thriving community that was, um,
uh, basically dismantledthrough some way or another, and
we have there's a ton ofexamples like that.
What happened, specifically witheartha's farming market around
the 60s?
So she got into the 30s and shehad it as a co-op farm for
(21:47):
black farmers to be able to farmthe land.
Uh, she started multiple otherbusinesses and and by the 60s,
jea, for some reason, haddecided to start dumping ash in
the site and in multiple areas,and so it made the land
infertile and possibly toxic andif anything were to grow from
it, maybe harmful to people, andso, from my understanding, the
site was inactive from like the60s to the early 2000s.
(22:10):
And our CEO at that time,jacoby Pittman she basically
reactivated the vision of Earthto White as far as having this
farmland and the farmland is nowlesser than it was.
It's about 10 acres.
It's a regenerative farm.
We've got about 240 blueberrybushes, We've got bananas out
here, a mixture of vegetablesand produce and fruit.
But the 2019 to 2024 story isthey got the soil regenerated,
(22:38):
they hired the right staff toget the farm looking a certain
way and kind of structured inthe way that it could thrive and
be long term, and then, once itgot to that point, we were able
to scale pretty quickly.
It's actually just a very biginterest of the city because
it's a proof of concept that ina 3229 is the poorest zip code
in all of Florida, according toa report that was submitted by
(23:00):
the news, and so we're going tobe proof.
The proof is going to be in thepudding as we transform this
area and it's not, it's not anovernight thing, but it feels
like it and seeing, you knoweven where the farm was in 2019
in comparison to now.
There wasn't even a goodbuilding on the farm in 2019.
Now we have a I don't know howmany square foot Quonset hut.
(23:21):
We have another building comingin that's going to be more of
like a outdoor classroom withsome office space and again.
Like I said, we have anotherfive acres that we haven't
activated.
It already has a building on it, but it just lands.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah.
So I have to tell you I havethis really big smile on my face
.
The energy and enthusiasm thatyou have is just infectious.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
No, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Well, I've been out to the farm a few times and,
yeah, you definitely feel it outthere too.
So for other people that arelistening to us, that kind of
feel that way as well and wantto get involved, how can they?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
get involved with what you're doing.
I would say for Earthless Farmand Market, the best resource is
the Instagram page, becauseit's just the most active.
We push a lot of our stuff outon Instagram.
If you don't have Instagram, wedo have a Facebook page, and
then the best website to go tois wwwclarowhitemissionorg,
because, again, we're adepartment of the Clara White
Mission and, as far as DuvalSoil and Water goes, I would
(24:18):
like.
All of our meetings are publicand they're publicly noticed.
So if you're really interested,I would like to invite you to
our next meeting, and I don'tknow when this will air, so I'll
just.
Our meetings are typically onfirst and third Wednesdays from
3.30 to about 4.30 or 5,wednesdays from 3.30 to about
4.30 or 5, depending on thelevel of content we're going to
cover, and they're held at theUniversity of Florida Extension
(24:39):
Office on St St Macduff.
And the beautiful thing aboutthat is, if that's not feasible
for you to attend in person, wedo it on Zoom as well.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Awesome, that's great .
Well, thank you so much, trey.
This has been a greatconversation.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Thank you.
Like I said I,
Welcome to Sustainable North Florida.
I'm your host, LaurieannSantamaria.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Whatever resources that you know you got to grind
to get to Capricorn if you'renot somebody who's just
well-resourced, rich and stufflike that.
If they're serious aboutfarming, we want to be able to
take them to a start-up farmingprogram and then have a start-up
farm that very next year.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to Sustainable North Florida.
I'm Laurieann Santamaria, thehost of the show, as well as the
chair of the JacksonvilleClimate Coalition.
Our guest today is Trey Ford.
Trey serves on the board of theDuval County Soil and Water
Conservation District, which iswhy we originally asked him to
join us.
However, as you'll see, Trey'sroots in Jacksonville go way
(00:44):
deeper than that.
He's a strong advocate formultiple important issues, and
today we're going to focus onthe intersection of
sustainability, access tohealthy food, environmental
justice and agriculturalpractices.
Seems like many differenttopics, I know, but they're
actually all intertwined andTrey is a great example of how
all of those things cometogether.
Trey, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, thank you, it's an honor to be on here.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
And I just want to let everybody know that you're
definitely a hands-on kind ofperson.
You're talking to us right nowfrom the greenhouse that you
have right.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I am.
I'm here on site at Eartha'sFarm and Market over here on
Moncrieff.
I grow some stuff too.
So I've got a fish pepperbusiness and a African basil
business that I'm showing mydaughters how to grow and
propagate with African basil.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
But first, maybe if we could start with a little bit
about your background, likewhat's your origin story?
How did you come to be in yourcurrent role?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So I'm going to.
I'm going to make a long story,medium size, hopefully.
Hopefully, this is so.
When you say origin story, Ihave to go all the way back to
fourth grade.
I was living in Miami and I wasgoing to a school called Miami
Country Day School.
The thing about education isthat it all stems around the
individual educators and theydon't all come in the same.
(01:59):
Quality is what I'll say,quality is what I'll say.
And I just had such anoutstanding fourth grade
instructor in science that hehad us in a group of kids, a
group of those fourth graders,doing hydroponics, and our group
won a trip to New York tocompete as far as the things
that we found in our hydroponicsand what we grew and stuff like
(02:20):
that.
So through that opportunity, itwas actually my first time
going to New York City as well.
So I'll say that from a veryearly age I learned that
agriculture can open up somedoors.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's nice when you have somebody that impactful in
your life.
You know at that age that'sreally cool yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And I'm an educator's child.
My mom taught at Raines HighSchool.
Down the street from or downthe street from Earth is Farming
Mark and I'm on Crete and I'llfast forward education wiseinker
School of Construction and Iwent to the University of
(03:05):
Florida when we were winningeverything.
Tim Tebow was there and itwasn't just the football team
but the basketball team, thetrack team.
We were just winning everything.
Olympic medals at University ofFlorida was a great place to be
.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And I had a lot.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yes, go Gators and I had a lack of discipline there
at the time.
It's hard to be there with allthat going on and not have
discipline.
So my GPA was negativelyaffected by all the fun I was
having, and when it was time forme to go up to the junior year
in Rinker, I did not have theGPA to move on and so I had to
switch to the College ofAgricultural Life Science.
And I'll say, even though itwas my knucklehead mistakes that
(03:40):
caused that transition, Ibelieve that it was definitely a
God move.
Because I'll fast forward againto campaigning for Ashante
Green when she was running forDuval Soil and Water.
She was successful in herattempt to be elected and then
she turned around and recruitedme to also join the board of
(04:01):
Duval Soil and Water, and sothat's how I got into Duval Soil
and Water.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
It definitely seems that the path that you had,
although it kind of might seemsecuritous, it seems like it was
definitely the right path foryou, right?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I always hear hindsight is 20-20.
So, when you like you have toget there, and then you look
back and you realize why certainthings had to happen for you to
be where you are.
Yeah, in the right place at theright time.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So Trey, I think, the Duval County Soil and Water
Conservation District, so that'sthe official name.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
What do you call it in short, duval, soil and Water.
I think we leave off theconservation district part.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Okay, so Duval Soil and Water, I think that a lot of
our listeners aren't familiarwith, so can you tell us about
the history of these kind ofconservation districts and what
you guys are currently doing?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yes, so I don't know how old all of the conservation
districts are.
In Florida there are about 50or so.
Specifically, the Duval Soiland Water Conservation District
just turned 70 last year.
It's a special district ofgovernment that was started for
the people, by the people, tohave people in politics that
were advocating for land ownersand users, which is pretty much
(05:06):
everybody.
I'll say this, I'm going totalk about it in technical terms
, but I'm also going to talkabout what I've observed, to
just make it more layman terms.
So in technical terms, we haverelationships with the USDA,
with the city council.
We run very similar to anonprofit, so we're able to
apply for grants and getsponsorships and things like
(05:27):
that that are more attractive tosome of those larger
organizations or writers andthings like that, and the way
that that money is appliedreally depends on the supervisor
that are currently on the boardin my perspective.
And so a lot of times whenpeople run for Duval Soil and
Water or for any soil and waterconservation district, they have
some connection to farming orconservation, cleaning they and
(05:52):
so with a board of five, there'snaturally going to be different
skill sets and different,different talents and different
interests, and what the boarddoes is as a collective we work
on things and then also as anindividual we champion things.
But we're really facilitatorsof resources, whether that
resource is information orwhether that resource is fun.
(06:14):
And I don't like to use toomuch alphabet soup.
I think a lot of people knowwhat USDA is, but NRCS is
National Resource ConservationService.
They're kind of like a part ofUSDA.
It's kind of one organizationthat functions different things
separately.
No-transcript.
(06:46):
A lot of people don't know thatthere's help out there that is
allocated for you because theydon't have access.
So a lot of what we do is wetry to get people access to the
information but also to thefunding.
So what the funding looks likeis the previous board was able
to secure some grant money to dosome regeneration on a
(07:09):
basically some infertile soil.
That's on the S line, which isa very important thing in
Jacksonville.
That's going to kind of tie thecity together from a
transportation perspective andkind of everything in
Jacksonville is elevated rightnow and so as part of that S
line there's a park that theyregenerated with the soil,
called Regeneration Park.
It's on Moncrieff and 13th andso in that instance we got to
(07:33):
get that land managed to get thebad soil excavated and the good
soil put in, and so that's whatit looks like when we're
getting resources.
Another thing that I know thatwe're going to champion in
Jacksonville, because there's abig thrust on food security.
Uh, not just in impoverishedareas, but just in general.
Food costs are going up.
So there's a thrust, I thinksocietally, of people trying to
(07:53):
grow their own food, and no, wecan support that through, you
know, maybe a community gardengrant, partnering with farms to
get education out there and, uh,connecting uh farmers with
other farmers.
We're like a galvanizing,centralizing unit of people,
bringing the people out of thesilos and into collaboration so
that everybody benefits.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So you're a supervisor for Soil and Water
right.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Correct, the positions are five supervisors
and each of the supervisors hasa role on the board, which would
be anything from secretary tochair or treasurer.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And you're a treasurer.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I'm currently the treasurer.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Yes, Okay, and so what was the process?
How did you come to be asupervisor?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
We had to run, so we had to go to the supervisor of
elections and fill out paperworkand, to be honest, I was walked
through every single process.
It's a good amount of paperwork.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So how is Duval Soy on Water?
How are you guys funded?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
A hundred percent through donations, grants.
We we have certain we havecertain stakeholders that
consistently like fund projects.
That are collaborations, likean example of that would be the
St John's Riverkeepers.
They they host certain eventsand co-host things with us, but
they're also able to supportfinancially when we're
(09:08):
galvanizing on a project, maybeabout river cleanup and things
like that.
And then the city I would saycity council and the mayor does
participate well with us.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And you mentioned helping people that have
different projects in thecommunity, helping them to get
access to grants.
Do you guys have a grant writeron staff right now?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
No, we don't.
So the opportunity right nowwith Waterboard, is to
restructure in a way where wehave five committees and one of
those committees will be afundraising committee, and so
what that looks like is thefundraising committee will then
be facilitating the work ofgaining sponsors.
Gaining donors, they'll berecruiting grant writers and
(09:48):
recruiting even other nonprofitsthat have similarity, to
co-write grants.
Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
All right.
So in preparation for this call, I did a little bit of digging
and I was really impressed withso many different programs that
you guys have.
So I thought we'd do a littlespeed round and I'll pick a
topic and you give me theelevator pitch for what each one
is.
Okay, perfect, all right.
Envirothon.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So Envirothon is a team brain brawl competition.
It is available to 9th through12th graders and it's a team of
students and one teacher as well, and they go through different
stations and they're used in thebrain to solve problems or to
answer questions, and again,those questions are about the
(10:33):
environment, so it'll range fromwater to soil to plants.
Questions are about theenvironment, so it'll range from
water to soil to plants and Ithink usually 4-H comes out,
which is another organizationthat does educational programs
for students.
And you know, the more teamsthe better, because ideally, you
know, we want Jacksonville torepresent on a national level
and the best way to do that isto have the best of the best
competing against each other.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
That's great, okay, cool, all right.
Next one speech and postercontest.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So the speech and poster contest this last year I
love the theme because it wasmade the forest be with you.
The speech and poster contestWell, I'll say the poster
contest first is available forthrough 12, and they're awarded
cash prize for placing andthey're separated into you, you
know, age group divisions orwhatnot.
(11:17):
So, with speak, what I loveabout poster is that everybody
gets to be involved, and I justlove art and I feel like, uh,
culture is translated throughart, and history is translated
through art, and education istranslated through art.
And who doesn't like star wars?
Probably a lot of people.
I like star wars and uh, so, maythe force Be With you is good,
and each theme is somethingdifferent, and so each year we
(11:39):
find out the theme and thenstudents have usually about
three or four months to come upwith their poster Speech is
available for six through 12.
And similar concept, thoughthey're going to compete against
their age group and they'regoing to deliver a speech about
the forest, and really the ideais to allow the student to
really imagine what it is thatthey think should be talked
(12:01):
about, because I think it's alot that we can learn as adults
from children, just in howthey're seeing the world.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Okay.
So there's one thing that I sawon there.
I did see something that was arequest for technical assistance
and that seemed actually prettyinteresting.
So is that still something thatyou guys provide?
It was basically a form that alandowner could fill out saying
you know, I have this issue.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yes, that's one of the most important things about
soil and water because peopleneed to know who that is and
sometimes we don't have thedirect answer but we always know
who has the direct answer.
So I think the top question thatwe get is usually about well
water and irrigating their youknow, their homestead or their
land, and typically we pass thatthose questions.
(12:44):
Our office is located in theUniversity of Florida IFAS
Extension Office on McDuff andsome of those questions it's
good that we get them becauseyou know that's one of our
stakeholders and partners aswell.
So a lot of those questions endup going to Dr Genevieve over
at UF IPAS.
Some of the questions end upgoing to the master.
We have the master gardener UFmaster gardener garden over
(13:05):
there on that property as well,the University of Florida IPAS
Extension Office.
They do a free soil test.
It's mostly pH, but there's amore robust soil test that's
under a hundred dollars and ityou know you're only going to
spend that if you're you'reserious about what you're doing
with your land.
So, um, I think that's the mostimportant component because a
lot of people just don't knowwho to ask.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, all right.
Last question, the speed round.
What is hug a farmer day?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Oh, I love hug a farmer day.
Farmer Day is a partnershipwith the Murray Hill Farmers
Market.
The Murray Hill Farmers Marketis run by a young lady named MJ
who is focused on communityregeneration, and Hug a Farmer
Day usually kicks off our StartFarming program.
That's one of our strongestprograms in potential and we're
(13:54):
trying to take it to the nextlevel.
So hug a farmer day is wherepeople can come out to the
Murray Hill farmers market andactually meet the actual farmers
, because farmers work hard andsometimes they they have to send
a staff member out to vend, andso this is a day where we make
sure that the actual farmers andthe leaders at the farm are out
and people get to meet them andhug them.
Because most of the food that weeat comes from local farmers
(14:15):
and small farmers and you knowthey they're very underpaid and
sometimes underappreciatedbecause you know the reality is
a lot of people just don't havelike a real awareness of where
their food comes from.
You kind of know, but you knowin talking to adults and
children I can tell that there'sjust a gap in understanding.
So hug a farmer day is a way togive exposure to people on what
(14:39):
farming really is and who thefarmers really are, and when's
the next one?
Next year.
So each year usually in May,april, the spring, and again it
kicks off the Start FarmingProgram and I'll articulate the
Start Farming Program.
The start farming program andI'll articulate the start
farming program.
It started kind of like a moreof like a cohort workshop based,
(14:59):
um, you know, maybe 10 weeks or14 weeks where they get to go
learn different things and whatI would, and so some of those
people end up turning into maybecommunity gardeners and and
things like that, start growingstuff at their home.
Some of those people alreadyhave land if they get in the
program program why they'reinterested.
What I would like to see in thenext year of start farming is to
(15:20):
start calculating how manyfarms are we starting this
program, making it a little bitmore exclusive and making the
qualifications a little bitstronger so that if 10 people go
through the start farmingprogram we can start to get data
as to how many farms start fromthat program in that very next
year.
And what I would really like tosee is, at the end of the
program, being able to get thatstart farming graduate some type
(15:43):
of stipend to get them started,whether that's even if it's
just a thousand dollars to gettheir farm number.
They can just whateverresources that you know you got
to grind to get the capital forif you're not somebody who's
just well-resourced and rich andstuff like that.
If they're serious aboutfarming, we want to be able to
take them to a start farmingprogram and then have a start a
farm that very next year.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to put some rigor
on that.
I mean, that's a great way tomake sure that you are focusing
your dollars on where you'regoing to have the most amount of
impact.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
We are going to need food sources bad in the next few
years.
We got to shake the table sothat we can get some new results
.
Yeah, do the same thing overand over, uh, and expecting
different results is what theycall it insanity.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, yeah, Um.
Okay.
So, Trey, you've got abackground um in film.
Can you tell us about how youuse that to advance some of
these agricultural issues thatwe've discussed?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Absolutely so.
My background in film starts atan early age.
Me and my aunt would my kidsread books, but not everybody is
(16:59):
just going to receive theinformation and act on the
information in that way, and somy thought process on film is I
just remember when I was born in87.
So the cartoon that I grew upwith that I love was Captain
Planet, and I feel like that waskind of the seed that made me
care about glittering and mademe curious about how things grow
and maybe not want pollution,things like that.
(17:24):
There's a film I recently saw inDetroit.
I had a film go to the DetroitBlack Film Festival called Art
of Flow.
It was an art film.
It didn't have anything to dowith agriculture, but while I
was at that film festival I sawa movie called Gaining Ground
and it was a documentary aboutreally about two things.
It was about the predatorypractices of the USDA government
(17:44):
entities and just the people inpower as it relates to black
landowners and them losing theirfarms and losing their land on
a just crazy cliff, veryintentionally, and but part of
it was a lack of knowledge inhow to uh pass down legacy, so
they're called heirs propertiesand what happens is grandma
owned farm, seven siblings andthey're not on the same page now
(18:08):
that family farm is gonebecause, you know, some tax
building or this or that orthird, or they decided to sell
it and so there is this dramaticreduction of black farm
ownership land which is andpeople don't know this.
You don't know until somebodytells you you know.
That's basically why the USDAturned around and gave two
billion dollars, or allocatedtwo billion dollars, to try and
(18:30):
alleviate that.
They confessed to not givingthe black farmers loans.
They needed certain things tostay afloat.
Farmers get bailed out all thetime by the government, but it's
only the big boy.
So that film was very inspiringand enlightening to me, because
the film is called GainingGround.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Because we're trying to get that.
So is that sound?
Maybe this is too simplistic,but is that kind of like the
agricultural equivalent ofredlining?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Absolutely.
That's a great comparison.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And isn't locally.
Doesn't LISC have a programthat's associated with theirs
property?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I don't know if they have a program associated with
LISC with heirs property, theymay.
But I'm glad you highlightedLISC, and I want to highlight
Wealth Watchers as well.
Those are two close friends andpartners of the Earth, this
Farm and Market, as well asDuval Soil and Water, and I'm
going to bring up LISCspecifically.
Lisc was able to help Earth,this Farm and Market, hire a
marketing person, and so Ialmost think that LISC functions
(19:29):
in similar ways to Duval Soiland Water from the standpoint of
being a resource for otherresources, so that people get
you know what they need.
Wealth Watch is the same way.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
So you mentioned, earth is Farmer Market and
that's definitely somethingimportant that we wanted to
cover here.
So we are going to be having aseparate episode focused solely
on that, but can you give us alittle bit of a background?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yes, so Earthers Farm and Market is a department of
the Clara White Mission.
The Clara White Mission wasestablished as a nonprofit or as
a business, so it's 120 yearsold on paper.
But the work started beforethen with Clara White, when she
was a slave and feedinginitially I think she was
feeding soldiers, feeding thehomeless.
Claire White adopted EarthaWhite because her family didn't
(20:19):
want her.
She was a mixed race and soClaire was willing to adopt her,
you know, because she waspartly Black and so Eartha,
because you know theEmancipation Proclamation and
also because she was veryfair-skinned, eartha was.
Because you know theEmancipation Proclamation and
also because she was very fairskinned, eartha was able to
maneuver in a dynamic way.
And just when she had such agreat heart I think they called
(20:41):
her the Angel of Mercy orsomething like that and what
happened was while she was asecretary for AL Lewis, who
started American Beach, starteda huge insurance company,
abraham Lincoln Lewis.
He started a huge insurancecompany, abraham Lincoln Lewis.
She was able to salvage somepapers that would have been
damaged in a fire and they inturn, you know, either sold the
(21:04):
property for near nothing orgifted it to the property.
And the property initially wasvery vibrant.
It had a natural spring wherepeople were.
You know, this is where blackpeople could swim.
Because, again, this is, thisis the, this is the late 1800s,
going into the early 1900s, youknow, into the 1930s.
So, uh, the, the status of theworld was different at that time
.
So this was I would almostconsider Moncrief Springs
(21:26):
similar to black, black wallstreet in Tulsa from the
standpoint of a vibrant, black,thriving community that was, um,
uh, basically dismantledthrough some way or another, and
we have there's a ton ofexamples like that.
What happened, specifically witheartha's farming market around
the 60s?
So she got into the 30s and shehad it as a co-op farm for
(21:47):
black farmers to be able to farmthe land.
Uh, she started multiple otherbusinesses and and by the 60s,
jea, for some reason, haddecided to start dumping ash in
the site and in multiple areas,and so it made the land
infertile and possibly toxic andif anything were to grow from
it, maybe harmful to people, andso, from my understanding, the
site was inactive from like the60s to the early 2000s.
(22:10):
And our CEO at that time,jacoby Pittman she basically
reactivated the vision of Earthto White as far as having this
farmland and the farmland is nowlesser than it was.
It's about 10 acres.
It's a regenerative farm.
We've got about 240 blueberrybushes, We've got bananas out
here, a mixture of vegetablesand produce and fruit.
But the 2019 to 2024 story isthey got the soil regenerated,
(22:38):
they hired the right staff toget the farm looking a certain
way and kind of structured inthe way that it could thrive and
be long term, and then, once itgot to that point, we were able
to scale pretty quickly.
It's actually just a very biginterest of the city because
it's a proof of concept that ina 3229 is the poorest zip code
in all of Florida, according toa report that was submitted by
(23:00):
the news, and so we're going tobe proof.
The proof is going to be in thepudding as we transform this
area and it's not, it's not anovernight thing, but it feels
like it and seeing, you knoweven where the farm was in 2019
in comparison to now.
There wasn't even a goodbuilding on the farm in 2019.
Now we have a I don't know howmany square foot Quonset hut.
(23:21):
We have another building comingin that's going to be more of
like a outdoor classroom withsome office space and again.
Like I said, we have anotherfive acres that we haven't
activated.
It already has a building on it, but it just lands.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah.
So I have to tell you I havethis really big smile on my face
.
The energy and enthusiasm thatyou have is just infectious.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
No, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Well, I've been out to the farm a few times and,
yeah, you definitely feel it outthere too.
So for other people that arelistening to us, that kind of
feel that way as well and wantto get involved, how can they?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
get involved with what you're doing.
I would say for Earthless Farmand Market, the best resource is
the Instagram page, becauseit's just the most active.
We push a lot of our stuff outon Instagram.
If you don't have Instagram, wedo have a Facebook page, and
then the best website to go tois wwwclarowhitemissionorg,
because, again, we're adepartment of the Clara White
Mission and, as far as DuvalSoil and Water goes, I would
(24:18):
like.
All of our meetings are publicand they're publicly noticed.
So if you're really interested,I would like to invite you to
our next meeting, and I don'tknow when this will air, so I'll
just.
Our meetings are typically onfirst and third Wednesdays from
3.30 to about 4.30 or 5,wednesdays from 3.30 to about
4.30 or 5, depending on thelevel of content we're going to
cover, and they're held at theUniversity of Florida Extension
(24:39):
Office on St St Macduff.
And the beautiful thing aboutthat is, if that's not feasible
for you to attend in person, wedo it on Zoom as well.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Awesome, that's great .
Well, thank you so much, trey.
This has been a greatconversation.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Thank you.
Like I said I,
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