More than 40 gardeners, educators and farmers gathered at Santa Fe College’s Blount Center Aug. 23 to promote farming and gardening opportunities across Florida.
Santa Fe’s Florida Heritage Foods Project organized the food symposium, which lasted from 10 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. The Florida Heritage Foods Project previously hosted symposiums in December 2022 and this past January.
Sarah Cervone, project director and Santa Fe associate professor in humanities, said a United States Department of Agriculture grant funded the event. Attendees traveled from counties across the state, including Hillsborough, Duval and Lee.
“It was nice to hear about all the different initiatives and programs that people are doing,” Cervone said. “That's the point of this symposium — to bring together a diverse set of stakeholders.”
This is the last symposium being held per the requirements of the 2021 grant of about $700,000. The grant called for three virtual and on-site symposiums to train and educate farmers, market managers and local stakeholders on heritage foods alongside foods with cultural and historical value.
The Grind Coffee Shop, Eim Thai, Grace to Overcome and Flouthern Food provided free samples at the event.
Landa Murry, a Gainesville resident and owner of the Flouthern Food truck, brought her North Florida-style barbecue to the event.
“Everything I make is from scratch,” Murry said. “I grow a lot of the vegetables we use, and the citrus that I use in my sauces come from our fruit trees.”
Murry said she grows pears, citrus, peaches, sweet potatoes and tomatoes. She even has a sand pear tree on her property, which she uses to make fresh pies, jams and tarts.
“I think it's important to preserve some of the old foods, and honestly, some of them just taste better,” Murry said. “They taste real.”
Attendees also participated in expert-led workshops related to four different tracks: grant writing, expanding markets, food education and increasing access, which is a section dedicated to helping marginalized communities.
Carla Jagger, an assistant professor at UF’s Agricultural Education and Communication Department, spoke at an increasing access workshop. She presented a toolkit to help attendees develop similar events in their own community, emphasizing the importance of heritage crops in communities.
Otis Garrison, a Gainesville resident and local farmer, planned on attending workshops within the expanding market track to better understand local food systems and the best growing and selling practices.
Garrison, who grows food for the Porter’s Quarters community farm, said he attended the symposium to hear speaker Jennifer Taylor, an associate professor at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University who received the 2019 Woman of the Year in Agriculture Award.
“She's one of the elders in the farming world,” Garrison said. “Coming to hear her speak was a priority for me.”
Rattana Phomsouvanh, a 47-year-old Gilchrist County resident and farmer, came to the event with her friend. She attended the expanding markets and grant writing track workshops to learn how to market her farm’s products.
“Right now, it's just a hobby until we learn the marketing,” Phomsouvanh said.
She said her 15-acre farm has goats, sheep, ducks, geese and chickens, and it grows a variety of produce, including turmeric, ginger, galangal, lemongrass and blueberries.
Phomsouvanh’s friend owns the farmland, and they are improving the land to become a “food forest.”
Rosa Colón, a 36-year-old Gainesville resident, said she came to the symposium to meet other gardeners.
“I love plants,” Colón said. “I love gardening. I love connecting with people, so I'm here to get information.”
Colón built a 50-foot-long and 3-foot-tall hügelkultur bed — a garden bed consisting of a mound of soil and other debris to hold moisture — this past year, and is planning another for next season.
Events like this, she said, help people connect and bridge barriers.
“I think there are many people who are isolated and who struggle by themselves with problems that we all share,” Colón said. “Going to things like this and actively meeting people and talking to them about their passions, their interests and their struggles helps us relate to each other.”
Mable Baker, the director of Santa Fe’s Blount Center, gave welcoming remarks for the symposium.
“Food connects us all, and it connects us in the most human way possible,” Baker said.
Alachua County Commissioner Anna Prizzia, who spoke at the end of the event, said the county is working on developing a food hub to process and distribute local food to residents, restaurants and institutions. It is in the planning phase as the county conducts a feasibility study and a business plan for the food hub idea.
“We've given almost a million dollars over the next two years to have that conversation and really dive deep into the economics of how this thing would work successfully here in the county,” Prizzia said.
Contact Timothy Wang at twang@alligator.org. Follow him on X @timothyw_g.
Timothy Wang is a junior journalism student and the Fall 2024 Santa Fe College Reporter. He was the University Administration reporter for Summer 2024. His hobbies include gaming or reading manga.
