This summer, the Carbon180 team gathered with an all-star cast of experts in their field, excited to get to know each other, exchange stories, and get to work. The convening was unique, purposeful, and powerful: all eight experts were Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC), unified by a shared passion for diverse agroforestry systems. The energy in the Zoom room was giddy as folks joined in conversation with each other for the first time, lit by inspiration for what a future for agroforestry could look like. This marked the first convening of Carbon180’s Steering Committee of BIPOC Leaders in Agroforestry.
Agroforestry, the intentional integration of trees or shrubs into agricultural operations, has been front of mind for Carbon180. It carries immense potential to remove carbon from the atmosphere — over tenfold the carbon stored by popular climate-smart practices like cover crops and no-till, in fact (calculated from studies by Possu et al., 2016; Tufekcioglu et al., 2003; Greene et al., 2023; Bazrgar et al., 2024) — alongside ranging benefits for communities, wildlife, soil, air, and water. These diverse and integrated systems of production can enhance resilience to extreme weather, boost soil health and water quality, and diversify economic opportunities for producers and rural communities. Like most conservation practices central to the sustainable agriculture movement, agroforestry systems are rooted in Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK); Indigenous communities have developed and honed the management of these types of multi-layer agroecosystems for millennia. These systems continue to be integral to Indigenous land management and food sovereignty, connecting Tribal communities to cultural foodways, medicines, and land.
The ranging opportunities for agroforestry to support communities and ecosystems, however, are in overwhelming dissonance with the legacies of exclusion and discrimination in United States agriculture. The foundations of the US agriculture system are entrenched with histories of violent displacement, stolen labor, and purposeful exclusion of Indigenous, Black, immigrant, and low-resource communities. These systemic injustices have bred further losses of food sovereignty that distance communities from their ancestral lands, practices, and foods — a pervasive and damaging dynamic that even well-intentioned agricultural movements have failed to rectify. In spite of its intentions to build resilience and ecological health within the US agricultural system — intentions we also hold — the sustainable agriculture movement, in practice, has proven largely white led and white serving.
Agroforestry can only reach its full potential to mitigate climate change, build resilient agroecosystems, and feed joyful communities if it is accessible to the full diversity of land stewards across the country. In pursuit of a more just and equitable agriculture system in the United States — particularly as we envision systemic changes to grow the land carbon sink — we must actively disrupt the cycle of systemic harm and sow the seeds necessary for a new future.
Seeding a more equitable future for agroforestry
As a first step toward this disruption, Carbon180 has convened the Steering Committee of BIPOC Leaders in Agroforestry to imagine what a BIPOC-led, BIPOC-serving future for agroforestry in the US can look like — including the role that policy should play in realizing that vision.
The Committee’s leaders represent eight different US regions, each with unique persisting legacies of environmental justice (or lack thereof) and priorities for how to steward their lands. Each leader works at this intersection of land stewardship and community, with expertise ranging from equitable land access to scientific research to community organizing.
The Steering Committee members include: Lord Ameyaw (from the Northern Plains), Kenneth Dunn (from the Southeast), Stephanie Gutierrez (from the Pacific Northwest), Kamealoha Hanohano Pa-Smith (from the Pacific Islands), Igalious Mills, (from the Southern Plains), Karam Sheban (from the Northeast), Alicia Thompson (from the Southwest), and Ruth Tyso (from the Midwest).
Over the next year, this team of experts will collaborate to usher in a new era of agroforestry advocacy. At its core, this work aims to uplift historically underserved farmers, ranchers, and forest stewards in agroforestry and showcase the diversity of these systems — and their champions — across the US. Our goal is to engage with these leaders and the broader agroforestry community thoughtfully, responsibly, and with reciprocity, now and into the future. Carbon180 will work with the Steering Committee to support projects identified through this process, and the insights and relationships that emerge from the Steering Committee will inform Carbon180’s future policy development and advocacy.
There are so many faces of agroforestry, and it’s time we see more of them. Meet the Steering Committee of BIPOC Leaders in Agroforestry here, and learn more about our agroforestry policy work leading up to the upcoming Farm Bill.
Edited by Tracy Yu. Image by Jakob Owens.
