https://linktr.ee/40acresproject

40 Acres Project, P. O. Box 1058, La Crosse, WI (2025)

12/21/2025

Sending condolences to Betty Reid Soskin family and community at this time.

This morning on the Winter Solstice, our mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, Betty Reid Soskin, passed away peacefully at her home in Richmond, CA at 104 years old. She was attended by family. She led a fully packed life and was ready to leave.

We understand the public nature of Betty’s life, however we ask that you please respect the family’s privacy at this time. There will be a public memorial at a time and place to be announced.

In lieu of flowers we suggest two ways that you can express your love and respect for Betty. You might send donations to Betty Reid Soskin Middle School (link to follow) and to support the finishing of her film, “Sign My Name To Freedom”.
https://signmynametofreedom.allyrafundraising.com

There will be more information to follow soon.

Thank you all for your love and respect for Betty!

12/19/2025

We are so excited to announce Adrian is the new Executive Director of .heritage

🔁 .heritage Muloma Heritage Center is proud to announce Adrian Lipscombe as our new Interim Executive Director.

In this role, Adrian will lead the vision, strategy, and development of Muloma as a place-based cultural and agricultural center rooted on Saint Helena Island. Her work centers the preservation and advancement of African Atlantic foodways, land stewardship, and community knowledge, weaving together food, land, architecture, and storytelling.

Adrian will oversee Muloma’s organizational strategy, fundraising, partnerships, and program development, working across community, philanthropy, and policy to build sustainable models grounded in heritage, equity, and care. At the heart of her leadership is a deep commitment to farmers, cooks, elders, and culture-bearers, and to using food as a vehicle for intergenerational learning, community power, and long-term resilience.

We’re honored to have Adrian stewarding Muloma forward and excited for the future taking shape under her leadership. Please join us in congratulating her!

12/02/2025

On this day, we remember that change is often made in the smallest moments.
A single decision, a quiet act of courage, or choosing to show up for someone else can shift the world in ways we may never fully see. Today is a reminder that our actions big or small carry weight.

Keep choosing kindness.
Keep choosing justice.
Keep choosing to make a difference, even in the everyday.

11/25/2025

We have been celebrating with .heritage all week on their ground breaking in SC.

We’re one week away from Giving Tuesday! ⏰
Muloma’s mission—bridging the African Atlantic through food, land, and culture—is only possible through community support.
Our theme is ‘We Are Together’, a reflection of every person who showed up at our Friendsgiving Bonfire, shared space with us, and believed in Muloma’s vision.
Stay tuned for how you can join us in this next chapter! 🌱

11/25/2025

Rest in Peace, Viola Fletcher.
The oldest known survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
A living testimony who spent her entire life insisting that this country remember what it tried to bury.

Mother Fletcher lived 110 years with grace, clarity, and fire. She carried history in her bones, and still chose hope. She taught us that memory is a form of resistance, that telling the truth is an act of love, and that justice takes generations of work.

We have lost a witness, a storyteller, and a keeper of our collective pain and possibility. But we also inherit her charge: to never look away.
To fight for the communities that were stolen.
To honor our elders while they’re still here.
To build a world worthy of their survival.

May Mother Fletcher rest in power.
May her memory guide us.
May we keep doing the work she called us to do.

11/08/2025

This is devastating news. This will also affect the Farm Bill if this holds.

Food banks will become strain. Dignity erodes.

Everyone deserves to eat. Not just the lucky. Not just the wealthy. All of us.

We feed each other because our government refuses to. But we should never have been put in this position.

No one should ever eat last.

11/07/2025

The Farmers’ Almanac is ending after more than 200 years. (The Old Farmer’s Almanac is still in print. )

Since 1818, farmers, gardeners, and cooks have opened those pages to understand the seasons when to plant, when to harvest, when frost might come, how to read the sky.
It wasn’t just a book. It was a guide, a teacher, a companion to the land and farmers.

For generations, the Almanac helped farmers grow our food with intention and rhythm. Long before satellites and apps, this country trusted observation sun patterns, soil memory, folklore, wisdom passed down from generations from generations.

The Almanac held those stories.

So when we say its final edition is coming, this isn’t just an ending.
It’s a signal.

We know we are losing farmers who know how to read the earth. The average age of farmers is slowly creeping up. There is less and less generations taking over farms and the knowledge is slowly disappearing.

We are losing the relationship between land and table.
We are losing the slow knowledge that feeds us.

As a chef, I feel this deeply. My food begins with the hands that plant seeds, tend fields, and harvest with understanding. Without them, without their knowledge and stories, our plates go empty of truth, culture, and season.

The end of the Almanac is not about nostalgia.
It is a warning.

Honor farmers. Honor soil. Honor seasons. Talk and learn from to them. Inspire to know more, support the younger generations that want to get into this business.

The future of our food depends on remembering how to listen to the land.

Source: https://www.farmersalmanac.com/end-of-an-era-farmers-almanac-announces-final-publication

10/29/2025

We would like to share some thoughts from regarding what is happening in the Texas restaurant industry. It is a clear sign what is to come, and we must be prepared.

🔁

The Texas Restaurant Association released its latest economic outlook, and it’s time we pay attention. This isn’t panic, it’s time to make plans and strategize. Texas has one of the largest restaurant economies in the country, over $100 billion in annual sales and more than 1.4 million people working across restaurants, bars, bakeries, food trucks, school kitchens, catering operations and more. We are one of the largest employers in the state, one of the major economic circulatory systems in our communities, and one of the last standing places where people still gather, still talk, still share meals across difference.

But the TRA’s new report shows what many of us have been feeling behind the scenes: pressure is building. Ingredient costs remain significantly higher than they were before the pandemic, wages have increased to keep staff, processing fees and overhead have quietly crept up, and now, consumer traffic is slowing. That combination means margins which were already razor thin are narrowing even further. On average, the combined cost of food, labor and occupancy eats up roughly 70 cents of every dollar of sales. Many restaurants are now operating at or below the profit levels they had years ago, even while working twice as hard.

The TRA’s survey reveals that only 48% of Texas restaurants currently have enough employees to meet existing demand. At the same time, 64% report food cost increases, 58% report labor cost increases, yet 55% managed to keep their menu prices about the same.

This matters because restaurants are not just businesses. They are cultural memory keepers & storytellers, and economic lifelines for workers, farmers, ranchers, fishermen, dishwashers, delivery drivers, and small producers. When restaurants struggle, entire local ecosystems feel it.

(See comments for more)
Source:
https://www.dallasobserver.com/food-drink/texas-restaurant-association-warns-economic-slowdown-is-here-40609709/

10/22/2025

had some thought as the urgency of SNAP could be ending in 10 days.

Please take a look as this is going to take all of us coming together to demand a change.

🔁:
If SNAP stops in 10 days, millions of Americans will lose the support that puts food on their tables.

Here are the numbers for reference:
SNAP serves about 41.7 million people each month, roughly 12.3% of the U.S. population.
In FY 2023, it was about 42.1 million participants.

The vast majority of recipients are in households with children, older adults, or persons with disabilities.

I say this not as an observer, but as someone who lived it. I was a child of the ‘80 and 90s, raised in a military family that relied on WIC for a period of time. Those benefits made sure there was food on the table. It wasn’t about pride, it was survival. It was a part of my life that I will never forget.

Today, as a chef and advocate, my mission is simple: to feed people. To give them a moment of safety and belonging to a community. It’s an opportunity to sit, eat, and not be judged for what’s on their plate or how it got there.

If SNAP halts, over 41 million people, mostly children, elders, working families, will be left without that same dignity.

This isn’t politics. This is humanity. This it’s our community.

We need to act NOW.

Advocate to protect and fund SNAP.

Support local food banks and meal programs.

POLITICIANS, not only fully fund SNAP but INCREASE funding. We are at a time when our economy is suffering. The numbers are not out, but I will rationally assume that there is an increase of SNAP benefits applications in the last 9 months.

Most of all, feed one another with compassion, not judgment.

Because when the plate is empty, dignity sits at the table alone.

No one should ever eat last. Not in this country. Not when we have the means to feed each other.

Check out my substack for more information and how dig into what can we do, click link in bio.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/18/politics/snap-food-stamps-november-government-shutdown

10/17/2025

We are happy to share that was featured in Gravy along with other inspiring farms, chef and advocates on the of heirloom seeds, especially collards- which she has a love for.

🔁
I’m honored to be featured in Seeding Climate Resilience from the Southern Foodways Alliance, in a story that touches at the heart of something I believe deeply: our role as chefs is expanding, and with it comes responsibility.

When reached out to include me in the article, I saw an opportunity not just to speak as a chef, but to speak as a steward of heritage, biodiversity, and resilience. That feels urgent in a time when climate change is reshaping growing seasons, water availability, pest pressures, and the very viability of traditional crop varieties.

The piece underscores a critical truth: seeds are more than starting points for plants. Seeds carry memory, adaptation, lineage and when they’re grown in the same region year after year, they evolve in dialogue with soil, climate stressors, pests, and local ecosystems.

Seeds hold out the history of our whole world. 🌱

10/16/2025

Food has always been more than nourishment, it’s a story, a connection, a bridge between people and generations. Around every table, we share more than meals; we share memory, history, and hope.

Culture is often defined through what we grow, cook, and pass down. Every ingredient carries a legacy, a seed that once took root in someone’s hands, a recipe that evolved through migration, resilience, and creativity. Seeds create communities; they hold the power to feed not just bodies but relationships, ideas, and futures.

On this World Food Day, we honor the farmers, cooks, and keepers of tradition who sustain our world through food. We remember that the act of eating together is one of the most universal expressions of humanity. Through food, we find belonging.

Let’s continue to sow, cook, and share stories that connect us all.

40 Acres Project

12/21/2025

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