Some years ago I had the luck and good fortune to serve as an Ohio Humanities Scholar to this oral history project documenting movers and shakers in Ohio’s ecological farming community. The documentarian, Jess Lamar Reece Holler, came to my annual training institutes and brought a distinctly modern take, simmered in folkloristics and deep community engagement through pop-up exhibits at markets. I’m heartened and delighted to see this project take form in weekly shares through OEFFA!
According to OEFFA’s Facebook post, the “project goal was to document and amplify the history of the organic farming movement in Ohio. In doing so, the Growing Right Project brought together methods from oral history, folklife documentation, and documentary arts to chart the life and movement histories of the farmers, growers, groceries, and food systems advocates who have helped to build an ecological food and farm system in Ohio. Many of these interviewees are the faces of Ohio organics and OEFFA’s almost 50-year history.”
You can find a few of the oral histories online at news.oeffa.org/growing-right
