Tractor supply co, food security, and community resilience
This post is inspired in no small part by an online conversation with Tiffany of Being Black in the Burbs. Please support their work and fundraisers: their social media links and ways to contribute to them are all available on their Linktree.
Many of you may already know that on June 27, 2024, Tractor Supply Company released a public statement stating that they are, among other things, “[n]o longer submit[ting] data to the Human Rights Campaign… [e]liminat[ing] DEI roles and retir[ing] our current DEI goals [and] [w]ithdraw[ing] our carbon emission goals and focus[ing] on our land and water conservation efforts.”
(Tractor Supply Company - Tractor Supply Company Statement, https://corporate.tractorsupply.com/newsroom/news-releases/news-releases-details/2024/Tractor-Supply-Company-Statement/default.aspx)
This statement has sparked conversations calling out the racism, white supremacy, heterosexism, and cissexism that are implicit in their public statement, as well as rightful calls for a boycott of Tractor Supply Company.
Let me be clear: their statement is fucked up, and I fully support boycotts of Tractor Supply Company.
And also, my research into sourcing options for the items I have historically purchased from Tractor Supply (mostly supplies related to having chickens and ducks) has revealed just how many of the brands and products that are connected to subsistence-level farming and gardening are produced, distributed, and/or sold by companies whose policies and practices actively endorse and contribute to the forces of white supremacy and heteronormativity.
Sit for a minute with these facts:
1. It is impossible to support factory farm systems and large-scale farming without also supporting companies that rely upon racist and predatory practices toward their employees, laborers, and the environment.
Harvest of Justice 2023: Farm Workers & Racism - NFWM, https://nfwm.org/resource-center/harvest-of-justice/harvest-of-justice-2023-farm-workers-racism/
When Did Factory Farming Start and Why Does It Still Exist? | New Roots Institute, https://www.newrootsinstitute.org/articles/when-did-factory-farming-start-and-why-does-it-still-exist?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw4f6zBhBVEiwATEHFVjQhQH-aavJycBfRduY4Vms1IqoWto_dVt12UM1ZbiLbkLgaVEigHRoCoHkQAvD_BwE
Soil Health is Affected by Industrial Agriculture - FoodPrint, https://foodprint.org/issues/how-industrial-agriculture-affects-our-soil/
2. One of the only ways, if not the only way, to avoid supporting factory farms and large-scale farm operations is to source all of your food from a combination of growing your own garden, supporting small-scale and subsistence farmers, and foraging. All of these are augmented by practices that support biodiversity and that honor the more-than human-world, such as food forestry, land rematriation, and honorable harvesting practices.
World Wildlife Fund Canada, 'Today we have gardens but before we designed... entire landscapes' - WWF.CA, https://wwf.ca/stories/indigenous-food-forests-traditional-knowledge-conservation/
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, “What Is Rematriation,” https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/what-is-rematriation/
Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Honorable Harvest,” Honorable Harvent (doebay.net), https://www.doebay.net/appeal/Honorable%20Harvest.pdf
3. Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly impossible to garden or subsistence farm without accessing at least some materials from companies that actively engage in racist, homophobic, and cissexist actions and policies. This is bigger than one brand or store. Trace any farm product back far enough, and you will find a link to the exploitation of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people and the earth itself.
White supremacy and conservativism are so powerful that it is nearly impossible to EAT without giving your money to someone who is actively working to oppress Black, Brown, and Indigenous people and LGBTQ+ folks.
As someone who is interested in "closing the loop" of the ecosystem here at The Wild Within Acres (i.e., needing to bring in as few purchased inputs as possible, and progressively reducing our reliance on these as each year goes on), I am humbled by how hard this is.
And until the loop is closed, accessing items from stores and/or other suppliers is unavoidable.
And so many of the companies that produce, distribute, and sell essential gardening, farming, and agricultural products are… not leftist.
No ethical consumption under capitalism includes the monopolies that affect your ability to eat, because they affect the options available to those who are trying to grow food at any scale of production. And that, too, is fucked up.
The recent statement from Tractor Supply is about more than Tractor Supply. It is a wake-up call regarding how deeply interwoven systems of oppression are, and how vital it is that we collectively devise ways to become ever less dependent on these systems.
This post is not meant to be defeatist or nihilistic: rather, it is a call to action that goes beyond (while still including) the boycott of a single company.
There are certain essentials for life that we can’t really get away from—food, water, shelter, medicine, and community being at the top of that list.
How many of us can say that we can meet these very, very basic needs without financing and supporting truly horrific companies that have truly despicable ethics, policies, and practices?
Each of the areas where we cannot meet our needs without financing and supporting those who uphold the systems of oppression indicates an opportunity for community building, mutual aid, co-op building, continuing education, and cooperative efforts towards greater community resilience.
Each community has its own unique combination of existing wisdom and resources, history of resistance and survival, critical unmet needs, and levels of urgency related to different unmet needs: as a result, there is no one “right” next step that is one-size-fits-all.
However, forward we must go: our collective survival depends upon finding new foodways and deepening our community connections.
The good news is that there are already-existent templates for this work. I have a compiled a list of books that have taught and inspired me. These books share a variety of histories regarding different aspects of food justice, food and land access, and collective efforts toward community resilience.
I know that locally, we have a community toolshed that can help minimize the need for tool purchases, and the Flower City Noire Collective and Taproot Collective are doing incredible work regarding food access and education related to urban farming/gardening. And I would be remiss to not mention community gardens.
(BUT ALSO: I have to elevate that the City of Rochester, NY is STEEPED in racism and bullshit, like how on the day after Juneteenth, they demolished the “Genny Love” and Bronson Ave community gardens without any warning.)
There are networks of mutual aid that help some—but not nearly all—of the barriers to food access.
And still, there are many ways that it is incredibly challenging to produce food at the family or community level without exchanging $$ with companies that work actively to harm, oppress, and take advantage of me and the members of my community.
I want to continue learning about ways communities have responded to improving food access in ways that are not reliant on the harmful structures, systems, and companies that govern so much of U. S. agriculture: to be honest, very few things seem more vitally important right now.
