The Earth Can't Wait
By Onyx Ramírez
This blog post contains the personal opinions and reflections of the author and is not representative of the voice of the organization.
By Onyx Ramírez,
Communications Lead at Black Farmer Fund
Patagonia is committed to using its company to change how business is done. Through their long-standing grants program, they donate 1% of sales yearly to grassroots environmental nonprofits. They also have other purpose-driven programs, such as their Action Works platform, which connects people to environmental action groups in their community. They strongly believe that “if we could do the right thing while making enough to pay the bills, we could influence customers and other businesses and maybe change the system along the way.”
At Black Farmer Fund, we know that to create great change, you need to shape the future you want to see for yourself and your community actively and intentionally.
“ The Earth can’t wait for wealth and resources to trickle down from the top. BIPOC communities need a direct infusion of resources, and they need it now.”
As recipients of their grants program and activism efforts, we feel that it is important for Black Farmer Fund to acknowledge the intentionality behind Patagonia’s shift towards an alternative business model through their recent decision to take:
“100% of the company’s voting stock [and transfer it] to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, created to protect the company’s values; and 100% of the nonvoting stock has been given to the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature. The funding will come from Patagonia: Each year, the money we make after reinvesting in the business will be distributed as a dividend to help fight the crisis.” - Yvon Chouinard, Founder, Patagonia
Chouinard describes some real personal battles he encountered whilst starting Patagonia 50 years ago. It is not easy to carve out a new path, especially when the largest, most powerful organizations uphold the systems that be. Many of the businesses we have supported with our Pilot Fund operate using models such as co-operatives, collectives, Community-supported agriculture (CSAs), bartering, and other alternatives, which prioritize the needs of the community and the earth first. By shifting decision-making power into the hands of community members, who rarely get a say on how resources are distributed, we can disrupt the tendencies to compete for resources, offer each other support, and reach common ground, as is an inherent part of Indigenous, Caribbean and African community practices.
We are proud to be receiving support from Patagonia, as funds go directly towards supporting programming for Black Farmers and Food Entrepreneurs that have a positive impact on both communities and on the environment. The Holdfast Collective will now distribute funds to other organizations whose goals are “dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature.”
For too long, Gatekeeping wealth and withholding resources has been the narrative that Black Farmers have been on the other end of. Our hope is that the Holdfast Collective, as established by Patagonia, will get more capital directly into the hands of frontline defenders and communities most directly impacted by climate change.
Chouinard says he started as a craftsman, making climbing gear for his friends and himself, and then got into apparel. Once he “began to witness the extent of global warming and ecological destruction, and our own contribution to it, Patagonia committed to using their company to change capitalism and the way that business is done under capitalism.”
We don’t need to continue relying on the capitalist systems perpetuating the massive racial wealth gap in the United States. We believe that the exorbitant wealth and mass accumulation that capitalism requires is unnecessary.
We can dream bigger by looking to our ancestral African practices and Indigenous practices of labor and community building to create change in the Entrepreneurial and Finance industries. Precisely because the Earth is naturally inclined towards balance, not overconsumption or a hyper concentration of resources in one area, it is critical that we look to systems of reciprocity and collective decision-making to guide the way.
The Earth can’t wait for wealth and resources to trickle down from the top. BIPOC communities need a direct infusion of resources, and they need it now.