At 71, Schwartz has learned plenty about these wild alliums since he moved here in 2006—and he’s eager to share.

In early May, the woods all around him are carpeted with lush green ramp leaves, clumped so tightly together it’s hard to tell one plant from the next. At last, he finds what he’s been looking for and takes a seat on a fallen log. As a woodpecker hammers in the distance, he picks up a dried seed head, left over from last year.

“This,” he said, “is what it’s all about.”

Flavor From the Woods

Within their fleeting window of availability, foragers and consumers prize ramps for pickling, grilling, pesto, or any adventurous way to enjoy their gentle bite. Here in Pennsylvania, their leaves peek out in April, and by late May they have begun to deteriorate, turning yellow and dying back to make way for a flower stalk. In some regions, the season can stretch to June. The early summer blooms develop seeds by the end of the summer, which eventually fall to the ground as one of the plant’s two modes of reproduction, the other being bulb division.

Every spring, dozens of visitors come to Delaware Valley Ramps, Schwartz’s wooded 20-acre property in Equinunk, to pick the glossy, garlicky greens that are the first to emerge after winter’s thaw. Schwartz offers his wisdom on respectful harvesting to visitors who pay $65 to pick ramps for two hours. He asks them to take only those with three leaves, which are more mature than those with one or two, so they all have a chance to reproduce before they’re picked.

He waits until later in the season to allow harvesting, because larger plants require fewer to make a pound, leaving more in the ground to sustain the patch. He also urges visitors to take only one from each clump so that none is overburdened, and he rotates through several patches to keep them all thriving.

It’s the least he can do to protect the population he found in abundance on his property when he bought it, lured by the Delaware River’s revered wild trout fishery. Although his land has no shortage of ramps, their future elsewhere is under pressure.

In the early 1990s, after Martha Stewart first sang their praises and fine-dining chefs began putting ramps on seasonal spring menus, demand soared, especially in urban centers where they often sell for $25 per pound or more. Eager foragers fanned out into the woods, and it wasn’t long before concerns grew about population decline.

The whole plant is delicious, but every bulb removed from the earth is one less to sustain the wild population. For years, conservationists have worried that avid harvesting of bulbs will endanger a plant whose value is as much cultural as it is commercial.

In both Indigenous and Appalachian communities, ramps are celebrated as a sign of spring with medicinal properties that can revive the spirit after a long, hard winter. Horticulturalists and ramp enthusiasts are working to better understand where and why they flourish and how humans can encourage their proliferation before it’s too late.

Can Ramps Be Farmed?

Although ramps grow wild, they’re often tended by property owners and harvesters, like Schwartz, who practice forest farming, which Burkhart describes as the cultivation and management of non-timber products under a forest canopy. Ramps and other forest foods are “the crack people can look through to get excited about their forests, rather than just seeing them as a source of timber revenue,” he said. And unlike most forest products, consumers already crave ramps, so expanding their supply can help harvesters meet demand while ensuring the plant population isn’t depleted.

Schwartz’s land is a suitable place to explore the potential of forest farming, because his methods are clearly working: His land now produces more ramps than ever. He’s seeing new patches flourishing on the property where none had grown before, which means their range is expanding, possibly due to the seeds being dispersed more widely by turkeys and other wildlife.

Today, his property includes a half-dozen 6-by-8-foot plots dedicated to studying whether ramps can be successfully regrown after they’re harvested by replanting the base of their bulbs. The study, designed and run by Schwartz in collaboration with Burkhart and still funded by a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education producer grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, aims to help balance productive yields with long-term conservation.

“It’s the test of the hypothesis that you can eat your ramp and plant it, too,” Schwartz said as he surveyed the ramps in one of the study plots. “And it looks like it’ll work.”

Rooted in Culture

Karelle Hall, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and a member of the Nanticoke Tribe of Delaware, visited Schwartz’s property this spring as part of a broader effort to relearn ancestral traditions and get more people in her community to engage with ramps and other culturally significant foods, she said. A cousin who joined her that day operates the Native Roots Farm Foundation, focused on reconnecting Indigenous communities with their plant relatives.

Although she’d purchased them before at farmers’ markets, it was Hall’s first time harvesting ramps herself. It felt particularly significant to do so right beside the headwaters of the Delaware River, which supported the Nanticoke and Lenape tribes in pre-colonial times, she said. With her harvest, she made soups and stews, ramp butter to eat with a venison roast, and ramp salt that she’ll share with relatives to strengthen her community’s connection to the plant.

The approach to harvesting that she saw at Delaware Valley Ramps echoes the practices central to Indigenous relationships with the natural world, she said. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, for example, advocate taking just the leaves so bulbs can continue to propagate.

The gentle manipulation of a landscape can help a plant species feel more at home, encouraging it to grow into the space it’s allowed, Hall explained, as long as one rule is always followed: “Never deplete it to the point that it can’t repopulate itself.”

Jeanine Davis, an associate professor in horticultural science at North Carolina State University, has kept that principle in mind for more than 30 years, ever since a botanist in her state government asked for her help studying ramps as concerns grew about their declining population.

Within a decade, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, straddling North Carolina and Tennessee, made ramp harvesting illegal; three national parks in West Virginia followed suit in 2022. Although studies on the subject are scant, Burkhart said populations have diminished over time, but in Pennsylvania, at least, the issue is not overharvesting but the fact that favorable ramp habitats have been developed for other uses.

Back when she started studying ramps, Davis said the general consensus was that they couldn’t be cultivated, but she helped show they can indeed be grown, given the right conditions—including slightly acidic, moist soil and sufficient shade. She’s now researching how different harvest practices—say, the number of leaves or portion of a bulb taken—affect a population.

In addition to her work with the plants themselves, Davis has studied the role they play in the mountain communities that have celebrated ramps for generations. There, she said, they are “like a spring tonic,” rich in nutrients and minerals, including vitamins A and C. A 2000 study, she noted, found that thanks to their naturally high quantities of selenium, ramps have the potential to reduce cancer in humans.

Davis remembers the “mind-boggling” volume of ramps she saw the first time she attended one of many annual festivals in Richwood, West Virginia, about 25 years ago. “Pickup truck after pickup truck full of them,” she recalled. She was impressed by how the festival was truly a community effort, with the entire town seemingly involved in some way.

In time, though, as ramps gained broader popularity, “What we’d always thought of as a food for country people, hunters, and fishermen was suddenly a gourmet item,” she said. Although she’s enjoyed seeing more people appreciate the plant, its success poses a challenge for conservation efforts.

Sharing an Ecosystem

Steve Schwartz considers himself an accidental forager. Eighteen years ago, he bought a property in Equinunk, Pennsylvania, to gain access to the Delaware River’s vaunted wild trout fishing. Then he discovered ramps growing abundantly on his property and has been selling them since 2008. (Photo credit: Ben Seal)

But Chamberlain worries that ramps may soon go the way of ginseng, another plant once abundant in the Appalachians that he said has been “genetically extirpated from the forest” by unsustainable harvest practices.

“Someday, if we continue doing this, we won’t have ramps,” Chamberlain said. “It would be one more piece of the forest that’s gone.”

However, a 2019 paper that Chamberlain co-authored in Biological Conservation suggested wild cultivation and good stewardship practices could reverse that trend in ginseng and other wild-harvested plants like ramps. He believes forest farming can be part of supporting the sustainability of ramps and other wild plants, when done right. But doing so requires careful and respectful management of a patch that allows it to sustain itself.

“We get up in arms about cutting old-growth timber,” Chamberlain said, “but think nothing about harvesting old-growth ramps.”

For his part, Burkhart wants more people to engage with the landscapes around them, particularly through forest farming, which he believes can harness the woods’ “tremendous potential” to support our food systems. In a state like Pennsylvania that’s nearly 60 percent forested, managing a greater share of the land in an intentional way and utilizing its products can create income sources while promoting conservation, Burkhart said. He also studies ginseng as well as goldenseal, used in herbal medicines.

“We have a whole suite of wild species that people either forage or forget about, but they deserve close examination and consideration as new crops,” Burkhart said.

Despite conventional wisdom about how to sustainably harvest ramps—some suggest taking only the leaves, while others limit themselves to one-tenth of a patch—there is still little actual evidence to guide foragers and forest farmers. The study on Schwartz’s land, which began in 2023, aims to deliver that evidence. This was his second season observing the growth of ramps whose bulbs were replanted in the ground after being harvested.

Using variables including the number of leaves at the time of harvest, the point in the season when harvest occurred, and the amount of bulb that was replanted, he’s studying how well they bounce back year over year. So far, the most mature bulbs appear to have the strongest rate of return.

Once the study is complete, Burkhart wants to expand it to other locations across the state to develop more certainty about the findings and their implications. Schwartz says replanting bulbs in the past has helped him develop new ramp patches, suggesting that further understanding of favorable sites and successful conservation techniques can make a meaningful difference.

For Hall, the Indigenous anthropologist, the vibrant ramp patches in Equinunk hold the promise that more members of her community can engage with the plant and share some of the same excitement she felt. But when it comes to the conservation and management of a food found on the forest floor, she offers a reminder that there are always deeper layers to consider.

Hall’s work focuses on language revitalization, including the conversion of the Nanticoke language into writing. She’s still working on a full translation of the ramp’s name, pumptukwahkii ooleepunak, but she says it conjures the process of a plant popping out of the ground. Like the names of many other plants with a bulb or root system, it’s referred to in Nanticoke as a living being—a who rather than a what. We should remember this as we harvest ramps, she said.

“It’s not just about what’s going to be best for us in this situation,” said Hall. “What’s going to be best for this plant, for the forest, and for all the other beings sharing the ecosystem?”

The post Helping Ramps Flourish Through Forest Farming appeared first on Civil Eats.

https://civileats.com/2025/03/25/dignified-food-eases-food-insecurity-in-philadelphia/ https://civileats.com/2025/03/25/dignified-food-eases-food-insecurity-in-philadelphia/#comments Tue, 25 Mar 2025 09:00:53 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=62639 The steady thump of techno music spills from a portable speaker as they wind their way toward service. They’ll turn out 300 plates tonight, each one featuring a bed of couscous piled high with harissa-roasted carrots and a hearty Moroccan beef stew with chickpeas and spinach. A sprinkling of cilantro brightens every serving. This is […]

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Inside the commissary kitchen in West Philadelphia’s Dorrance Hamilton Center, a warming whiff of cinnamon, clove, and cumin fills the air, mingling with the comforting scent of beef simmered slowly with tomatoes. The kitchen is narrow, and the half-dozen chefs cooking on this Friday night in late February weave around its tight corners with a sense of purpose.

The steady thump of techno music spills from a portable speaker as they wind their way toward service. They’ll turn out 300 plates tonight, each one featuring a bed of couscous piled high with harissa-roasted carrots and a hearty Moroccan beef stew with chickpeas and spinach. A sprinkling of cilantro brightens every serving.

This is the home of the Double Trellis Food Initiative, where a group of chefs trained in the world of fine dining are cooking to feed those in need. They once served the city’s upper crust, but tonight their food will be heading to community fridges, mutual aid efforts, and youth programs, where it will feed those facing food and housing insecurity in America’s poorest large city.

With an estimated 15 percent of the population navigating food insecurity, Double Trellis aims to improve the quality of meals these residents receive from a vast network of food banks, soup kitchens, organizations, and agencies.

Over time, Double Trellis became a refuge for chefs turned off by the oppressive, abusive environment found in many white-coat kitchens.

Since its start during the pandemic, Double Trellis has developed from a fledgling operation into an established nonprofit with two full-time and five part-time employees, workforce development for juvenile offenders trying to straighten out their lives, and waste-reduction programs.

The organization receives roughly $400,000 in annual funding from donations, philanthropies, and government agencies, helping its chefs serve more than 55,000 meals last year. As the Trump administration seeks to shrink the public safety net, Double Trellis is deepening its commitment to communities facing increased need.

“Everyone deserves dignified food made from real ingredients by people who care,” says Adrien Carnecchia, a history teacher turned pastry chef who started volunteering with Double Trellis three years ago when it was still a ragtag operation turning out one offering each week.

Today, he and his colleagues send, to two dozen partner organizations across the city, four different meals each week—an evolving menu that recently featured chicken adobo, veggie fajitas, frittatas with potato-and-pepper hash, and butternut squash curry. The cuisine changes, but the food is always nutritious, filling, and flavorful.

The Origins of Double Trellis

Matthew Stebbins, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director, has felt the same hunger experienced by many of the community members Double Trellis feeds, lending extra weight to the standard that guides his kitchen: “If this is the only thing you ate today, would that be OK?” he says.

Executive director Matthew Stebbins updates a recipe board that breaks down the cooking tasks for that day’s meal and the plans for the next day. (Photo credit: Kat Arazawa)

Stebbins has been a chef most of his life, training under James Beard nominee Townsend Wentz and then manning the sauté station at Laurel, once named a top 10 restaurant in the country and the best in Philadelphia. But as his career progressed, so did his drug and alcohol addictions. At his professional peak, he was unhoused and struggled to reliably access food—let alone treatment. He spent five years on and off the streets, he says, before leaving the city to get sober.

When he returned to Philadelphia, Stebbins worked at a catering company whose business cratered at the start of the pandemic. When protests erupted a few months later after the murder of George Floyd, he had time and wanted to help. He rallied some friends to cook and feed the protesters, but quickly realized he should instead be serving the unhoused people he was marching past. Their grateful response to being offered a hot meal as simple as a breakfast burrito showed him the void he’s sought to fill ever since.

“It’s about investing directly into young people so they can have opportunities and things they haven’t had access to before—so they can get the life they deserve and want.”

“There’s a difference between skipping lunch and not eating for three days,” Stebbins says, recalling a moment in 2015 when he was at his lowest. “That sort of debilitating pain isn’t just in your body; it’s in your heart and soul. I think about that often when I get tired. There’s absolutely no reason in the richest nation in the world why that should be happening to anyone.”

When it launched in 2020, Double Trellis—its name drawn from the system Stebbins’ grandfather used as a grape farmer in New York decades ago—hand-delivered meals to unhoused people and soon began placing a portion of their food in a community fridge accessible to all for free. In March 2021, the organization began operating a fridge of its own in Kensington, a neighborhood that has long been the epicenter of the opioid epidemic in Philadelphia.

In that first full year, Double Trellis served around 10,000 meals, split between direct service and community fridges, which surged in popularity and prominence when the pandemic pushed food insecurity into the spotlight. Philadelphia was home to more than 30 community fridges at one point, most of which still exist.

The one Stebbins helped establish has since moved to the LAVA Center in West Philadelphia, closer to Double Trellis’ base of operations, and still receives some of the organization’s meals. Two others—The People’s Fridge, just a few blocks away, and the South Philadelphia Community Fridge—are the main recipients of meals made during this Friday night service.

For Staff, a Refuge and Source of Strength

Over time, Double Trellis became a refuge for chefs turned off by the oppressive, abusive environment found in many white-coat kitchens. Most of the staff is queer and gender-nonconforming, and they collaborate rather than compete. Stebbins is focused on “recreating kitchen culture from a fear-based system to a support-based system,” he says.

The Double Trellis team after wrapping up in the kitchen. Left to right: Adrien Carnecchia, Sarah Grisham, Mads Pryor, Dani Chaquea, Eli Rojas, and Matthew Stebbins. (Photo credit: Kat Arazawa)

The effort seems to be working. By last year, Double Trellis’ service had expanded nearly sixfold, even as it sought to broaden its impact by introducing a workforce development program for juvenile offenders. Through a partnership with YEAH Philly, which offers support for teens and young adults impacted by violence, Stebbins and his team spent four months teaching their first two young trainees the skills necessary to get a job in the food industry.

The trainees were paid $17 an hour and had externships at candymaker Shane Confectionery and Honeysuckle Provisions, an acclaimed Afrocentric restaurant. Both are now ServSafe certified in food safety and handling practices, which will make them more employable in the food industry. More importantly, both have had their juvenile court cases dismissed with support from YEAH’s legal team, according to co-CEO Kendra Van de Water.

Shamp Johnson, now 18, came to Double Trellis wanting to learn how to cook for himself and his mother. During the training program, he sharpened his knife skills, learned to navigate a professional kitchen, and fell in love with cooking. The relationships he built will stay with him, he says.

“Matt came from a similar lifestyle as me,” Johnson says. “He really showed me that whatever you put your mind to you can do. You really can achieve [it]. That really opened my eyes up, his whole story and what he’d been through. Now all I want is a job cooking.”

The organization’s second group of trainees is set to start this spring, remaining small so its members receive undivided attention, Stebbins says.

“Meals are just a stopgap, not a solution.”

The project is in good company in Philadelphia, where other initiatives share a similar goal. The Monkey and the Elephant, a café in the Brewerytown neighborhood, trains and employs former foster youth as they transition into adulthood, while Down North Pizza in Strawberry Mansion exclusively employs the formerly incarcerated. Philabundance, the largest food bank in the region, offers a 16-week culinary vocational training program for those with low or no income.

For Van de Water, who met Stebbins when Double Trellis began contributing meals to the free, youth-staffed grocery store YEAH operates, the program is helping to change how the Philadelphia community views teens affected by poverty, racism, and violence.

“It’s about investing directly into young people so they can have opportunities and things they haven’t had access to before—so they can get the life they deserve and want,” Van de Water says.

Carnecchia developed the curriculum, which includes one hour each day of classroom education—such as math skills for kitchen measurements and recipe building—and five hours in the kitchen. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve done here, by far,” he says, but also the most rewarding.

Stebbins hopes to expand the program if funding allows; last year, he says, Double Trellis’ revenue was around $400,000, including personal donations, support from private philanthropies like the Claneil Foundation, and backing from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. This year, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health began contributing funds.

Forecasting an Increased Need

Double Trellis’ work has only become more urgent as inflation continues to put healthy food out of reach for more people and the Trump administration threatens the social safety net by vowing to “correct Biden’s financial mismanagement” of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Economists also warn that tariffs will increase food prices. Following the election, volunteer signups at Double Trellis filled up for months in advance, with people recognizing the need that would likely ensue.

The organization hasn’t been directly affected by the attempt to slash federal government spending that has frozen funding for farmers, Stebbins says, but he anticipates a trickle-down effect. The kitchen sources most of its produce and meat from Sharing Excess, a food rescue nonprofit, and the Carversville Farm Foundation. Now, Stebbins is worried about food donations declining or drying up if his partners’ work is hampered. “Anyone [working to address] food insecurity is pretty nervous right now,” he says.

“We have to care for our community. We have to care for our neighbors.”

For Mads Pryor, a Double Trellis cook who has worked in kitchens for 15 years, most recently as private chef for a wealthy family in Philadelphia’s ritzy Main Line suburbs, working to address food insecurity is more important than ever. “We see the cost of groceries rising, an uptick in health issues, and not enough structural support for the citizens of Philadelphia and this country,” Pryor says.

These challenges underscore the need for Double Trellis’ workforce development program. As Stebbins points out, food and housing insecurity are deeply rooted, tangled up with poverty and the systemic failures that allow it to persist.

“Meals are just a stopgap,” he says, “not a solution.”

In the long term, Stebbins hopes Double Trellis can do more to make a difference. The kitchen’s emphasis on reducing food waste is part of that equation. Last year, it used 40,000 pounds of excess food rescued by Sharing Excess and composted 10,000 more. Meanwhile, Double Trellis makes the most of its ingredients. Lemon peels, for example, are preserved in salt and used in vinaigrettes and slaws.

To further expand its impact, Double Trellis hopes to find a kitchen of its own, which would make it possible to prepare breakfasts and lunches and triple its output to 1,000 meals a day, Stebbins says. His long-term vision includes nutrition workshops and cooking classes for the community, and more culinary training for young people.

For now, though, he and his colleagues are simply responding to the need they see as best they can.

“We have to care for our community,” Carnecchia says. “We have to care for our neighbors.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/03/25/dignified-food-eases-food-insecurity-in-philadelphia/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2025/02/25/alien-land-laws-created-to-protect-us-farmland-may-be-harming-asian-americans/ https://civileats.com/2025/02/25/alien-land-laws-created-to-protect-us-farmland-may-be-harming-asian-americans/#comments Tue, 25 Feb 2025 09:00:13 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=61628 White farmers and landowners identified an economic threat. In 1913, California passed the Alien Land Law, prohibiting ownership of agricultural land by people ineligible for citizenship. Given that Asian immigrants weren’t permitted to naturalize then, it was effectively the country’s first anti-Asian land law, says Robert Chang, a professor at the University of California, Irvine […]

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Alien land laws date to the early 20th century, when thousands of Japanese immigrants came to California to build a better life. They used their agricultural knowledge do to so, eventually producing most of the state’s strawberries, snap beans, and celery in addition to nearly half its onions, tomatoes, and green peas.

White farmers and landowners identified an economic threat. In 1913, California passed the Alien Land Law, prohibiting ownership of agricultural land by people ineligible for citizenship. Given that Asian immigrants weren’t permitted to naturalize then, it was effectively the country’s first anti-Asian land law, says Robert Chang, a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, and the Sylvia Mendez Presidential Chair for Civil Rights.

The law was infrequently used by prosecutors until World War II and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when a raft of cases targeted people of Japanese ancestry. Still, coupled with a surge in anti-Japanese activism, the law drastically reduced Japanese-owned acreage, which peaked at nearly 75,000 acres in 1920 before declining. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down portions of California’s law as it pertained to citizens, and it was repealed in 1956. The court didn’t rule on how the law applied to noncitizens.

In 1913, California passed the Alien Land Law, prohibiting ownership of agricultural land by people ineligible for citizenship.

Today, however, at least two dozen states—most recently Florida, Georgia, and Texas—restrict or forbid individuals, entities, and immigrants from “foreign countries of concern” from owning agricultural land, emphasizing national security. Brooke L. Rollins, the new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) secretary, said in a recent interview that the Trump administration is interested in federal policies that would block “the Chinese purchase of our farmland.”

Many laws emerged as U.S.-China tensions flared after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was spotted over Montana in February 2023 and following claims that Chinese investors were buying farmland near U.S. military installations. The laws often mention a list of countries that include Russia, North Korea, and Iran, but their political backers have explicitly targeted Chinese nationals. Governor Ron DeSantis, for example, said Florida was taking a stand against the Chinese Communist Party.

Foreign ownership of U.S. farmland has expanded in recent years, passing 45 million acres in 2023 and accounting for about 3 percent of all farmland. That has led some farm groups to support restrictions on foreign ownership to protect domestic farmers. But, as Chang points out, that pressure is coming primarily from Canada.

A USDA report on foreign holdings of U.S. agricultural land states that Canadian investors represent 33 percent of foreign-owned land, followed by the Netherlands (11 percent), Italy (6 percent), and the United Kingdom (6 percent). Chinese entities own 277,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land, according to the USDA, accounting for less than 1 percent of all foreign-owned land. Mexico’s share of the total is also less than 1 percent, roughly on par with Japan.

Rather than being legitimate attempts to protect U.S. farmers, Chang argues that alien land laws are “entry points for further discrimination” against Asians and Asian Americans, in keeping with their history. Chang is co-counsel in a federal lawsuit challenging a law in Arkansas, where his client, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was flagged by the state’s secretary of agriculture because his company, which operates a digital data center on agricultural land, “may have significant ties to China.”

As alien land laws spread, and with the legal future still to be determined, Civil Eats spoke with Chang about the nativist origins of alien land laws, why they are ineffective in protecting U.S. farmers, and what’s at stake for immigrants, farmers, and the food system, as they proliferate.

What is the history of the recent spate of alien land laws?  

There’s a long history regarding the power of either a nation or a state to restrict land ownership to citizens, with the idea that land ownership was tied to the security of a kingdom. When the United States inherited this tradition, some of the early Western territories began with a strict law that cove­­­­­­­­­­red all aliens.

But when tensions arose as immigration from China increased—and then immigration from Japan after Chinese exclusion was put into place in 1882—a number of politicians and landowners thought the security of the state was possibly being endangered if farmland could be held by Asian immigrants. And so, in 1913, California passed what is regarded as the first [specifically] anti-Asian alien land law.

Why are these laws resurfacing now?  

Robert Chang is a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, and the Sylvia Mendez Presidential Chair for Civil Rights.

My quick answer is dog-whistle politics. We can go back and recast the reasons put forward when the U.S. Supreme Court said, in 1923, that these anti-Asian alien land laws were OK in the case Terrace v. Thompson, which challenged Washington State’s alien land law.

The court said the state had a legitimate concern that all of the farmland in Washington might come into the hands and control of aliens who had not declared in good faith their intention to become citizens. That becomes really critical in understanding how it’s articulated today. [Washington’s anti-Asian laws were eventually repealed in 1966.]

In terms of the Arkansas law specifically targeting ownership of agricultural land, there’s this idea that if some foreign entity gets control of the food supply, they might manipulate it in a way that harms people in Arkansas and all the markets that Arkansas farmland serves. There’s this stated notion of threat.

And you’re saying this is all a dog whistle—an effort to appeal to voters and stoke racial division?

That’s my opinion. If the concern really is about national and state security, how real is that concern versus being able to say that as a politician I’m taking a strong stance to protect you?

Why is agricultural land often a specific target?

“If we restrict pathways to belonging—to becoming full members of our society—based on connection to a so-called country of concern, I think that undercuts the great mission of our country of allowing people from different groups to become full members.”

The choice of agricultural land is strategic. You can imagine that if somebody really had the means and the will to disrupt our nation’s food supply, the impact of that is tremendous. It gets at our very survival. Agriculture lends itself very easily to this concern. If we accept that it’s plausible that an entity could purposely insert itself within our agricultural system and at some point manipulate it for their own advantage, the question is whether a blanket law like we’re seeing now is the best approach.

Who and what is at risk if these laws hold up in court?

The people who are at risk are non-U.S. citizens of Asian ancestry. But then, because of the imprecision and lack of knowledge that parties in commercial transactions might have, that can also include U.S. citizens of Asian ancestry.

The other concern I have is that the alien land laws were only the start of a lot of state and local discrimination against people of Asian ancestry in the early 1900s. States realized that the arguments they put forward were accepted. So, they began with the alien land laws, but then they also restricted access to certain occupations, including becoming a member of the bar [to practice law]. Once discrimination in one sphere is legitimated, history teaches us that it goes to other areas.

Land access is a major obstacle for beginning farmers and farmers of color, including Black and Latino farmers. How concerned are you about what the movement to pass these laws could mean for land access and rights in the coming years?  

If we restrict pathways to belonging—to becoming full members of our society—based on your connection to a so-called country of concern, I think that undercuts the great mission of our country of allowing people from different groups to become full members. It also can impede economic pathways for the affected individuals.

There’s also a real problem when the danger is cast as China, or people who might be controlled by China. That gets extended then to Chinese Americans or people who might be thought to be Chinese American. You can see how, when you have a law like this, it can lead to broader discrimination.

Some groups that represent farmers and work for a fairer agricultural system in the U.S. are in favor of laws that restrict foreign investment and ownership of farmland. They say the laws can prevent land from being bought up by foreign investors, thereby keeping land more affordable and available for new and beginning farmers. Could these laws actually support land access for a wider range of farmers?

“The other concern I have is that the alien land laws were only the start of a lot of state and local discrimination against people of Asian ancestry in the early 1900s.”

If the problem is that agricultural land is being bought up by foreign investors and global corporations, which makes it harder for new and beginning farmers to purchase land, then it would seem that a more general law targeting foreign investment and ownership would be more effective than the kind of laws that have passed in numerous states, where often the target appears to be companies and individuals who may be associated with the People’s Republic of China.

The largest foreign investors come from Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe. To the extent that foreign ownership is the problem, the new laws don’t address the countries that own the most agricultural land in the U.S.

Generally, lawmakers don’t present these laws as intending to prevent Asian Americans from owning land, but with the aim of stopping foreign governments and corporations from controlling farmland. Are these laws preventing citizens and their families from owning land and farming here?

Part of the problem with some of these laws is the way they define the banned category of owners. For example, the Florida law forbids ownership of certain lands by “foreign principals” from a “foreign country of concern.”

The majority of Asian American citizens in the U.S. are foreign-born. If a seller receives multiple offers for the purchase of land, and one of them appears to be of Asian ancestry and may not speak English fluently, that seller may choose not to sell to that person because of fear of becoming entangled in Florida’s alien land law. In instances where a seller doesn’t meet the person, the seller may make decisions based on Asian surnames.

Are farmers, landowners, and the other people who contribute to our food system unwittingly being used by the proponents of alien land laws to foster discrimination? 

They might be. If those in the agricultural industry don’t believe that these are legitimate concerns, it would be great if people started saying so. That might help counter the use of this idea of a threat to agriculture and the food system.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/02/25/alien-land-laws-created-to-protect-us-farmland-may-be-harming-asian-americans/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2024/10/01/the-case-for-seafood-self-reliance/ Tue, 01 Oct 2024 09:00:45 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=57867 The U.S. is the world’s second-largest seafood importer, despite the fact that U.S. fishers catch 8 billion pounds of seafood each year. Much of the fish landed here is eaten elsewhere. That conundrum makes it harder for American fishermen to sustain their operations and forces fish to be shipped thousands of miles before it reaches […]

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Scan the seafood case at your local grocery store and you’re likely to see the same staples, no matter where you are: shrimp, salmon, tuna, tilapia, cod. Most of it crossed international borders to reach you.

The U.S. is the world’s second-largest seafood importer, despite the fact that U.S. fishers catch 8 billion pounds of seafood each year. Much of the fish landed here is eaten elsewhere. That conundrum makes it harder for American fishermen to sustain their operations and forces fish to be shipped thousands of miles before it reaches the dinner table. Climate change and global crises disrupting the international market only add to the complications.

“It’s not a law of gravity that 90 percent of the seafood we consume in the U.S. has to be imported.”

Fisheries would be healthier and more sustainable if fish caught locally were consumed locally. But the discrepancy is by design, says Joshua Stoll, associate professor at the University of Maine and founder of Local Catch Network, a hub of seafood harvesters, businesses, researchers, and organizers that supports the growth of community-based seafood.

“We’ve built roads around the world that don’t have exit ramps to our local communities when it comes to seafood,” Stoll says.

A healthier system more reflective of the diversity of U.S. seafood is attainable, Stoll says, if we invest in connecting harvesters and consumers at the regional level. In a paper published in Nature in June, he and his colleagues found that seafood independence—the ability to meet the country’s consumption needs through its own production—is “within reach” for the U.S.

From 2012 through 2021, U.S. fishermen caught 76 percent of the country’s seafood needs on average, Stoll and his colleagues found. As recently as the 1990s, the average was 98 percent. Those numbers are based on the federal recommendation of eight ounces of seafood per week per adult, or 26 pounds annually; Americans currently eat about 20 pounds each per year.

Community supported fisheries (CSFs), where consumers buy shares of fresh seafood through pre-paid memberships, similar to the community supported agriculture model for produce, can help bridge the existing gap between what we catch and what we eat, Stoll says.

Currently, 12 percent of U.S. fishers sell directly to consumers, according to the first national survey of seafood harvesters, which he helped lead; the findings were published in Marine Policy in July. By avoiding middlemen like distributors and processors, direct sales allow harvesters to build relationships with the people eating their fish, mitigate shipping-related climate impacts and costs by keeping what they catch closer to home, and, typically, make more money in the process.

Civil Eats spoke with Stoll about why seafood self-reliance matters, where CSFs fit into the conversation, and how climate change is making these issues all the more urgent.

What are the benefits of seafood independence that make it a goal worth targeting?

Fishermen are really struggling to make their livelihoods work. We hear from people in the Gulf of Mexico, where prices are so depressed for shrimp that they’re tying up on the docks [rather than going out to fish]. We’re hearing about the price of salmon and the markets being flooded. A lot of that has to do with global trade dynamics.

At Local Catch Network, we’re working at the local harvester level, thinking about how to transform this system based on high volume and low value to one that’s deeply rooted in low volume and high value. Part of the way we get there is by localizing and working toward seafood independence.

This country is also facing a health epidemic. Something like one in 10 Americans is experiencing food insecurity on some level. That blows my mind. Seafood doesn’t fundamentally solve that, but there is a real opportunity to better integrate seafood into policy discussions around food systems that change our country’s health.

Part of that is thinking about self-reliance. The objective isn’t full self-reliance. I don’t think that’s realistic. The point of this paper was to stretch the boundaries of what is possible, because right now, we’re almost the opposite. It’s not a law of gravity that 90 percent of the seafood we consume in the U.S. has to be imported.

What stands in the way of our country’s seafood self-reliance, and how can we overcome those obstacles?

Almost everyone in the fisheries space can roll that 90 percent figure off their tongues. That figure has actually been challenged in the literature, but most of the seafood we eat is imported. And that narrative creates a vacuum for imagining alternatives. What if everyone knew that we could achieve seafood independence and that’s what everyone was talking about?

There are real policy barriers as well. We’ve seen massive consolidation in our fishing fleet at the harvester level, at the processor level, at the distribution level. We’ve made investments, both for better and for worse, in supporting a global seafood distribution system through trade policy agreements, trade missions, and marketing and promotion boards that are focused on moving product away from the places where it’s harvested and produced.

That’s come at the cost of investing in the infrastructure that we need to keep a product local and regional. We’ve lost public infrastructure—working waterfront infrastructure, small-scale community-based ice machines. We also need federal investment in processing and distribution. We’re trapped in this model: Catch it and get it out of here. [Also,] it starts in the water. Who has access to fishing? We need to find ways to support new entrants, whether it’s in wild-capture fisheries or aquaculture.

Which regions are in the best and worst position to reach seafood independence?

Alaska drives the bus. Alaska is a dominant player nationally in seafood production and plays an important role in the potential for seafood independence. But I don’t think that lets other regions off the hook. All regions make an important contribution.

New England has witnessed a relative decline [in seafood harvests], but I’m hopeful for the innovation that’s happening there and the investment in the seafood sector, especially in a place like Maine with oysters and kelp. The wild-capture fisheries continue to be anchors of coastal communities there, too, and unlike most places I’ve been, they’re still part of the fabric of daily conversations. When you get to the point where seafood is an afterthought and not part of those conversations, that’s when you’re in slippery territory.

Beside policy, consolidation, and lack of infrastructure, what accounts for the discrepancy between what we catch and what we eat in this country?

The average consumer doesn’t understand seafood as a protein and struggles with knowing what to do with it. Then you offer some species they’ve never heard of, and it’s end of story. Part of it is education. We need to invest in people understanding different species and what is seasonal and local. Researchers have found that today, while there is some regional variance in seafood consumption, it’s awfully similar no matter where you are—you’re going to get salmon, shrimp, and tilapia or some other white fish.

Where do community supported fisheries and other harvesters selling directly to consumers fit into the future of these conversations?

CSFs will likely never be the dominant mode of distribution, and that’s OK. But diverse supply chains are critical to the functioning of a vibrant seafood economy in the U.S. Sometimes it makes sense to distribute globally, but you can’t just rely on that, [especially] with increasing global shocks. Our research [for the Marine Policy paper] was the first attempt at documenting the number of people participating in the sector. The USDA has been collecting similar data [for agriculture] for decades, and seafood, except for aquaculture, has been sidelined from that process. When you see that one in 10 harvesters are involved in direct sales, that changes the dynamic. It’s a sector worth investing in. This is part of the off-ramp infrastructure.

How did the pandemic influence direct-to-consumer sales by harvesters, and what policy changes emerged there that could bring the U.S. closer to seafood self-reliance?

One change was around permitting for direct sales. There’s always been this narrative that seafood is a little bit fishy, it will make you sick, and therefore it needs to be regulated in a different way than ag commodities. There’s some reality to that, but it’s often been a red herring used [by regulators] to thwart these types of activities. During the pandemic, we saw policies relax. And guess what? People weren’t getting sick. Harvesters were able to connect with consumers. And now those emergency rules have been institutionalized and continue to exist. A place like Rhode Island [where a new law allows fishers to obtain permits for docksides sales] is a good example of that.

Our survey of seafood harvesters was done in partnership with the USDA and the National Marine Fisheries Service. If we’d gone to either of those departments pre-pandemic, I’m not sure we’d even have gotten a meeting, let alone been able to co-lead this national effort. The funding we received and the support from leadership in both agencies reflects a recognition that diverse supply chains are really important.

How is climate change impacting the seafood system and both our need and ability to become more self-reliant?

Climate change has a whole range of effects, and one is the level of uncertainty it brings. Many of our management decisions are based on stock assessment science. I often hear people in stock assessment say, anything they thought they knew before, they’ve had to throw out the window and admit, ‘We don’t know what the future is going to look like.’ That has massive ripple effects in setting annual catch limits, policies, regulations, and [ultimately] business decisions like whether to participate in fisheries.

We’re also seeing a spike in major weather events. In Maine this past winter, we had massive storm surges that had absolutely devastating effects on our working waterfront. We’re still grappling with that. Climate change adds layers of stress to a sector that is already struggling with competition from foreign imports, with decline in the industry, with aging fleets—a whole suite of compounding issues. That creates a lot of anxiety for what the future holds, and it affects self-reliance by introducing uncertainty.

If you’re eating a menu of seafood that reflects global production, you are undermining your ability to understand how climate change is affecting an ecosystem, because the production system can hop between climate disasters. It can dodge those effects by saying, “Oh, there’s a failure here? We’ll source seafood over there.” It’s harder to do that when you’re sourcing seafood from the Gulf of Maine to support New England or from the South Atlantic to support the Southeast. It really connects people to their source of seafood and makes them better positioned to be engaged consumers and to engage in change.

How can the average person play a role in supporting a healthier seafood ecosystem?

Know your fisherman. If you can trace your food back to the source, inevitably you will gain an understanding of the context in which that food is produced. That’s a luxury, though. Many people don’t have the privilege to be able to choose where their food comes from. It’s up to policymakers, funders, and decision-makers. They need to recognize the disconnect between [reality and] an idealized food system where an idealized consumer knows their fisherman—and implement policies that create access to that food.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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]]> https://civileats.com/2024/09/10/the-pawpaw-a-beloved-native-fruit-could-seed-a-more-sustainable-future-for-small-farms/ https://civileats.com/2024/09/10/the-pawpaw-a-beloved-native-fruit-could-seed-a-more-sustainable-future-for-small-farms/#comments Tue, 10 Sep 2024 09:00:27 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=57559 Pawpaws are America’s largest edible native fruit, and their ineffable mystique will bring thousands of visitors to the farm’s annual pawpaw festival in late September. They grow abundantly in the wild here in central Pennsylvania and across much of the fruit’s native range, which spans 26 states as far west as the Great Plains and […]

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As the sun beats down from a cloudless morning sky across Horn Farm in York, Pennsylvania, Dick Bono ambles among his pawpaw trees, admiring their pale green fruits like a proud parent. In late July, the pawpaws are fist-sized and hard as a rock, still two months shy of being full-grown and ripe. But soon they’ll soften and sweeten into a fruit revered for its tropical flavor and texture—a blend of banana, mango, and pineapple, so soft it’s eaten with a spoon.

“It was like going to heaven on a surfboard.”—Jean Vargas, pawpaw festival attendee

Pawpaws are America’s largest edible native fruit, and their ineffable mystique will bring thousands of visitors to the farm’s annual pawpaw festival in late September. They grow abundantly in the wild here in central Pennsylvania and across much of the fruit’s native range, which spans 26 states as far west as the Great Plains and from northern Florida to Maine. But the pawpaw’s two- to three-week harvest window, short shelf life, and delicate skin still make it anathema to the rigid needs of grocery stores and a rare find even at farmers’ markets.

Despite the inherent obstacles to enjoying a pawpaw—and perhaps, in part, because of them—interest in the fruit continues to grow. Festivals in several states, mostly throughout September, give people a chance to taste the fruit for the first time or celebrate an old favorite.

Meanwhile, research and plant breeding efforts are underway to explore and expand its potential as a sustainable low-input, high-value crop that could figure into the future of small farms throughout the eastern U.S. If the pawpaw’s greatest admirers have their way, it will also show the way forward for a localized approach to agriculture that operates outside of the mass-produced mainstream.

The pawpaw’s green skin (left) gives way to a custardy interior (right). (Photo credit, left: Kat Arazawa)

Bono and his wife, Judy, manage 52 pawpaw trees on land they rent at Horn Farm Center for Agricultural Education, a regenerative agriculture nonprofit. Dick predicts well over 1,000 pounds of fruit this year, and he’ll need it all to satisfy the 2,000 visitors expected for the festival.

“We bring joy and happiness for that one little weekend in September,” Judy says.

While many at the festival will be getting their first exposure to the pawpaw, Dick, a land conservationist and retired architect, and Judy, a native plant enthusiast, have been enamored for 20 years now. They had tasted the hit-or-miss wild varieties that grow in the fertile soil along the Susquehanna River, but got hooked during a visit to Deep Run, a Maryland orchard with a range of pawpaw cultivars among its 1,000 trees.

They wanted to bring some of that sweetness north to York, so in 2004 they hosted a downtown dinner at Blue Moon Cafe that made pawpaw the star of the show. The French chef they hired turned out chicken with hot peppers and pawpaw, a salad with the fruit sliced fresh, pawpaw bread with pawpaw butter, and a crepe filled, of course, with pawpaw.

The dinner was a hit—and so were the modest events the Bonos began hosting in the driveway of Judy’s plant shop every September, letting friends and neighbors in on their little secret with pawpaw tastings, baked goods, ice cream, and salsas. When they planted their orchard 11 years ago, the gatherings turned into a festival, which soon outgrew anything they could manage themselves. Now, Horn Farm Center runs the show.

What started as a “quaint event,” in the words of the center’s executive director, Alexis Campbell, has expanded into a countywide, four-day festival. The festival includes tastings and cooking demonstrations, giving visitors a chance to appreciate the pawpaw and other crops native to the region, as well as tours exploring ecosystem restoration and biodynamic farming on nearby land.

The Pawpaw ‘Experience’

While Dick Bono describes the subtle differences in fruiting patterns that differentiate one pawpaw variety from the next, a zebra swallowtail butterfly flits among them, a reminder that native plants like the pawpaw support biodiversity. Pawpaws are the only host plant for zebra swallowtails.

Dick Bono and his pawpaw trees growing at the Horn Farm Center. (Photo credit: Kat Arazawa)

As the butterfly flutters between three rows of trees, its black and white wings vivid against their green foliage, Bono introduces the members of his orchard. The Canadian NC1 ripens early, with fewer smooth black seeds than other varieties. The Allegheny’s yellow flesh brings a pop of citrus flavor. The Susquehanna’s firm flesh is sweeter than most, and the Shenandoah, his favorite in the orchard, has a mild flavor and a custardy texture that everyone loves.

So much of the interest in the pawpaw is about curiosity, Bono says, both because of the fruit’s fickleness and the fact that it’s more akin to tropical cherimoya and soursop than anything else in its range. But the flavor keeps people coming back. “The taste,” he says, “is what it’s about.”

Jean Vargas would agree. A self-described “fruit hunter” who says he has tried some 700 varieties, he came from Florida for his first pawpaw festival in 2021. His first bite, which he says tasted of mango, banana, coconut, and vanilla, was “mind-blowing.”

“It was like going to heaven on a surfboard,” he says.

That weekend, Vargas spent nearly $100 on pawpaws, befriended the Bonos and other aficionados, and committed to coming back. He’s visited three years in a row and sounds pained to admit that work will keep him away this September. A festival is the best way to experience everything the pawpaw can offer, he says, even if it’s six states away.

“It’s mystical,” Vargas says.

Chris Chmiel of Integration Acres in Albany, Ohio, started the Ohio Pawpaw Festival in 1999 and has since heard countless stories of people’s relationships with the fruit he says has become “a symbol of our Appalachian heritage.” He had a “communal experience” with some pawpaws when he first launched the festival, asking for their blessing. It seems to have worked. His festival now draws in 10,000 people for pawpaw beers, a pawpaw cook-off, and a pawpaw-eating contest.

“Everyone’s got these stories that the pawpaw has been a part of for them. You don’t get that when you go to the grocery store and buy a banana,” Chmiel says. “It’s an experience.”

Thousands of people are expected to attend York County’s annual Pawpaw Festival at Horn Farm Center. As pictured here from past festivals, visitors can sample pawpaws and take some home. (Photo credit: Andrew Leahy, Horn Farm Center)

Pawpaw’s Agricultural and Ecological Benefits

The pawpaw is not only a part of Appalachian heritage. Its abundance in the wild helped sustain Indigenous tribes across its range for centuries, including the Susquehannocks, whose territory included the land on which Horn Farm is now located. Indigenous people first cultivated it in woodlands, using the tree’s fibrous inner bark to make ropes and string and its leaves and stems as medicine. The Shawnee word for “September” translates to “pawpaw moon.”

Pawpaw enthusiasts have found many ways to celebrate the fruit. (Photo credit: Judy Bono)

As pawpaw aficionados often mention, it was George Washington’s favorite fruit, and Lewis and Clark relied on it for portions of their westward expedition. Its cultural connection to Appalachia runs deep. It’s the subject of a folk song and the namesake of towns in West Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, and Kentucky.

Today, it is emerging from this long history as the subject of renewed public interest, thanks to its varied ecological and agricultural attributes. For those investing in sustainable landscapes and watershed restoration, the pawpaw’s roots can hold stream banks in place and prevent runoff. On farms focused on agroforestry and silvopasture—the integration of livestock and trees—it’s a welcome neighbor, including at Integration Acres, where goats graze among the pawpaws but leave their fruit for humans to eat.

And, because it ripens after apples in many places, the pawpaw offers farmers a way to continue harvesting into the fall, and bring in extra income. At a time when most produce we eat is available year-round, the pawpaw’s seasonality is significant, says Tim Clymer, who specializes in unusual fruits at Threefold Farms in Mechanicsburg, an hour northwest of Horn Farm.

He grows blackberries, kiwi berries, persimmons, and figs, which were his primary crop until pawpaws took the mantle. With 160 trees in full production at the farm and nearly 300 more on the way, Threefold will contribute some of the 3,000 pounds of pawpaws sold at the festival.

The pawpaw has other advantages that set it apart from so many mainstream fruits, particularly from a farmer’s perspective. It’s high-value (Clymer sells it for $5 to $7 a pound and it goes for more elsewhere) and low-input (impervious to most insect and fungus pests, it can easily be grown organically). It can survive temperatures below freezing and, as a native fruit, it grows well with consistency in much of its home range.

That range is expanding as climate change brings warmer temperatures north, opening up nearly all of New England as an ideal climate for the pawpaw in the years to come. Increases in extreme weather, in the form of both drought and heavy rains and wind, however, could pose a long-term threat to the pawpaw, which thrives in the moist, nutrient-dense soil alongside bodies of water. For many years, though, festivals like those in Pennsylvania and Ohio will be well positioned to expand the fruit’s cult following.

A pawpaw tree in winter. (Photo credit: Judy Bono)

Seeding a Sustainable System

Adam D’Angelo wants more people to find their own pawpaw story. As the breeding operations manager at the Savanna Institute, a Midwest agroforestry nonprofit, he’s studied currants, persimmons, elderberries, mulberries, and hazelnuts. But the pawpaw has his heart. When he was a kid, his brother showed him a pawpaw tree in Cornell University’s MacDaniels Nut Grove, and he stayed up late into the night combing the internet to learn more about it.

“I was amazed to see there was this delicious, tropical fruit that grew here,” D’Angelo says. “And not only did it grow here, but it had evolved here.”

He planted his first tree when he was 11. At Project Pawpaw, a crowdfunded initiative focused on research, breeding, and market development, he’s working to seed a more resilient agricultural system, starting with the pawpaw. The organization opened its first large-scale research orchard this spring, planting 800 trees—enough to produce 10 tons of pawpaw once mature—on an acre in South Jersey, and has plans for two more, including one in Wisconsin.

D’Angelo’s goal is to develop pawpaws with firm flesh, great flavor, and thicker skin, so they don’t bruise quite so easily in transport. (The Bonos say they pack them in a single layer, laid over bubble wrap.) A color break from green to yellow, to signify ripeness, would allow farmers to harvest the fruit more efficiently. Currently, the only way to tell is by squeezing each one. With some improvements, the pawpaw could help diversify farms across the eastern U.S., D’Angelo says.

Alongside other native and perennial fruit and nut crops, the pawpaw can be part of a better agricultural future, he says, encouraging people to think beyond just what’s consistent and available in grocery stores. “We need to start embracing things that grow well where we are,” he says.

D’Angelo’s work will take a while to materialize—plant breeding always does. He doesn’t expect to release a new variety for 10 years. But in the meantime, researchers are finding other ways to improve the pawpaw’s viability for small farms. Kentucky State University has over 2,000 trees in its research program, which started in 1994, focused on fine-tuning propagation methods, orchard management, and ripening and storage techniques. Ohio State University started its own research in 2006, aiming to increase the pawpaw’s profitability for local growers. It hosts a conference each year to discuss production and marketing of the fruit.

“If we’re 10 to 15 years from a new variety, we might only be a couple years from telling farmers the best temperature to store their fruit—or we could develop a new harvest crate, so they don’t bruise,” D’Angelo says. “That’s what propelled the avocado.”

At Horn Farm Center, where neighbors tend a flourishing community garden a short distance from young hazelnuts, persimmons and elderberries, Campbell hopes the pawpaw can be part of something bigger than itself. With that in mind, this year’s festival, now called Wild & Uncommon Weekend, will widen its scope beyond the pawpaw to consider a range of native fruits that are central to the farm’s regenerative vision. The broader focus can educate visitors about “bioregional living,” a way of engaging with agriculture to elevate “what’s inherent and special about this particular climate, this particular land,” Campbell says.

Perennial crops like the pawpaw require little or no tillage, allowing them to improve soil health, sequester carbon, and prevent agricultural runoff into waterways, all while creating habitats for wildlife. For Campbell, that makes it a “gateway” to developing more locally focused and ecologically beneficial food systems.

To have that impact, though, the pawpaw needs to be more than a curiosity. The festivals, research, and personal connections with the fruit are all part of that journey.

“The pawpaw and the festival are a small glimpse of what could be,” she says.

2024 Pawpaw Festivals

• August 31: The South Carolina Pawpaw Festival at Blue Oak Horticulture in Taylors included lessons on pawpaw history, pruning, and care, as well as propagation and planting.
• September 7: The second annual Louisville Pawpaw Festival at the Louisville Nature Center in Kentucky featured guided hikes, local vendors, and live music.
• September 7-8: At the two-day Indiana Pawpaw Festival in Merom, the hosts raffled off a pawpaw tree every hour.
• September 13-15: The 26^th annual Ohio Pawpaw Festival in Albany, Ohio, will highlight the growing, cooking, and sustainability of pawpaws.
• September 14: A festival in Paw Paw, West Virginia, will feature special guest Neal Peterson, known as Johnny Pawpaw Seed, for the many varieties he’s bred.
• September 21: The ninth annual festival in Frederick, Maryland, will celebrate pawpaws and permaculture.
• September 26-29: The Horn Farm Center’s Wild & Uncommon Weekend spans four days across York, Pennsylvania, with a pawpaw celebration on the farm on Sep. 28.
• September 28: Paw Paw, Illinois, will get its first pawpaw festival, with tastings and seedlings for sale.
• September 28: West Virginia University will host its own festival featuring Andrew Moore, the author of Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit.

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