Making history, everyday: Toronto Black Farmers Collective

[Calming music begins]

[Jacqueline Dwyer stands in a greenhouse and talks to the camera.]

Jacqueline Dwyer: My message to all Canadians for Black History Month is that our history spans 365 days of the year, 366 when it’s a leap year, and it’s an ancient and Indigenous culture.

[Cut to Jacqueline with family and friends posing and smiling at the camera.]

So we have so much more to share and give to empower and enrich humanity.

[Cut to the title screen. Text on screen appears on the left side and a portrait shot of Jacqueline with a greenhouse and rows of crops in the background.]

Text on screen: Making history, everyday: Toronto Black Farmers Collective

[An image of a Noel Livingston, Jacqueline’s partner, reaching into a raised bed of leafy greens.]

My name is Jacqueline Dwyer.

Text on screen: Jacqueline Dwyer – Co-Founder, Toronto Black Farmers Collective

I’m one of the co-founders of the Toronto Black Farmers Collective, and I’m a food advocate and an urban farmer.

[Jacqueline watering rows of vegetables growing in a greenhouse.]

So, the Toronto Black Farmers Collective work officially started in 2013.

[Cut to a slow-motion clip of Jacqueline and a colleague walking through a garden full of vegetables.]

We started out with 1,000 square foot plot and we grew an array of different seasonal and culturally relevant vegetables...

[A close-up view of Jacqueline picking peas out of a bucket.]

And it just caught on into the community that we were doing this.

And people would come buy their food from us or come and say, you know, I don’t have food or, didn’t get paid this month…

[A slow-motion clip of a worker reaching into a bed of produce within a greenhouse.]

...and we would give. And really and truly, that’s how it started, and it just grew over time. It grew.

So the Toronto Black Farmers Collective urban farm feeds about 30 to 35 families.

We also distribute and sell food at the Afro-Caribbean...

[A worker kneeling down in a garden and picking produce.]

...farmers market in Little Jamaica, in Reggae Lane.

Post pandemic...

[A close-up view of peas, peppers, green beans, and a cucumber gathered on a table.]

...we’ve donated over 5,000 hampers to food insecure households and communities.

That’s a lot, yeah.

[Jacqueline and Noel laugh and smile while they walk through their garden.]

We both came from backgrounds of agriculture.

My grandmothers were all farmers.

[Jacqueline and Noel walk towards a greenhouse with their backs towards the camera.]

Noel’s father was a professional farmer with the government in Jamaica, and so they worked on a research farm in a parish in Jamaica called Saint Mary.

[A close-up view of a child adjusting some soil in a bed of produce with two shovels.]

So I’m always used to seeing a lot of food around me, and I’m always used to seeing people, you know, cultivating their yards or any greenspace they can.

[Jacqueline stands in a garden and smiles towards the camera while she holds a crate full of produce.]

So when I came here in ’78, it was a real culture shock because then, you know, we had a different climate here, we had different food cultures here, and most people, like most of the farms, were out of the city.

[A close-up view of Jacqueline holding up a red and yellow pepper while staring into the camera.]

So with my children, I started teaching them how to grow strawberries.

[Jacqueline and a young girl analyze some of the produce inside the greenhouse.]

I dug up the backyard and I started working with them in planting these strawberries.

[A close-up view of some strawberries hanging off a vine.]

And it was so amazing to see how these strawberries did so well.

And all the neighbourhood children would come to my place, and they would be...

[Cut to a close-up of Jacqueline and a young child looking down at the produce in the greenhouse.]

...hunting down the strawberries and eating them, and it brought back a lot of memories I grew up with, seeing in communities where you know, children always had food.

There was always an abundance of food, and respected the fact that our elders...

[Two workers talk and sit next to a garden and handle the produce.]

...who are now ancestors, did a lot of that work.

Like Emeril Lagasse says: we set it and forget it.

They literally set it and it just grows over time.

[A close-up view of a row of pepper plants.]

I love the most about this work is the great food we grow.

[Cut to Jacqueline holding up a yellow pepper to the camera and smiling.]

We get to eat it, we get to share it, and we get to engage...

[Jacqueline and her daughter admiring a crate full of produce.]

...everybody in every walks of life with this food.

History is every day. We make history every day and as people of Afro descent, we are right across the planet.

[Jacqueline talks to two colleagues with the gardens in the background.]

We are so much bigger and richer than that one month, the shortest month out of the year...

[Two workers sit and talk outside next to the garden.]

...and I know that when we teach the history, every day, we’ll empower all people.

[Cut to Jacqueline smiling and holding a crate full of produce. The greenhouse and gardens appear in the background.]

It’s all people need to have the knowledge so they can know how to better treat each other as humans.

[Calming music ends]

Text on screen: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada – Agriculture et Agroalimentaire Canada

[Government of Canada wordmark]

[End]