A year ago, Little Seed Farm posted (Un)learning & Taking Action | Anti-Racism at LSF. Our goal was to implement a variety of programs and changes across our organization to address racism and help support causes taking action in the community.  

Today we’re here to provide an update on the progress and actions we’ve taken over the past year, as well as our plans for future growth in these areas. 

 

Education and Training:

Over the course of the past year, we created an Antiracism leadership team that oversees progress on all action items within the Antiracism Plan and also develops the growth plan for the future. The updates and progress are then communicated to each member of our team and feedback from everyone at LSF is welcomed.

Little Seed Farm is actively working with multiple Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion trainers to find the ones that work best for our team’s needs and fit our capacity here at the farm. We are hoping to roll out specific training modules by the end of this Summer. 

Our full team is scheduled to participate in volunteer training with Gideon’s Army in July and will begin volunteering on-site with multiple non-profits as COVID precautions allow. 

 

Diversity in the workspace:

At LSF we continue to seek out and prioritize diversity in the workspace. During 2021 we expanded our team to include an Asian team member and a Mexican-American team member. Our team currently has one Black team member. We are in the process of expanding our facility and look forward to welcoming more team members in 2022 and beyond. We will continue to prioritize diversity on our team as we grow and use broad reach job posting sites such as Indeed.com to increase the diversity of job applicants.  

 

Engagement with Non-Profits:

COVID presented difficulties for engaging with charities like we’re accustomed to, however, we were able to host the OASIS International Teen Outreach Program for a tour of our farm and production facilities and hope to welcome more OASIS visits later this year.

We increased our direct engagement with local non-profits and recently began working Nashville’s Trap Garden. We will be volunteering with Gideon’s Army this Summer and hope to more actively engage with feet on the ground and hands in the dirt in 2021 and 2022.

We are pursuing partnerships with BIPOC-focused charitable organizations nationwide. This includes product donations to gift/swag bags, items for silent auctions, and more.

 

Marketing/Communication

In an effort to include more diversity in our marketing presence, Little Seed started working with third parties that have relationships with BIPOC content creators whose images are now included in many of our ads, emails and other communications. Many of our social media posts, videos, and content in our email marketing now include BIPOC representation, whereas previously there was none. 

As our company grows, we will continue to focus on the inclusion of a diverse mix of persons in our media communications.

 

BIPOC Entrepreneurship Incubation

The Little Seed Farm leadership team is actively engaged with Smalley Bee Honey as the first participant in our BIPOC Entrepreneurship Incubator. This is a long-term relationship and we will continue to work with Smalley Bee over the coming years. 

We are opening up to another participant for 2021 and plan to take on one entrepreneur per year to help guide them in the startup of their business. If you or someone you know would like to take part in this program, please reach out to us at hello@littleseedfarm.com.