This self proclaimed seed nerd loves growing Southern Italian and Irish heirlooms and supporting the community food sovereignty movement through seed keeping. Listen to the Seeds and Their People Podcast or visit www.trueloveseeds.org for more info, and to support Owen’s work

Owen’s Story

"Including the people who came before us was important." Having OG community gardeners at the initial and ongoing visioning and planning meetings was key to the creation of Farm School. Urban agriculture was becoming a trendy idea and there were a lot of young folks jumping on board. Founders saw that there were so many people who sustained community gardens for so long being steamrolled out of the movement so we wanted to honor and center those folks

Owen Taylor is a seed connoisseur. It is no wonder he was there to foster the initial seed of Farm School NYC. Owen Taylor worked at Just food in 2005 as a chicken intern and was soon hired to create an urban livestock program (focused on community chickens and helping to legalize honeybees) and to run the training of trainers program. Once the initial grant that incited Farm School was awarded, the group had to design a community project, and plan FSNYC space and strategies. Community garden leaders were invited. After all, they wanted to ensure these folks' voices were not only heard, but also included as future instructors and workshop hosts. Community Garden leaders had been doing the work of growing food in NYC neighborhoods for decades and many were also trained and experienced in teaching others through the Just Food programs. Jane and Owen would prompt planners to give input on what could happen in the future school and to help determine what values should be considered guiding principles in planning and implementing the school. The idea was to honor the various gardens that elders built, hosting classes in these various decentralized spaces instead of in one central facility, while keeping financial accessibility in mind. A core principle was the belief that Income shouldn't hinder anyone from joining and that working people should be able to fit Farm School into their busy lives. This meant more people with fewer resources would be able to learn and enter the network. The visioning went on for years and there was tension about whether Just food should hold FSNYC.

Eventually, FSNYC became its own project, leading to the model we have today. Owen was also a teacher for our first ever farm school citywide cohort. Owen continued to co-facilitate the Training of Trainers course until December 2018, and is still in touch and collaborates with students from many cohorts including those from the first year, some helping him where he now leads Truelove Seeds.