Did you know that unless you have an acre or more of land in Middletown, it's nearly impossible to be in compliance with Middletown's current chicken keeping rules? One of our members is facing $100/day fine because her coop is less than 25 feet from her neighbor's property line. Because of the size of her backyard, regardless of where she moves the coop--it would still be violating this ordinance. Chicken keeping policies are different in nearly every city/town in the state but are mostly focused on the size of property and not on the things chickens actually need to be healthy. We know that urban communities, communities with higher numbers of BILPOC residents, lower-income communities are less likely to be able to meet chicken keeping requirements across the state. Our members drafted a new set of rules for Middletown that would focus on the space the chickens need, and not on the space between properties. People have a right to be self-sufficient without the fear of a $100/day fine. Sign on to this petition and tell the City of Middletown to give us all a real Right to Farm! katal.info/MtownChickens

Meet Ups at Farms: Date: Sunday, September 8th Time: 10am-2pm Location: Gunther Farm, 24 Hyde Rd. Vernon, CT Date: Sunday, September 15th Time: 10am-3pm Location: Off Center Farm, 48 Center Rd. Woodbridge, CT and Beets and Blooms Farm, 6 Oakum Dock Rd, Cobalt, CT Description of Skill Share: For folks that are still looking for land, whether to lease or purchase. Learn how to evaluate potential properties for agricultural use. Explore three different properties with Solid Ground soil, conservation, and land use consultant Kip Kolesinskas. We will evaluate the major soil properties to consider for different types of agriculture, evaluate the location and condition of existing infrastructure, including potential water sources, impact of wetlands, neighbors and wildlife, land restoration, topography, and local microclimates. Learn how to use the Web Soil Survey and other Connecticut and municipal maps as tools in the process, and where to find information on a property’s history, town zoning ag restrictions, setbacks, and more.   Sign up here: s.uconn.edu/landeval&access

President Joe Biden and the White House are touting the payments to over 43,000 people as part of an effort to address inequity in farm loan programs, which data obtained in a CNN Freedom of Information Act request reveal has persisted for Black farmers especially. By Chandelis Duster and Janie Boschma, CNN.com https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/01/politics/black-farmers-discrimination-program-biden-chevron-dg

Register for Growing Power ’25 today! "In Connecticut, individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous and people of color, or BIPOC, account for less than 2% of local farmers. A new state program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working to increase that number – by training farmers, and supporting their land access." Published December 4, 2024 at 3:47 PM EST Connecticut Public Radio By Michayla Savitt Our list of workshops and presenters is growing every day, and includes sessions on: Growing and Compost, Chicken Keeping, Freshwater Fishing, Beekeeping, Organizing, and more!  Formal schedule coming soon, stay tuned!

AKNEW is a non-profit organization located in Hartford, CT. We provide resources to the underserved population of the Greater Hartford Communities. We are raising funds to help educate the Hartford Communities on the importance of Composting and urban gardening, fishing, and farm animals. We will be partnering with Our New Village who will come and educate the community about Urban Gardening, a local farm who will bring farm animals, and other organizations that will educate the community about fishing and composting.

This EggUcation Learning Series includes classroom time, chicken keeping materials, and supplies. The course is taught primarily by Pr5of Amy Grillo with follow up support and coaching for new chicken keepers. Karin's Growing Power '24 Chicken Keeping Presentation

The 19th Annual Winter Festival Event at Burr Pond State Park No Child Left Inside® (NCLI) Program in partnership with Fish with CARE and the City of Torrington will be hosting this event. There will be parking on-site at Burr Pond State Park (main parking lot) as well as off-site location parking lots at: Burr Pond Boat Launch Ramp, Burrville Fire Training School and RBC Aircraft Products . There will be 2 shuttles (one is handicapped accessible) circulating between the parking lots/locations between the hours of 9:30 am and 3:00 pm. The shuttles will circulate between Burr Pond State Park on Burr Mountain Road in Torrington; RBC Aircraft Products at 2866 Winsted Road, Torrington; Burrville Fire Training School on Burr Mountain Road in Torrington; and the Burr Pond Boat Launch Ramp at 600 Burr Mountain Road in Torrington. In the event of bad weather, the event will be rescheduled to Sunday February 2, 2025 from 10 am to 3 pm Contact 860-424-3917 kristen.bellantuono@ct.gov

What are we doing about this at Chicks Ahoy Farm?!? 1. Expand access to affordable, fresh food, such as poultry eggs, during the winter for underserved families. 2. Keeping Basic Human Needs and Harm Reduction supplies on hand for families and retail store staff 3. Organizing a broad base of people to protect us all and work towards solutions to these problems in Connecticut Our CoOp2kitchen program provides real food purchased from Connecticut Farmers located in Manchester, Hartford, Middletown, and Meriden. C2K provides food and harm reduction supplies to families, seniors, and community members throughout Hartford, Middlesex, and New Haven Counties through our Pop Ups. If you are a farmer, provider, producer, or grower of something helpful to people, please consider working with CoOp2kitchen. Vendors can sign up here! We offer a variety of products, including homemade bar soaps, laundry sheets, coupons, hygiene products, and harm reduction supplies, as well as informal case management and human services. Additionally, we provide community organizing training and support to help you self-advocate for these issues in your community. Here are some articles and data on the problem we are facing: USDA Terminates Redundant Food Insecurity Survey (Washington, D.C., September 20, 2025) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the termination of future Household Food Security Reports. These redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous studies do nothing more than fuel fear. For 30 years, this study—initially created by the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments—failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder. Trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged, despite an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019 and 2023. USDA will continue to prioritize statutory requirements and, where necessary, use the bevy of more timely and accurate data sets available to it. https://www.npr.org/2025/09/22/nx-s1-5549115/usda-food-insecurity-survey-hunger "SNAP benefits, and the resulting rise in food insecurity, is the likely motive behind the Trump administration scrapping the report. "This will substantially increase food insecurity, and unfortunately, that will make itself clear in the data of food insecurity reports in the next couple of years," Ross said. The USDA did not respond to questions from NPR about the reasons behind the report's cancellation." Household Food Security in the United States in 2023 An estimated 86.5 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2023, with access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (13.5 percent, statistically significantly higher than the 12.8 percent in 2022) were food insecure at least some time during the year. Very low food security is the more severe range of food insecurity where one or more household members experience reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns at times during the year because of limited money or other resources for food. In 2023, 5.1 percent of households were very low food secure, an estimate that is statistically similar to the 5.1 percent in 2022. Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity, and Opportunity 2024 Food Security Annual Report (CWCSEO), it is our pleasure to present our 2024 report on the state of food insecurity in Connecticut, reflecting our commitment as mandated by Public Act 23-204. This report comes at the conclusion of the Commission’s first year with a Food & Nutrition Policy Analyst on staff, and is the product of publicly available data and academic research. Additionally, we endeavored to incorporate lived experience and community feedback through 107 individual and small group meetings, a survey of food organizations that collected 162 responses, and presentations to local food collaboratives across the state. #CoOp2kitchen is a mutual aid project collaborating with CT Farmers and vendors to provide food, necessities, and informal case management to those in need. Chicks Ahoy Farm's cohort of youth, women and BILPOC farmers, FLOC (Farmers & Leaders of Color) and residents in Hartford, Middletown, Bloomfield, Portland, and Cromwell have come together to create an Advisory Committee for c2k to review potential agreements for supplies and items. Complete the C2K Vendor Sign Up Form to become a vendor for CoOp2kitchen. Contact us at C2K@chiksahoyfarm.org if you would like to volunteer or make a donation to the program.

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