Iyé Blog

“Some seeds carry more than food — they carry memory. And memory is the beginning of liberation.” Across the African diaspora, black-eyed peas — also known as cowpeas — have traveled oceans, survived war and enslavement, seeded revolutions, and nourished kitchen tables from Salvador do Bahia to Santiago de Cuba. Today, these same seeds are helping us imagine new futures in the face of climate change. A recent harvest on the Sandown Centre for Regenerative Agriculture grounds

By: Ariel Reyes Antuan from Iyé Creative Framing Land Access as a Policy Problem, Not a Power Problem My biggest mistake was that I often analyzed land access primarily through policy and programmatic lenses such as bylaws, zoning, and administrative barriers rather than through power and ownership structures . This can inadvertently center governments as the problem-solvers instead of positioning communities as the stewards and decision-makers. So –in my opinion– Land acces

By Ariel Reyes Antuan , Iyé Creative When talking about Land and Land Access, Indigenous Nations, Black Canadians and other racialized groups have stood in the crossfire of government policy and corporate interests in the past 200 years. Exclusionary laws, forced displacement, chattel slavery, cultural loss, and continuous extraction have left us exhausted. The shapeshifting nature of corporate power has taught us a painful truth: dependency is not survival — it is erasure.

Agri-food makers are vital to the resilience and diversity of our local food systems—but they face a wide range of challenges when starting or growing their businesses. From accessing commercial kitchen space to navigating food safety regulations or finding culturally relevant mentorship, the barriers can be especially steep for underrepresented and equity-deserving food makers. To help address these gaps, we created two complementary tools: Food Makers Mapping Report This r