ABOUT

We are a nonhierarchical cooperative of Asian-led farms engaging our communities in building food sovereignty for the Northeast.

We build capacity for small farms through collaboration, grow our ancestral foods for community, redistribute resources to provide food to those in need,
and gather community to practice cultural traditions in the present.

We weave and sustain relationships between farms, community-led organizations, mutual aid groups, food purveyors, and cultural practitioners to nurture a community of interdependence and self-determination.


Cooperative Owners

Amanda Wong
Organizer
Farmer co-owner of Star Route Farm

Christina Chan
Organizer
Farmer Owner of Choy Division


Kaija Xiao
Organizer

Farmer Co-owner of Gentle Time Farm


Larry Tse
Organizer


Nicole Yeo-Solano
Organizer


Salt Wang
Organizer

Farmer Co-owner of Gentle Time Farm

Partners

Our work is made possible through relationships that center community care, cultural belonging, and food justice. We are proud to be in relationship with:

ORGANIZATIONSAsian Americans For EqualityBrooklyn Supported AgricultureBrooklyn PackersBushwick Ayuda MutuaCatskills Agrarian AllianceCommon Ground FarmEssex Food HubFood Issues GroupGlynwood Center for Regional AgricultureHeart of DinnerLa MoradaNew Roots CSAMeals for UnityRaising Health (fka AMPHS)Red Canary SongRed Rabbit AstrologySend Chinatown LoveSixth Street Community CenterSt. Ann's Food Pantry & Soup KitchenThink!ChinatownUniversity Settlement
FOOD PARTNERS
ACQ Bread
Achilles HeelBo Bo PoultryBong NYCHana MakgeolliHarana MarketHeart & Seoul Food Co.Ho FoodsInsaKreung CambodiaNha MinhBé BếpRomansSilver ApricotStregaThe TableWen WenYellow Rose
Grants and Awards

Thank you to our funders and supporters for sustaining and believing in our work.


2023

All In Neighborhood Grant from CitizensNYC

Asian American Impact Fund

Gold Futures Challenge

2022
All In Neighborhood Grant from CitizensNYC

2021
Young Farmers Chapter Capacity Grant


Press Mentions and Speaking Engagements

Thank you to these platforms for the opportunities to share our work.

2024
Hudson Valley CSA Summit
Boston University: Studies in Food Activism

2023
Cultivating Change with Choy Commons, MOLD
Live interview, WJFF Radio Catskill

2022
Choy Commons x YouTube: From Tech to Farming for Food Justice

Our name

Choy Commons borrows “Choy,” the romanized word for 菜, meaning leaf vegetable in Cantonese. While bok choy has origins in the Yangtze River Delta, its familiar categorization as “Asian” food parallels the perception of “Asian American” as a homogenized identity. The plant’s story captures both our dissonance with this experience and the solidarity and community we find as Asian diaspora in America.


We offer “Commons” to describe our efforts towards reciprocity with land and one another. Cultivating a shared commons of food, land, resources and labor is an act towards our collective liberation.


“菜樂市集” combines vegetables (​​菜), joy (樂), and market (市集). 集 also means “come together”, reminding us of our foundational history of building community through food. Thank you to Felix Wang for his thoughtful translation of our name.


Origin

In December 2021, our founding team met through the National Young Farmers Coalition's virtual conference and connected through the Asian Farmers affinity caucus.* There was no explicit group for Asian people, so we assembled our own. From there, we built relationships and pursued the question, "What does it mean to be visible, engaged, and organized as Asian Americans within the food/climate justice movement?"


We share an understanding that new generations of farmers not only inherit the responsibility to feed people, but to address the challenges of climate chaos and increasing social inequities. We follow indigenous and Black leaders worldwide by prioritizing our energy towards restoring the health of our local ecology and communities.


Like many diaspora peoples, we grapple with how to preserve and adapt the traditions that allowed our East-Asian ancestors to sustain soil fertility and themselves for centuries. We center cultural traditions in our work to draw connections between heritage and the present land we live on, and instill a sense of belonging to land and one another.

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*Less than 1% of farmers in the U.S. identify as Asian (NBC)