Freedom Farmers is a grassroots organization based in Morgantown, WV, affiliated with Morgantown Mutual Aid and made up entirely of volunteers from the local community. Born from the ideas of the International Guerrilla Gardening Project, our mission is to (i) reclaim unused and undeveloped space within the City of Morgantown for the purpose of planting and fostering native WV plants, and (ii) empower people with education on native plants and their various uses.
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We believe that land not being actively utilized for state and commercial purposes should not sit idle and should instead be used to aid in the proliferation of our state’s natural flora and fauna. Our organization is committed to the principles of ecology, solidarity and non-hierarchical leaders.
OUR GOALS
- Protest urban decay
- Beautify Morgantown
- Combat food scarcity
- Attract pollinators
- Support diverse native ecosystems
- Help to clean and purify soil and water with detoxifying plants
- Educate Morgantown residents on gardening techniques
- Give citizens an opportunity to reclaim the land they live on
CALENDAR 2025
- Sunday, June 15, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm: Group Gardening at Dorsey
- Saturday, June 21, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm: Group Gardening and Party Prep at Dorsey
- Help us get ready for the garden party! We’re going to clean up the area, make sure we have areas set up for performers and art, and also–still gotta pull some weeds. :)
- Sunday, June 22, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm: Garden Art Party and Potluck
- Building community and growing your own food supply is antifascist, because it allows us all to feel safe enough amongst each other, and secure enough in our necessities, that we can reject the government that we now so depend on. Join us for a garden party on Sunday, June 22nd, from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm for a potluck (bring food!), live music, and rock painting!
The Freedom Farmers wish to give Morgantownians an opportunity to learn about their land, care for it, and in doing so, begin to reclaim it. Being a Mutual Aid project, we are committed to maintaining a non-hierarchical organizing structure, and the unofficial (and un-policed) status of a group of private citizens, simply working together to build networks of support for ourselves. We are in the process of planting 3 community gardens in town, on donated private land, but we will also be “guerrilla gardening,” by planting native West Virginia plants in unused public green spaces. Our community gardens will offer free private plots to the public, and also have edible public plots maintained by the Freedom Farmers, whose harvests will be donated to Morgantown Food Not Bombs and similar local groups addressing food insecurity. Or, the fruits and vegetables will simply be given away for free to anyone who is respectful to the space. This will help to serve the needs of the many food-insecure people of Morgantown, and it will also serve the needs of the local ecosystem itself. Join us in this mission to care for our beautiful land and people!
West Virginia has been an extractive state for most of its history; our wealthy reserve of fossil fuels have been continuously drilled for and mined, primarily for export out-of-state. As a result, we as West Virginians have become accustomed to our land being devastated by private energy companies, with little to no regard for how their work is affecting the local people and ecosystems. We watch our mountain-tops being “removed,” and sigh to ourselves, because, ‘what right do we have to that land? It’s private, they own it.’ They own the land no more than they own the water. As citizens of Morgantown, and the state of West Virginia, we have every right to reclaim our land and take responsibility for it, because, among many other things, we need it to survive.
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