Seedlings of Solidarity: PASA 2026

By Lindsey Disler and Mat Forth - Industrial Worker, April 16, 2026

Members who attend educational and organizing events share what they learned with the members whose dues funded their attendance. This model seeks to recognize and follow the “each one teach one” philosophical tradition rooted in the cooperative and agricultural work of George Washington Carver, who believed that practical knowledge shared freely was the foundation of community survival. With that in mind, here is what I brought home from the 2026 Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, or PASA.

PASA “supports sustainable farms and equitable food systems through farmer-driven education, research, and community.” I particularly admire their focus on online and in-person workshops and events grounded in research on sustainable environmental practices. I’ve attended classes and field days they’ve hosted, such as tractor safety and small engine repair, or walking through the basics of chicken tractors, rotational grazing, and other practices that benefit both soil health and the broader environment.

One of the best parts of PASA is their yearly gathering in Lancaster, PA, where people from throughout the food system come together to compare notes on what they saw and learned over the past year, sharing what’s working in sustainable agriculture and what’s helping build more equitable food systems in their communities. February, though, is mostly a time for planning and getting ready for the next season; things are at least a little slower, and that gathering becomes a rare chance to socialize with other workers you otherwise wouldn’t meet or barely get to see.

One of the reasons we’ve started our organizing in sustainable agriculture, cooperative, and food sovereignty spaces is not only because we care about non-extractive, even regenerative, practices for the environments in which we live, work, and grow, but also how that relates to non-extractive, even regenerative, practices in workplaces and communities. It’s not hard, in conversation with others in these spaces, to draw the same parallels of environmental sustainability toward labor sustainability: that the same principles calling us toward sustainable, non-extractive, even regenerative relationships with the land also apply to how we structure work and treat the people doing it.

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