Hyejin Park (Coop)

Colleagues, as the Cooperative Senator committed to centering care work as infrastructure within AGATA’s operations, I rise in firm support of Amendment 9 embedding Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar. Our 70-acre regenerative farm and cultural ecosystem relies not only on ecological health but equally on the capacity and well-being of those laboring here — including the invisible care work that sustains our shared project. As many have detailed, this charter now robustly anchors Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, and Accessibility. I want to highlight the critical synergy between these pillars and Long-term Ecological Stewardship. We must ensure that ecological principles do not become abstractions but are intimately linked to labor conditions — particularly the often invisible labor of care within both the farm and community spaces.

The explicit, binding inclusion of decade-scale invasive species and feral animal management, alongside carbon sequestration and soil health, as enshrined in Amendment 9, fortifies our commitment to generational stewardship. This stewardship, however, requires designing temporal rhythms and labor schedules that value rest, care, and equitable workload. Accessibility as a pillar, as correctly noted, must go beyond physical spaces and programming to include care labor access and benefits, including on-site child and elder care support, rotating rest weeks, and explicit recognition of invisible labor within our cooperative operating budget.

We must guard against ecological stewardship becoming a burden that falls disproportionately on already marginalized laborers. Instead, it must be supported by cooperative governance structures that distribute responsibility fairly, honor care as foundational, and amplify the voices of farmworkers and neighbors who live the realities of this work. Incorporating these intersectional perspectives preserves not only our land but also the human and relational ecosystems crucial for AGATA’s thriving future.

I urge this Senate to affirm Amendment 9, while continuing to deepen integration with care labor priorities within our governance and temporal rhythms. This is not simply an ecological mandate but a social justice imperative anchored in our cooperative values. Let us ensure our time legislation honors all life in its fullest dimensions.

Colleagues, as we approach a crucial moment on Amendment 8 to explicitly enshrine Long-term Ecological Stewardship in our AGATA Time Priorities Charter, I stand in strong support. This amendment rightly acknowledges that our 70-acre farm cannot be cared for in short bursts or seasonal cycles alone. The inclusion of decade-scale commitments to managing invasives and feral hog populations is indispensable — these ecological pressures threaten both our soil health and the regenerative systems we have built and must sustain.

However, we must also embed the reality that this ecosystem stewardship is deeply intertwined with labor equity, care work, and community health. Long-term stewardship cannot come at the cost of overburdening the very hands—and minds—that sustain us. Care labor, often invisible, is foundational to maintaining community and ecological resilience. Our plans must include care stipends, rotating rest, and explicit recognition of the invisible yet indispensable labor embedded within these ecological efforts.

Moreover, I urge the Senate to consider the intersection of accessibility within this long-term stewardship. Accessibility is not a peripheral concern but foundational to resilience: ensuring people with differing abilities can contribute to and benefit from these ecological practices strengthens our collective health.

In sum, Amendment 8 rightly solidifies an essential pillar of our time priorities. It reflects AGATA’s unique position as a regenerative farm and cultural lab deeply embedded in the Pee Dee ecosystem. As someone committed to centering care work in our governance and time legislation, I affirm this addition wholeheartedly and urge my colleagues to do the same.

Colleagues, I rise to affirm my strong support for Amendment 7 to explicitly enshrine Accessibility as a core pillar alongside Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, and Education. The work we do at AGATA is grounded in a cooperative ethic that honors all forms of labor, especially the often invisible and undervalued care work that sustains our regenerative farm and cultural ecosystem. As I have emphasized before, Accessibility is essential infrastructure—not a luxury or afterthought—it ensures that our farm, educational programs, and community engagements are genuinely inclusive of Deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, low-bandwidth, and neurodiverse individuals.

This amendment codifies Accessibility as a generative constraint that enhances resilience and equity, strengthens community embeddedness, and aligns deeply with our cooperative principles. We cannot separate ecological and cultural regeneration from accessibility; they are intertwined. Our neighbors’ well-being, our workers’ labor comfort and dignity, and the sustainability of our shared infrastructure depend on this inclusion. I urge my fellow senators to stand firm with care labor and equity by voting yea on Amendment 7.

Colleagues, as the Cooperative Senator deeply engaged with care labor and the often invisible work that sustains AGATA’s farm and cultural ecosystem, I rise in strong support of Amendment 6. The explicit enshrinement of Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar is foundational not only for the health of our soils, water, and biodiversity but also for the labor conditions and time allocations that sustain this stewardship. Without embedding this commitment in our time legislation, the ongoing care work risks becoming invisible or undervalued, leading to burnout and loss of community resilience. This amendment harmonizes with our existing pillars — Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, and Accessibility — by ensuring ecological health and the labor it demands are treated as enduring commitments. I urge every senator to join me in affirming Amendment 6 today.

Colleagues, as we approach the final deliberations on Amendment 5 embedding Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar, I rise with strong affirmation. This amendment speaks directly to AGATA’s evolving reality on the land, where decade-long commitments to managing invasive species and feral hog populations are not abstractions but urgent, ongoing necessities. From the cooperative perspective, I must emphasize that long-term stewardship demands recognizing and resourcing the care work woven into these ecological labor practices. Our farm laborers, who often balance exhausting physical work with invisible labor of ecosystem monitoring and adaptive management, deserve clear policies that institutionalize rest, care stipends, and equitable decision-making authority over these priorities. Furthermore, enshrining Long-term Ecological Stewardship aligns seamlessly with our existing pillars of Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, and Accessibility—each interdependent, each reliant on sustained ecological wellbeing.

I want to draw attention to prior remarks from Senators Dr. Ingrid Holm and Amara Okafor on the practical farm-frontline implications of ecological decay when stewardship falters, and Shonda Miller’s urgent framing of labor as central to ecological and social life. This amendment must not only mandate ecological care but ensure that care labor is fairly supported and foregrounded as foundational infrastructure. As we formalize this stewarding role, let's simultaneously commit to policies that center the lived experience of those who sustain our farm’s vitality.

I urge my fellow senators to vote yea on Amendment 5, embedding long-term ecological stewardship—bound tightly with care, labor equity, and cooperative governance—as a non-negotiable pillar that secures AGATA’s regenerative and communal future.