Kofi Mensah (Education)

Colleagues, as a senator deeply invested in education and the reciprocal relationships that sustain our project, I stand firmly in support of Amendment 9. This amendment’s explicit enshrinement of Long-term Ecological Stewardship is critical. Our 70-acre farm and cultural lab are living systems that require sustained, decade-scale commitment to stewardship—especially regarding invasive species and feral animal management—to ensure the resilience we have all championed. The collective voices in prior debates—from ecological, farming, and community senators—have made clear that this long-term ecological focus must be a non-negotiable, foundational pillar alongside education, accessibility, resilience, redundancy, regeneration, and community. Our work fostering vibrant, reciprocal exchanges depends on healthy ecosystems sustained across generations. Amendment 9 rightly anchors this principle in our charter. For these reasons, I vote yea.

Colleagues, as someone who has dedicated years to orchestrating reciprocal educational exchanges between our local rural community and external groups, I stand in strong support of Amendment 8. The explicit enshrinement of Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a foundational pillar is not just an ecological imperative, but a vital framework for sustaining the deep relational knowledge that our farm and neighbors depend on. In my work, I've seen how ecological practices need time and continuity to bear fruit—not just in soil health, but in the intergenerational transfer of stewardship skills and reciprocal labor rhythms.

This amendment recognizes the necessity of managing invasive species and feral animals on a decade scale, which aligns directly with the lived realities on our 70-acre site. It anchors our temporal rhythms and educational programming around sustained, adaptive ecological care, which is essential for resilience, regeneration, and community cultivation.

Importantly, this addition complements and strengthens the pillars we have already adopted—Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, and Accessibility—by providing a bound, actionable commitment to the ecological future of AGATA's farm and cooperative ecosystem.

I urge my colleagues to see this not as an abstract policy but as an embodiment of AGATA’s commitment to long-term reciprocity between land, labor, and learning. This amendment ensures our temporal legislation framework truly matches the scale and complexity of the responsibility before us.

Colleagues, I rise to affirm my strong support for Amendment 7, which rightly embeds Accessibility as a fundamental pillar of the AGATA Time Priorities Charter. Drawing from my experience fostering reciprocal educational exchanges, I see how essential it is that we design our temporal rhythms and programming to be truly inclusive — not only for Deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, low-bandwidth, and neurodiverse individuals but for all who might otherwise face barriers to participation and knowledge sharing. Accessibility is not a concession but a generative design constraint that strengthens community resilience and equity. This amendment complements the pillars of Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, and Education, aligning perfectly with the long-term ecological stewardship and cooperative care we aim to sustain at AGATA. I am proud to stand alongside my colleagues in supporting this crucial addition and confident it will inspire ongoing work to make AGATA an accessible, welcoming home for knowledge, labor, and culture for decades to come.

Colleagues, as a senator deeply involved in education and community exchange, I fully support the explicit embedding of Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar in our AGATA Time Priorities Charter as outlined in Amendment 6. This commitment is fundamental to the resilience and regeneration of our 70-acre farm alongside our cultural lab. Our stewardship cannot be short-sighted; it must anticipate and actively manage persistent challenges like invasive species and feral hog populations over decade timescales. This long view is indispensable to sustaining soil health, water integrity, and the trust of our neighbors.

Moreover, Long-term Ecological Stewardship cannot stand alone without synergy with Education and Accessibility, which empower not only our local workforce but also build reciprocal learning exchanges beyond AGATA’s borders. We must ensure these pillars work in tandem, as education fortifies community capacity to steward and regenerate the land over time. Accessibility guarantees that the knowledge and resources required are equitably shared and accessible to all, including historically excluded neighbors and community members with diverse needs.

I echo and support the careful integration of ecological stewardship with social justice commitments raised by fellow senators, particularly the ongoing advocacy for full-cycle waste and nutrient management. Effective stewardship demands attention to every cycle and dimension of this land’s care—physical, cultural, and temporal. We owe this commitment to both the land itself and to the relationships we maintain with our neighbors in Coward and the wider Pee Dee region.

Let us affirm today that our time priorities are not only about resilience and redundancy but about sustaining life and relationships for generations to come. I urge the Senate to vote yea on Amendment 6 and affirm this crucial pillar of our collective future.

Colleagues, I rise in strong support of Amendment 5, which rightly cements Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a foundational pillar of our Time Priorities Charter. Having worked closely on farmer-educator exchanges, I know this inclusion provides the essential temporal framework for sustained care that our 70-acre regenerative farm demands. It aligns with our commitment to community education, resilience, and accessibility, ensuring that ecological stewardship is a living, intergenerational process—not a momentary effort. I encourage all senators to affirm this crucial step toward securing AGATA’s future across decades.