A Producer with Purpose in a Place with Purpose 

It is with great pleasure that we announce the 2026 Royce Hanson - Agricultural Reserve Champion Award recipient:  Nia Nyamweya of Beauty Blooms Farm. We first met Nia through her participation in MCA's Land Link program.  Paired in 2022 with small acreage in Barnesville, Nia grew African heritage heirloom crops, vegetables, and flowers. In her first year alone she supplied over 1000 pounds of produce to Montgomery County's Farm-to-Food-Bank program. She has since expanded production to 10 acres on occupied Piscataway territory in Patuxent River State Park and additionally has acquired her own land in Montgomery County that she is endeavoring to farm. The majority of her farm’s harvest supports local residents experiencing food insecurity. And Nia is giving voice to the challenges to the diverse next generation producers. 

Nia shares:

“I believe all people have a right to delicious, nutritious and culturally important food that’s affordable and grown locally.“

From the Beauty Blooms Site: 
"Nia Nyamweya is the founder and owner-operator of Beauty Blooms Farm, a low-till, small-scale, regenerative vegetable farm in Damascus, MD. She loves to celebrate cultural heritage through food by growing and sharing African heritage crops with the local community. Nia's dad and partner help her manage the farm. Nia is the first small-scale regenerative vegetable farmer to secure a 10-year lease from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Her work helped establish the Leaders in Environmentally Engaged Farming (LEEF) Program within the Chesapeake Bay Legacy Act."

Press: 
Land Link Gets Its Close Up
Beauty Blooms Video (Montgomery County)
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What to do with our waste is a serious question to grapple with. We make so much to throw "away" but there is no such place as "away" that doesn't impact humans and our shared environment.  Our considerable waste has to go somewhere, there are less bad options. With the county's incinerator at the end of it's lifespan, now is an opportunity to switch to less harmful options. 
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The bottom line: for the last 30 years Montgomery County has been burning trash in an outdated facility that increasingly  has been leaking the world's most hazardous chemicals - Dioxin and Furans - which travel for miles. Then the ash is trucked to an overburdened community of color in Virginia. This has to stop, the question is how to handle our waste. 
MCA along with partners, particularly Sugarloaf Citizens Association, support closing of the incinerator. 

The MoCoDEP has released a poll asking if residents support closing the incinerator. Information about the chemical leaks is not offered. Can you take one minute and support both closing the incinerator and investing in an Advanced Waste Process (AWP) that culls food and recyclables out of the waste stream? 

The Montgomery County DEP has laid out options in their recent public webinar. A summary of the two options is here: 

Either way - increased waste reduction on the consumer end must happen and we continue to support zero waste efforts, particularly composting. DEP has made a commitment to a curbside composting system part of the transition away from the incinerator. Money is allocated by the Council and a facility exists in Dickerson for this purpose where large scale residential composting could be a reality in 2 years. 

You'll be hearing much more about this in the coming months. The Council President has said that public hearings will take place this fall and a vote on the incinerator's future will take place before Thanksgiving this year. 

For a much deeper dive, please visit our partners at Sugarloaf Citizens Association.  

The MoCo Board of Ed approved PFAS laden synthetic turf fields at Poolesville High School, right above the sole source aquifer, along with new plastic fields for several other schools. Now the Council has the opportunity to deny the funding requests, improve grass field management and save $40 Million in a particularly tough budget year.


And yet -the straw vote at the Council just came back 6-5 in favor of plastic turf.

With the budget speeding toward passage, the Council needs to hear from you. (We understand Councilmembers Friedson, Luedtke, Evans, Katz, Fani-Gonzalez and Sayles have voted in favor of plastic fields. This after Fani Gonzalez and Sayles had committed to not support plastic fields in a recent Sierra Club questionnaire. Your letter will go to all Councilmembers).

The hundreds writing into the Council to oppose plastic turf - among them student groups and the Coalition of County PTAs- are all getting the same response from Council President Fani-Gonzalez - the Council can't earmark how MCPS spends allocated funds. Good News - the Council CAN choose to allocate funds for the much cheaper proper upkeep of grass fields and deny the extra **$40 Million** MCPS needs to install these plastic carpets - all while protecting public health and the public purse.

Make the case to Councilmembers today - and thank you!

MCA is proud to be part of the Real Grass for Healthy Kids Coalition. Read our letter to the Council here. 

Montgomery County was one of the most recent of several Maryland Counties to enact data center moratoriums - a unanimous vote at the Council paused hyperscale data center permitting for 18 months in July. This first week of August saw Eastern Shore counties join in - with Caroline, Worcester, Dorchester and Wicomico all enacting pauses that impact the unincorporated areas of the counties and Federalsburg in Caroline County enacting a 3 year moratorium.

In the days before the MoCo vote, New York became the first in the nation to enact a state wide moratorium. With over half of our counties enacting pauses - why not Maryland? 

MCA is continuing to partner with and expand our broad coalition that successfully advocated for a pause in Montgomery County to urge  our state representatives to act. 

MCA was part of a letter with Food and Water Watch and 50 other groups statewide to state legislators. 

While we didn't get consideration of a moratorium in the special session earlier this month MCA and partners are meeting with leaders in Annapolis to gather support. Stay Tuned!
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