Brandon Ruiz is a Puerto Rican Community Herbalist and Urban Farmer based in Charlotte, NC who runs Yucayeke Farms. He has been working with plants for 9 years and cultivates culturally-relevant crops for his community, focusing mostly on Caribbean crops and connecting the diaspora. He has taught around the world at gatherings and conferences, in school curriculums and hosts online workshops and courses on Caribbean herbalism and similar subjects. His focus is on Appalachian and Caribbean herbs and works to connect the Caribbean diaspora to their traditions. He is also a chef and cooks for dinner series like Chow Chow Asheville, Charlotte’s Dine Like You Give a Damn and more.
Learn from Brandon at the Florida Herbal Conference:
- Caribbean Herbal Medicine- In this class we will be discussing the history, stories and roots of Caribbean Herbal medicine. Through looking at a timeline of history in the islands we will discuss popular medicines, resistance amongst African and indigenous populations and how they characterized herbal practices today. We will also sample and look at various plant medicines from the Caribbean and discuss their uses.
- Culturally-Relevant Herbalism and Gardening - In this workshop we’ll talk about the importance of working with plants that connect to our roots, our ancestral connections to the plant world and how to make this an every day practice. We’ll learn about the practices of Yucayeke Farms in creating connections by working with culturally-relevant plants and how we can benefit not only ourselves but our communities as well.
- Herbal Accessibility - In this workshop we will discuss the issues behind lack of herbal accessibility in our communities. We will discuss the issues that prevent certain people from accessing efficient and well-curated herbal medicine, ways to work around the system to ensure access to our plant medicines and how we as herbalists can help facilitate that connection.
