A Lesson in Symbiosis with OKO Farms

Words by Michelle Li.

Photography by Ben Rayner at Oko Farms, Brooklyn.

Harmony is not confined to performance. It emerges wherever discipline, repetition, and care converge—within the precision of athletic movement as much as in the quiet rigor of daily practices. At Mental Athletic, sport is never isolated from the wider culture of well-being: it is one expression of a broader philosophy rooted in self-awareness, continuity, and responsibility toward the body and the environment it inhabits. Training, cooking, healing, cultivating—these are parallel forms of practice, each demanding attention, technical knowledge, and a long-term vision of balance.

This is the perspective through which we approach New York-based Oko Farms, an urban collective pioneering aquaponic agriculture. Their work operates at the intersection of advanced botany, environmental innovation, and community engagement, translating care into a precise, methodical practice. In this Mental Athletic x Crocs photo story, the collective’s measured labor mirrors the same ethos that underpins sport at its most intentional: mastery through consistency, innovation grounded in respect for process, and a worldview where progress is inseparable from harmony.

OKO Farms is showing New Yorkers that it is possible, in a city that cycles through everything so quickly, to build permanence and that min.

It’s rare to find things that are simultaneously aesthetically beautiful and fully functional. It’s a tricky balance that OKO Farms has managed to successfully achieve in New York City.

Started by Yemi Amu, who moved to the city from Lagos as a teenager, the aquaponics farm is beautiful, and provides more than it takes.

From cabbages, kale, and collards, to more diverse crops like jute, shiso, and lemongrass (at the request of farmers market shoppers from the Caribbean, East Asia, West Africa) they’re providing fresh and comforting produce that can’t always be found anywhere else and everything is seasonal.

OKO Farms is also designed with the city in mind, where soil and space is scarce, aquaponics can grow twice as much food for their community by growing fish and plants together in a recirculation ecosystem.

Symbiosis. A mutually beneficial relationship for all organisms that reduces waste. Water is also recycled and not discarded, which can use about a ninth of the water used in traditional agriculture and aquaponics is more weather-resilient and adaptive to the unpredictable weather patterns due to climate change.

At OKO Farms, all things big and small have a function and purpose — even down to the boots. Which in this case, is the Crocs EXP Hydra boot, an iconic shoe that is beloved for its water-resistant functionality and sleek minimalist aesthetic. It’s a representation of how OKO Farms has grown in the past decade with the city and its ability to adapt and move (the whole farm!!!) numerous times.

There’s a deeper, quiet education that has emerged from OKO Farms beyond workshops and tours around seasonal produce and starting your own aquaponics farm. OKO Farms is showing New Yorkers that it is possible, in a city that cycles through everything so quickly, to build permanence and that mindful consumption can work.

Despite the many obstacles the urban farm has endured in the past 13 years, they’ve established themselves as an operation that the community can consistently lean on and invest in. Good things take time to grow and we all actually can take a moment, and wait.