Black History Month Wisdom at the Close of a Chaotic February
As we close out one of the longest (read: so challenging!) shortest months in recent history, Farm2People is taking stock. On one hand, we have experienced threats to programmatic funding and obstacles to serving farmers and food seekers alike. On the other hand, we find ourselves deeply invested in community, learning with humility and participating with passion. We’re also finding resonance with the lessons of Black History Month, and we are reminding ourselves that change and collective power have always come from the people. From community organizing to mutual aid efforts (think neighborhood free pantries/fridges and skill sharing), marginalized groups have historically built strong resource networks as a means of creating community and providing critical services and pathways our government failed or refused to. Black communities in the United States in particular have resisted and organized against disenfranchisement since the founding of this nation.
The profound resilience and steadfastness of generations has resulted in many organizing successes, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Selma to Montgomery Marches, and the Sit-In Movement in Greensboro, to name just a few. There were and continue to be countless Black individuals and groups, some more well known than others, leading the charge in the food access and farming spaces. Let’s remember two of the more famous examples history shares with us. Fannie Lou Hamer, in the middle of the last century, famously advocated for voting rights for African Americans, before turning to farming as a means for Black Americans to access more financial and food security. According to the National Women’s History Museum, she purchased 640 acres of land and established the Freedom Farm Cooperative, which included a farm store, low-income housing, and collectively-farmed land. Around the same time Hamer’s Cooperative was begun, on the other side of the continent in Oakland, California, the Black Panthers were hard at work as well. The Black Panther Party orchestrated a plethora of supportive measures for the people of Oakland, such as a free breakfast program for school children and tuberculosis testing, among others. Although the Panthers are ultimately remembered for their radical and controversial approach to power-building, the work they did across communities was transformational.
We believe studying these historic efforts, while supporting current people and orgs doing this work, is more important now than ever. Now is the time for us to plug into history and fuel a brighter, more caring and generous collective future.
We are closing out this year’s BHM by sharing a collection of remarkable Black community leaders – from far flung regions on this continent to here in LA – who are expanding food access, increasing opportunities and land access for BIPOC farmers, and promoting food sovereignty. We hope that you will be inspired to support these leaders who are doing such important work: follow their journeys and contribute your time or money to their efforts if you are able. And ultimately, we encourage you to find a local group in your area doing something that gets you fired up—and go join them. It could be a food bank or a community fridge or a mutual aid organization. It could be a group fighting for climate action or racial justice or one supporting the rights of undocumented immigrants or the unhoused population. Everything is important and every little bit counts, so don’t let yourself stew in feelings of frustration or powerlessness. Get out there and build that community power! It’s up to us 💚
CHARLES & SHIRLEY SHERROD — NEW COMMUNITIES, INC.
(Formerly the New Communities Land Trust)
Albany, Georgia
Photo credit: Dawn Makarios via Equity Trust
“Born out of the Civil Rights Movement in 1969, New Communities, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)(4) based in Albany, Georgia. Founded as a collective farm, New Communities is widely recognized as the original model for community land trusts in the US. Today, the founding members, including Charles and Shirley Sherrod, are dedicated to empowering the community through agribusiness and economic development.”
You can read more about New Communities, Inc. here:
LEAH PENNIMAN —
SOUL FIRE FARM
Upstate New York
Photo credit: Jamel Mosely via Soul Fire Farm
In the organization’s words, “Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous centered community farm and training center dedicated to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system.” This radical agricultural and community space implements projects across the board, including training a new generation of Black and Brown farmers, stewarding the land with numerous regenerative farming practices, distributing most of the food they grow to under-resourced communities, and leading educational experiences for children to connect to land and the food system. Soul Fire Farm celebrates the Black agrarian legacy and sees itself as a resource to equip communities with the knowledge and skills for food sovereignty. Leah Penniman is the Co-Founder, Co-ED, and Farm Director of Soul Fire Farm. She has written two books, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land (2018) and Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists (2023). Penniman strives to facilitate Black communities’ rediscovering of their “ancestral connection to land.” She is truly a leader in the discussion of land sovereignty and combatting racism in farming.
You can read more about Leah Penniman and Soul Fire Farm here:
KAREN WASHINGTON
New York City
Photo credit: karenthefarmer.com
Karen Washington has been a stalwart voice in the food justice sphere for the last four decades. A longtime community gardener, she worked hard while on the board of the New York Botanical Gardens to turn empty lots in her neighborhood of the Bronx into flourishing community spaces where people could grow food. So committed is she to helping communities access healthy food that she also helped establish a farmers market in the Bronx. Washington critiques our culture’s reactionary approach to health, instead promoting access to fresh fruits and vegetables as a preventative measure for a plethora of the diseases that plague marginalized populations. After many years as one of the only Black voices included in the food and agriculture fields, Karen Washington co-founded the organization Black Urban Growers (BUGs) to increase Black leadership in the food space. She notes that mainstream events concerning farming and hunger are predominantly white, not due to a lack of interest from BIPOC individuals but because the organizers fail to invite them. BUGs acts as part of a solution to that problem by creating space specifically dedicated to Black agriculture. Washington also helped create the Black Farmer Fund, which provides a source of financial support for Black farmers alternative to traditional banks and loans which have historically employed racist practices.
Karen Washington is also well known for coining the term ‘food apartheid.’ She believes that ‘food desert’ does not accurately describe neighborhoods lacking healthy food options. For one, the word desert connotes a bleak and desolate place, while these areas are full of culture and vibrancy. She also points out that since deserts are a naturally occurring biome, the use of the phrase ‘food desert’ masks the circumstances that have created such a crisis, instead making it seem inherent or normal. She uses ‘food apartheid’ because it calls to mind the social inequalities, poverty, racism, and injustices that cause issues of food access. In addition, Washington is a farmer herself, co-owning Rise & Root Farm in Chester, New York, where she continues her fight against food insecurity.
You can read more about Karen Washington here:
https://www.karenthefarmer.com/
https://www.guernicamag.com/karen-washington-its-not-a-food-desert-its-food-apartheid/
CHEYENNE SUNDANCE — SUNDANCE COMMONS & SUNDANCE HARVEST
Southwest Ontario, Canada
Photo via @sundanceharvest on Instagram
It is hard not to be impressed by what Cheyenne Sundance has accomplished when she is only in her late twenties. She runs both a farm and an agricultural non-profit, and she has realized these projects after growing up in urban Toronto with no farmers in her family or formal schooling in agriculture. Her business, Sundance Harvest, is a diversified ecological farm in Ontario; the fruit, veggies, and eggs grown at the farm are sold at farmers markets, her farm store, and wholesale. The farm is proudly and loudly a living wage employer. Sundance vocally critiques underpaid and unpaid labor in the industry, instead striving to model that it is possible for small farmers to earn a viable income while paying their workers liveable wages. After leasing plots since 2019, Sundance was able to purchase her own farm in the summer of 2024, an impressive feat for a young person! She believes that “land is the basis for all liberation,” and owning her own land will also help cement her critical position in the current agricultural scene— farmers are a rapidly aging group, and Sundance represents the future of agriculture: young and diverse.
Cheyenne Sundance aspires to help other young people, especially Black Canadians, establish themselves in the farming sector as well, which is where her non-profit comes in. She co-founded Sundance Commons, which operates an incubator program for new farmers who face barriers to entry. By providing free training, tools, and land/market access to young BIPOC growers, Sundance Commons works to eliminate the obstacles to starting a small farm business. The organization operates 4 incubator farm sites where beginners can learn the ropes and then obtain equitable land leases, helping them scale earlier. Additionally, Sundance Commons works to obtain more farmland, functioning as a land trust to facilitate permanent land access for BIPOC farmers.
You can read more about Cheyenne Sundance and her organizations here:
In California:
JAMIAH HARGINS —
CROP SWAP LA
Los Angeles
Photo via @brownsuperdad on Instagram
Jamiah Hargins founded Crop Swap LA in 2018 with the goal to turn unused urban spaces —especially lawns— into productive, food-bearing gardens. Lawns, as we know, guzzle precious water resources and do not support biodiversity or provide any services. Hargins and his team transform people’s yards into vibrant crop-bearing havens and have also built three microfarms in LA which serve the community. The farms sell produce weekly in addition to offering seasonal memberships, both paid and free, for locals near each site. These microfarms are addressing the lack of access to healthy foods that many residents of Los Angeles face with an affordable and ultra-local solution. Mitigating its environmental impact is also one of Crop Swap LA’s guiding values. The locality of its food production translates to infinitely lower transportation emissions than the conventional food system, and the team employs regenerative farming practices and water recycling technology. These microfarms actually use 92% less water than regular lawns… How crazy is that! Hargins dreams of hundreds of productive gardens like his spreading across the city, increasing direct access to food and minimizing reliance on industrial systems that serve neither people nor the earth. We love your vision, Jamiah!
You can read more about Jamiah Hargins and Crop Swap LA here:
FEED BLACK FUTURES
Across California
Photo via Feed Black Futures
Feed Black Futures is a Black, queer-led organization founded in Southern California and now operating across the state. They work in the food justice field from the specific angle of supporting Black mothers and caregivers who have been affected by incarceration. People who have experienced or been indirectly impacted by the carceral system are at a much higher risk of experiencing food insecurity, making prison a food justice issue. FBF started in 2020 as a crowdfunded project to feed 20 Black families for two weeks, but they raised much more money than their original goal and quickly realized they could turn this idea into a long-term food justice operation. They purchase fresh foods grown by Black and Brown farmers and deliver that produce to Black mothers impacted by incarceration. Championing and assisting BIPOC farmers is a core part of their operation, since Black growers only cultivate 2% of farmland in the US. This figure is staggeringly lower than 100 years ago, and the United States has systematically muddled and prohibited the process for Black people to become land owners throughout our history. Feed Black Futures therefore works to increase economic stability for Black farmers, as well as building local community networks to reduce corporate dependency. In addition, FBF provides agricultural education and training and installs home gardens for people, empowering them to grow their own nutrient rich food. Feed Black Futures is doing influential work to create a world where Black communities can thrive physically, emotionally, and financially.
You can read more about Feed Black Futures here:
Ron Finley
Los Angeles
“Growing your own food is like printing your own money” - Ron Finley
Photo via ronfinley.com
Ron Finley champions what he calls “guerrilla gardening”. But what does that mean? In 2010, Finley became concerned about the fact that he could not access healthy food in his home of South-Central Los Angeles. He started growing food in the strip of land between the sidewalk and the street, but the city wrote him up for gardening without a permit and subsequently issued an arrest warrant for him, trying to force him to remove the plants!! With the help of a widely-shared petition and coverage in local news, he successfully convinced the city of his right to grow food in his neighborhood. Since then, he has made it his mission to help other people in Los Angeles (and beyond) who lack access to fresh food. He sees urban agriculture as a means of strengthening communities and works to convert food deserts into food forests. Through a highly popular TED talk, a nonprofit called The Ron Finley Project, the creation of multiple community gardens in LA, and a course on MasterClass, Finley fights food apartheid by teaching gardening skills and advocating for food sovereignty.
You can read more about Ron Finley here:
