Ending Food Injustice | Leah Penniman | Soul Fire Farm | Grafton, NY
I’m super excited because my guest is as passionate about social justice as I am and she’s used her life and skills to really connect social justice and food justice together. I think you will love this interview with Leah Penniman from Soul Fire Farm in New York!
Soul Fire Farm is committed to ending racism and injustice in our food system.
20 years of experience as a soil steward and food sovereignty activist.
Tell us a little about yourself.
Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land
Definitely, I’d be happy to!
I’ve been farming 22 years and I am the founding co-director of Soul Fire Farms
IT’s a little community farm run by Black-Indigenous Latin and located up in the mountains of Grafton NY
in love with farming my whole life, NY and really see it as a foundation for social justice and environmental stewardship. Here at Soul Fire Farms
We are committed to ending racism in the food system.
Part of that is what we grow in our food.
We grow on 5 acres and all of that gets boxed up to those who need it most in the community
refugees
immigrants
people who have an incarcerated loved one
latin indigenous folks who want to farm
We have cultivated 500 new farmers over the years through our program.
How are you supporting your farm if you are donating all of this food? Where are you getting your money from do you sell some food too? Do you get donations? Where do you get your income from?
That’s a really valid question, we started out as a family farm and we started out to be a viable business.
it would be a little strange to be training the next generation of farmers if it was a farm that relies on donations or a slush fund.
So we use a sliding scale model
people who earn more money and have more wealth pay more
less
balance
The farmer get’s market value for the produce
non-profit branch to our work we get some funds for that that helps with our education
youth programs we do
public education
We travel all around the regions sharing information about food justice.
I love all this, this weekend was the indigenous march in Washington DC and the kids at a large interaction with the and the government shut down over immigration and here you are helping train immigrants and doing all this wonderful work. I feel like it’s such a timely topic.
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
So, I did not grow up gardening
I did grow up in a rural area and was friends with the trees for sure. Our family was often one of the only brown skin families in town.
We got
- bullied
- taunted
So we spent quite a bit of time outside and the forest was really our first friend.
When it was time to get a summer job as a team
got a job in Boston at the food project
From the very first time I felt the satisfaction of using a strip hoe to clean up a row of cilantro I was just completely hooked.
Not only did we grow food on 40 acres
- urban market
- garden in the city on vacant lots
- soup kitchens
social justice and working with the earth directly!
Fascinating! I love the way you talk about getting hooked cleaning up a row of cilatnro? So what were the next steps how did you start a farm?
yeah! So Soul Fire farm started with just our partner
Jonah and our 2 children
newborn and
south end of Albany my
high poverty area
food deserts
food apartheid
results in certain folks being hungry
others having
join a farm csa that was super expensive and walk over 2 miles to pick up the vegetables
Our neighbors, didn’t have that luxury and when they found out we knew how to farm
encouraging us
purchased this inexpensive and highly eroded land up in the hills no one wanted
took
build a house
soil
driveway
open the farm in the beginning of 2010
So to me this must be a suburb? Rural? Of Albany?
3 1/2 hours
40 minutes
rural
everything is through a CSA farm share
Dr. Booker Taliaferro Washington
The idea is people are members. Our commitment because a lot of people don’t have transportation is to take it to their doorstep. We provide this service
delivery service
In Albany and in Troy 25 minutes
We deliver 100 families!
You have so much going on in a small space
5-6 hours
for meat
Small demonstration flock
for meat we raise in batches of 50
learners get to learn the process of chicken harvesting
we time it so folks get that
acres of fruits and vegetables we have here on the farm.
Tell us about something that grew well this year?
What was I excited about?
a few things winter
unconventional thing
the horseradish crops
african/american african/dispora
horseradish we grow for a jewish
holiday of passover we use horseradish in cerimony
to remind us of the bitterness of slavery
horseradish
know matter what you do to it, put it in the most waterlogged, clay soil and hack it up and that reminds me of the tenacity we need in these troubleing times.
We have horseradish growing, we never eat it but it’s definitley growing in very poor soil, getting bigger over the years.
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
something we have been trying to grow
culantro
an herb that grows almost like a weed in puerto Rico
important
- salsa
- Sofrito
- apies
culantro doesn’t like upstate NY
north Carolina house
culturally important
- pigeon pea
- lemon grass
- black peanut
I’m super excited we have the traditional herbs that our community needs
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season?
well in our region we had a really wet excessively wet
curcubits
melon collapse
squash weren’t super wicked about it
that’s why we have a diverse farm and you always win some lose some so if you have a lot of different crops you’ll be ok
What are some of the tips you might have like my husband and I have about 1/3 of an acre that we planted and 2 acres sounds so big, do you have any tips for people who want to make that jump from backyard gardener to market farmer.
with 2 acres you can do a lot
really intensively
row crops
10 20 30 acres
100 different types of veggies
We probably started on a 1/3 of an acre. I was just doing it Sundays after school
expanded as capacity and time
don’t have to grow a lot of acre
1/3
commercial operation is just
- sauerkraut or
- mushrooms
- honeybees
So you just focus on one place
I just was going through an interview I did with Aidan from Young’s Farm that was transitioning from traditional to organic farming.
Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden?
I’ve tried to eliminate those as much as possible!
I really do love a lot of the tasks others don’t love
- more rigorous
- sweat inducing
- challenging
- hand digging beds
Last year we had a winter operation
our climate yesterday, it was negative 26º with the windchill
We were doing cut greens in the tunnel, I had frozen fingers and I look around and I realized that the bears and deer, owls are hibernating and here I am trying to farm.
I know that when I go to Long Island i the winter, it’s so cold. I can’t imagine cutting greens in the winter
We reserve our winters now for our community education work.
Do you want to talk about that?
did that for
it’s huge
that’s the main thing I do at this point
managing the farm
farm team
farming
People probably don’t know but
commercial farming is the whitest profession!
farmers
latin x
good diversity of people managing farms
it isn’t by accident
discrimination by government
taking away indigenous people’s lands
unfair
state of subjugation
At Soul Fire Farms we’re engaging by trying to make as many opportunities for farmers
people who want to be farmers from marginalized communities
education programs on the farm
trainings and mentorship
land some jobs
making sure that this next generation can make a life on land if they want
Do you have any tips for things that work good? How to set up an internship, how to find people, or mistakes you would tell people not to try. Because having people come work can be a challenge.
absolutely
definitely get involved in a network
craft
apprentices
help give you best practices
don’t have anyone
That goes both ways
make sure you are set up to give them a positive experience
- fair wage
- adequate house
- supporting
volunteer days
people come and make sure we have enough experienced folks set up and if we find they keep coming on an ongoing basis we hire them as staff
time to be focused
That’s something people have mentioned that really focusing on teaching and working with the volunteers are doing, make sure you are providing them with an education and a nice lunch, don’t think you are going to just get things done because the volunteers are here that day.
What is your favorite activity to do in the garden?
oh, I love almost everything!
I would say the more gross motor skills. I like to
- dig beds
- weed
- transplanting
- direct seed
fine detail
- picking bugs
- harvesting
not so much!
I feel like I can’t loose myself as much
love farming on my own
letting my mind just run free while my body is really engaged in the work of tending the soil!
What is the best gardening advice you have ever received?
best advice
not in the practical
Karen Washington
rise and root
growers
she’s the reason I’m still farming
I was ready to quit
passionate went to all the conferences
wouldn’t see anyone who looked like me
- did I chose the wrong thing?
- did I miss the memo about where I am supposed to be?
few people in that space
Don’t give up, you’re part of the returning generation of black farmers
hang in there
she was really right and she continues to be a close mentor of mine
Hang in there!
Do you have any suggestions listeners can do to help with things? You seem so solution oriented
that’s the great thing about a problem that’s so big
- hurting farm workers
- distributing land unfairly
- not getting food to people who need it
there’s so many points of solution
If you go to our website at Soul Fire Farms we have all these ways to get involved
action steps on our website
whole list of things communities are acting for
volunteering
visiting our reparations map
tool folks who have gone through our program put things they need
whether it’s
- land
- or a tractor
- tech assistance
A favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be?
Hands down it would be the hoe specifically it would be
the heavy hoes that the use in west Africa and Haiti
- primary tillage
- forming beds
- cultivation
- ton of fun to use!
A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?
Soup Joumou
Haitian national dish
jewel pumpkin
Tiano people in Caribbean
forbidden
island of ispanola
After the independence was fought and won, the formerly enslaved people celebrated with this pumpkin
every year on new year
independence day we make the soup joumou and share it with our friends and with our community members
That’s interesting!
A favorite internet resource?
To be honest I don’t do much web surfing because
because something came across a list serve. I’m part of
National Black Food Justice Alliance
So people are kind enough that they will post things relevant to these lists so I don’t have to scroll.
That’s a good recommendation there those listserves because who has time to watch video?! That’s why I love podcasting, cause I’m always like who has time for video? And if it’s a book I want the hard copy in my hands.
A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?
I love to read!
My all time favorite
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
by
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Like me she is a
- scientist
- gardener
- plant-lover
Has a deep spiritual connection and she weaves all of those together in her book!
I’ve wanted to read that!
If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry?
I think what’s so important is knowing your market
didn’t struggle with that aspect because we started a farm on community interest
stated community need
We were told we need doorstep delivery of vegetables
That’s a good first step
market research
community building
Sometimes when I’m doing the interview. IDK anyone else that I remember where a CSA actually delivers to someone’s home. I always thought I would not make a good CSA customer because I don’t want to be somewhere on a certain day? Does it give you some flexibility. Do you harvest some the day before?
Oh absolutely of course it depends on time of year
mon and tues
putting things in the cooler
Wed morning we box everything up a separate box for each customer and then we deliver between
noon at
range of times
usually get to your neighborhood between 1-2 so make sure you are home or you leave a cooler or cool space.
I think that doorstep to doorstep is a cool tweek, I talked with Casey O’Leary about doing everything on a bike in the beginning hauling things to the farmer’s market etc.
Final question-
if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?
it is
I’ll do my best to choose one thing
more on the environmental side of things
climate chaos
The soil itself is the biggest reservoir of carbon
If everyone in the world would use indigenous agriculture practices we could sequester all that carbon and halt climate change in it’s tracks
I think the work of
- gardeners
- farmers
intertwined with the survival of the planet
We need to be doing
- low and no-till
- cover cropping
- permanent raised beds
- agroforestry
not just doing them
return the land to indigenous
Do you ever think about running for congress?
creating alternative institutions
power and control
what we are doing with the land
inside
reform is important
protest and resistance
building the alternatives
expertise is very much in building the world we want to see so as long as I am doing a decent job of it I am going to stick with it.
It seems like you are doing a fantastic job and you seem solution minded which is nice.
Do you have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden?
I’ll leave you with a quote from Fanny Lou Hamer
Mississippi freedom democratic
freedom farm
“When you’ve got 400 quarts of greens and gumbo soup canned for the winter, nobody can push you around or tell you what to say or do.”
That’s excellent!
How do we connect with you and if you have anything we haven’t talked about?
folks can reach us at www.soulfirefarm.org
Information about all our programs and volunteering etc.
reparations map
Soul Fire Farm
Thanks for sharing with us, I think they will be inspired and hope listeners will check out your website and attend some events etc.
Wait, what’s the book tour? Did you just write a book?
Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land
Chelsey Green Publishing
You can get it wherever fine books are sold.
What I love about this book we put together is it’s very practical about gardening tips from
- how to save seeds
- how to plan your market farm
but it also has this neat history about contributions of black farmers to sustainable ag and how you can help create a more just food system.
Yeah! There’s a bunch of book talk dates! At the University of New Hampshire all the way through next November! Get the book and don’t forget to leave a 5 star review on amazon! I love Chelsey Green especially now that Rodales is gone!
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