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“Once we recognize what it is we are feeling, once we recognize we can feel deeply, love deeply, can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy.” Audre Lorde
This past month we welcomed the refreshing presence of many youth on our land. During two of Black and Latinx Farmers Immersion (BLFI) programs parents participated in the program alongside their children. Additionally, we hosted our second Black and Latinx Youth Immersion (BLYI) at our sibling farm Wildseed Community Farm & Healing Village in Millerton, NY. We also hosted many youth during other programs at the farm this month. Something that is very inspiring about youth is that they are so full of unbridled curiosity, openness, and the most innovative ideas. Adults often assume the role of educator when interacting with young people, but one thing we realize working with youth is that they are often the best teachers. Announcements:
This past month has been busy, between hosting multiple programs and balancing the needs of the farm. We’ve been engaged in a continual battle with weeds, but they haven’t prevented us from basking in the abundance of our harvest. Indeed, it feels as if all we do now is harvest which we low-key forgot was the point of farming, as Damaris succinctly pointed out one day. It is also a point in the season where our greenhouse is mostly empty of trays of seedlings and has been filled instead with onions! On our July 22 Community Workday we harvested all our garlic and some of our onions to begin the curing process for both, where the bulbs dry out, making them more shelf-stable and deepens their flavor. In addition to welcoming the harvest, Ceci officially joined us as an apprentice in July during BLFI 3. Olive, our other apprentice, extended her stay to overlap with Ceci and to help support us with the farm during our busiest time of the year. She left the farm last Sunday, which was a sad departure for all of us, but we are excited for what she will manifest now as she prepares for graduate school. Other exciting developments include the fact that Jonah completed the covered porch on the Hive, and is currently working on digging out the foundation in preparation for our first Builder’s Immersion next week!
This past month we hosted three BLFI programs! Music permeated BLFI 3 – we enjoyed remixes like “Lean on Me,” the tomato trellising version, “Bootylicious” while making jam for our CSA members and learning about the history of Black cookbooks, and “We Are Family” when talking about the Three Sisters maize, beans, and squash. Sometimes it can be intimidating to ask questions about topics everyone around you is seemingly familiar with, but during our gender justice talk, Amani did an amazing job honoring all questions alongside encouraging us to dissect our complex identities and the privileges some of us might hold in society. Raul, from the Hudson Valley Farm Hub, also hosted a lunch talk during BLFI 2 around language justice and how we can make our world more accommodating and accessible for people who may not speak English fluently or as a first language. We enjoyed the world’s BEST apple crisp on the last night of BLFI, baked by the three children who attended BLFI with their parents, followed by an incredible cipher. We ended the program with planting buckwheat as a cover crop in a section of the farm we are currently fallowing, or letting rest, for the season.
During BLFI, after hands on the land we do share-outs about what we learned during a time called “around the world,” and during this BLFI we witnessed many creative skits explaining greenhouse seeding, transplanting, and direct seeding. Pictured above is the result of an epic Pokemon battle during BLFI 3 – a participant who personified “seedkeeping” gathered together other organic seeds to take down Monsanto. BLFI 3 also signified a reunion between friends! Both Damaris and Lytisha were reunited with friends from college who participated in this program. We had our first potato harvest and learned about the role British imperialism played in the Irish potato famine. We examined parallels between the way dairy cattle are (mis)treated in industrial farming and the ways black women were used for reproductive labor during chattel slavery. One evening a participant led a discussion about how we define allyship and support in terms of the needs of communities we are personally a part of. And Naima finished a beautiful portrait that will be featured in Leah’s book Farming While Black.
Just as in BLFI 2, in BLFI 4 we were blessed with the presence of talents of two children in this session – namely superb acting skills and creative dances to share the knowledge we gained during our hands on the land sessions. The children in this session also participated in the spiritual bath post chicken processing (and Larisa for the first time!), which elicited tears of joy from several people. We made pickles for our CSA, fried our first okra crop up for dinner one evening, and enjoyed a delicious chocolate cake made by Neshima for a participant’s birthday. Another participant led an informative and important discussion about gentrification being part of continual cycles of displacement. We also discovered we have future chicken farmers in our midst! Post chicken processing, one participant said they were honored to have the opportunity to embrace and continue the work of their ancestors – of raising and processing their own chickens. Another participant shared that they felt it was their purpose to take on the heavy work of facilitating the transition between life and death, which is indeed something livestock farmers are often tasked with. Normally during the days we process chickens we bird visitors – usually herons. During this BLFI we received a new visitor – a hummingbird, a symbol of joy, continuity and (re)connection with those who transitioned. Special shoutout to Neshima and Emet, two superb babysitters, and Gabriela, Ria, and Laura for holding down the kitchen during BLFI.
It’s incredibly refreshing to witness young people develop deep trust and caring that allows them to be vulnerable with one another, and we had the opportunity to witness this magic of connection during BLYI. The youth immersion was a beautiful week of learning, playing, living in community, and deepening connections with each other and their ancestors. Participants practiced living, cooking, and cleaning in community with each other. They learned about farming, foraging and medicine making, and the history of ancestral resistance in agriculture and food justice movements. They explored different ways of healing through music, dance, storytelling, meditation, and other art forms. We hosted an ancestor ceremony, which was a chance for them to call the names of their forebears and ask for support in their lives. And there was also ample time for swimming, hiking, and playing games.
In addition to all the youth that participated in our immersion programs, we welcomed many more to our farm in between! Empowering, educating, and learning with and from youth is important to us as individuals and as an organization. This month we talked about how food is the number one killer of people in black and brown communities and examined the role racism plays in our food system with youth from the Troy Drug Free Community Coalition, the Green Village Initiative, and Uptown Summer (and there is a recap video of this visit!). High schoolers from Capital Roots helped us pick beans, hoe potatoes, and plant medicine. Children from STEM Kids NYC had fun camping overnight and learned about our farming practices. We overheard youth from the Global Kids youth singing songs of freedom while working outside. And Amani visited teens at the Liberty Partnership Rising Stars Program, where they acted out historical moments of resistance of our ancestors of color in combating land loss. At Soul Fire Farm we are committed to increasing the access people affected by food apartheid have to fresh, nutritious food as one way we combat oppression in the food system. Most of the meat accessible to low-income people and people of color is industrial meat – meat coming from animals raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) where they are mistreated and injected with antibiotics and hormones. Industrial meat production also often happens in proximity to low-income black and brown communities, where air and water contamination results in health problems like respiratory illness, asthma, and lung inflammation. We renounce these practices and the ways they harm our communities and the land and instead raise chickens in a way that is more in alignment with what our ancestors practiced. Because of the sustainable practices we employ, such as raising chickens outside on spacious pasture, investing in fencing to protect them, and feeding them a locally-sourced non-GMO diet our meat costs more than meat produced inhumanly on factory farms from animals fed cheap, government-subsidized grains. We want to make our chicken accessible, so we are asking for donations so we can provide sustainable, pasture-raised chickens to the people in our Albany/Troy community. Another tangible action we have taken for addressing food security and food sovereignty issues in our communities is taking reparations into our own hands through the creation of the Reparations Map for Black-Indigenous Farmers. We recognize that the food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and other people of color. We also know that we cannot wait for the government to acknowledge that stolen wealth and land must be returned. If you have resources you want to share contact a farmer directly to share them, or if you have a project you want to include on the map contact us! This month’s Love Notes was written by Lytisha Wyatt. |
Olamina planting Thai basil in a former cucumber bed during BLFI 4.
Our farm team – Damaris, Ceci, Olive, Larisa, and Lytisha.
Percussive Hands on the Land during BLFI 2.
The defeat of Monsanto during BLFI 3.
Participants and facilitators in BLFI 4.
Participants and facilitators of BLYI.
Youth from Capitol Roots transplanting in our herbal medicine patch.