We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
Maya Angelou
The original stewards of the land we farm in Grafton, New York are the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation who were forcibly displaced to a reservation in northern Wisconsin in the 1800s. Every month we want to uplift important news from them in our newsletter. In September, members of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation presented concerns to the city of Troy about their proposed rezoning of the Lansingburgh Riverfront Parcel, a highly culturally significant place, for future development and they are advocating for the city council to reconsider. You can read more about their concerns on page 128 in the Troy City Council meeting notes.
For two years, National Grid was seeking approval to construct and operate the E37 natural gas pipeline that would cut through Papscanee Island on the Mahicannituck (Hudson) River, part of the homelands of the Stockbridge Munsee-Mohican people. We are excited that the project has now been suspended indefinitely! The island holds the bones of their ancestors, the artifacts of their villages, and the memory of their fertile maize mounds, and we are relieved that this sacred space will be preserved.
Announcements:
- Check out our newly designed website, thanks to Kiani and Naima!
- We are making vital shifts in our campus infrastructure to improve the well-being of our staff and the hundreds of visitors who participate in our programs yearly. We are so close to meeting our fundraising goal and we have so much gratitude for those who have already donated to and shared our fundraiser! We also invite you to join us in Fortifying Our Foundation at Soul Fire Farm.
- We are selling a truck that was donated to us – a 2014 GMC Sierra. More details here.
- Help inform funding and policy making through the 2020 BIPOC Farmer Survey! This survey, developed by Soul Fire Farm, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, and the Black Farmer Fund is designed to gauge the needs and desires of current and aspiring farmers of color regarding land, access, and capacity in the region.
- Read about our decision to cancel all on-farm programming and in-person speaking events in 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as Soul Fire Farm’s COVID-19 Response and our COVID-19 Press Release. We also want to remind folks that we are currently closed to the public so please do not visit the farm. Thank you for your understanding!
- Check out this Food & Land Sovereignty Resource List for COVID-19 compiled by Soul Fire Farm, Black Farmer Fund, and Northeast Farmers of Color with hundreds of resources to support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) farmers in navigating the pandemic.
- Check out this ever-growing list of BIPOC-led “how to” videos, gardening projects, and online learning resources.
- Ask a Sista Farmer: The first Friday of every month, experienced Black womxn farmers answer your call-in questions about gardening, livestock, agroforestry, plant medicine, and food preservation. If you are interested in being one, reach out to us. If you want to view the previous episodes, they are linked here.
- Our Liberation on Land Video Skillshare series reflects our peoples’ intricate, intergenerational care for the land as its own distinct source of power, and affirms that we’re here, our ways are not forgotten, and that tangible strategies for food sovereignty and climate resilience endure and can be carried forward. Closed captioning and Spanish-English subtitles available!
- Our online store is live! For folks in the Capital Region, you can now order items like grape preserves, strawberry sauce, strawberry cherry preserves, and frozen whole guinea hen for on-farm pick-up. For those who live too far to enjoy our delicious food, we do ship our other products, like our teas, salts, and Soul Fire merchandise. Special thanks to Cheryl and Ria for managing and stocking our store!
- Farming While Black is available for purchase on Powell Books, an independent bookstore in Portland, and Indie Bound, a website that connects consumers to local, independent bookstores in their area.
- In November, Leah will be a keynote speaker for the National Young Farmers Coalition’s annual Convergence conference, and in December she will be a speaker at the Food Tank virtual summit speaker. Leah and Naima will also both be presenting at the Bioneers 2020 Conference.
- Learn more about our work by checking out our features in Food by Design, iHeart Radio, Rachael Ray Network, Food Revolution Network, Mic, News 10, OX Magazine, and OXO.
- We also encourage you to check out this incredible feature of our board member Olivia Watkins and her farm, and this amazing article written by our board member Claudia Ford about the historical relationship between the U.S. Postal Service and Black communities!
The farming season is winding down for us here in upstate New York. Just as the flora and fauna that share this land with us make their own preparations for winter, we too are focused on readying the farm. We hosted two volunteer days in which local volunteers came and supported us with tasks like splitting and stacking firewood and pulling out plant matter from our high tunnels so our chickens can live there during winter. Our Solidarity Shares program for folks living under food apartheid in the Capital Region also ends next week. Of the program, FOCUS Church, one of our institutional partners, sent us a note saying “Thank you to Leah, Justin and the entire staff at Soul Fire Farm. The weekly donations you gave us made so many families happy! Most beautiful veggies we ever saw! Thank you!!” Affirmations like this mean a lot to us and we are blessed to continue providing food for our communities year after year.
We received our annual soil test results and are so thrilled that our soil continues to be in excellent condition, building on past years of stewardship, high organic matter, healthy levels of micro and macro-nutrients, and balanced pH. This year we were able to rely almost entirely on farm-produced fertility, such as mulch, cover crops, and manure from our livestock, rather than purchasing compost or bagged amendments and it looks like we can keep that up next season as well. Closed loop fertility is very exciting for us!
As we wrap things up on the farm, we have also been wrapping up some of our virtual program offerings, such as our 3D Virtual Skillshare series for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) to deepen skills in specific farming and homesteading practices. During our last workshop, two builders immersion alumni, Sean Desiree and Kai Thomas, facilitated a skillshare on carpentry for farmers. We posted a video on Youtube that has the planter and cold frame that Sean and Kai taught participants how to make, which is where you can also find the rest of the videos from our Liberation on Land series that includes content from the other 3D workshops we hosted this year. We also hosted a virtual Uprooting Racism in the Food System workshop, delving into the history and structural realities of racial injustice in the food system.
The Northeast Farmers of Color (NEFOC) Land Trust just graduated from our incubation and fiscal sponsorship, and we are so excited for them! Last week, NEFOC gave a presentation to our staff and board of directors celebrating the last 22 months of organizational, governance, land access, and community development as they continue to build the framework and foundation of a land trust dedicated to advancing land and food sovereignty with and for BIPOC. By advocating for consultation and partnership with Indigenous nations on their unceded territories; strengthening Black/Indigenous POC solidarity; and addressing the root causes of food apartheid and land dispossession during a year of much change, uncertainty, resistance, and transformation, NEFOC Land Trust is emerging from their Phase 1 cocoon strong, agile, and ready for their next phase: continued consultation and beginning to connect BIPOC farmers to land! You can learn more about NEFOC Land trust by checking out their website and signing up on their mailing list. Any future donations should be directed to their organization, c/o: Resist, PO Box 301240, Boston, MA 02130, or online here.
We’ve had the pleasure of participating in several “Instagram live” events this month, including an amazing conversation with Cameron Diaz a couple weeks ago. Leah also discussed Afro-Indigenous composting knowledge with BK ROT Executive Director (as well as Soul Fire alum and former farm apprentice!) Ceci Pineda, spoke with Our Place cooking and kitchenware about the food justice movement, and was part of a reading from All We Can Save, an anthology containing wisdom from women at the forefront of climate justice, with Tejal Mankind. We were also honored to be presented with an award by Clean and Healthy New York for our food sovereignty work during their “Bold Vision for a Healthy Future” ceremony, accepted on our behalf by our board member Taini Asili.
The end of the farming season marks the beginning of planning for the next, as well as attending conferences, workshops, and meetings with other growers to exchange ideas. On October 19th we hosted a virtual farm tour and discussion with Black Farmers United NYS and 30 elected New York state representatives about our goals and what legislative support we need. We did libations for the D-Town Fall Harvest Festival. Naima was recently on a NYC Nutrition Education panel to talk about the movements for food sovereignty. Leah was a keynote speaker at the MOFGA Common Ground Country Fair and the American Herbalist Guild; a speaker, alongside Winona LaDuke, in a virtual lecture hosted by the Schumacher Center for a New Economics; and Li participated in panels during Smithsonian’s World Food Day and Slow Food’s virtual Terra Madre festival.
As so many of us grieve, condemn state-sanctioned violence, and experience the intersection of painful and disproportionate impacts on our communities, we want to uplift stories of hope, resilience, and dreams breathing into being by sharing the incredible work our alumni are doing. Larisa, Dayo, and Lytisha are collaborating with Look Studios NYC to share these inspiring projects on our social media.
Green Acre Community Garden is an urban farm in the heart of Paterson, New Jersey that provides free, fresh, and culturally relevant vegetables for the Black and Latinx community through bi-weekly farm stands. Their organizing committee is working hard to onboard more volunteers and raise funds to offset the operations of the farm, and you can donate to them here.
Seed of Osun and Sistahs of the Calabash is a physical and virtual sanctuary of Afro-Indigenous folk medicine that centers ancestral reverence and building community. They offer healing interventions to address physical and spiritual imbalances that manifest as a result of oppression, colonialism, and generational trauma. During the pandemic they have been hosting virtual events that you can learn more about on their social media pages. They are accepting donations to support their work.
Oppression underwrites our food system, and a 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. Some farmers have already received funding through this project, and we want to provide that opportunity to other Black and Brown farmers. 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 NEFOC!
This month’s Love Notes was written by Lytisha Wyatt.