“Think galactic and act local.”
~From Alexis Cunningfolk
Beloved past program participants.
Last week the Soul Fire Farm team reached consensus to cancel all our on-farm programming and in-person speaking events in 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This decision was challenging for us to make, but we feel it was the right one. Our communities are predominantly Black, Indigenous, and people of color, folks more impacted by the pandemic, and our values call us to think about those most vulnerable in our communities and to make our decisions from that place. Our communities are more likely to be caring for children and elders, navigating unemployment, targeted by law enforcement, and experiencing other hardships in this time.
Our communities cannot afford to lose one more elder, one more parent, one more child. We are in this work of food and land sovereignty for the long haul. We will be here next year, in 10 years, in 20 years, and we see our collective work as more essential than ever. There will be time for us to gather together in person when it’s safe and right.
To learn more about how this decision impacts those of you accepted to an immersion program, the virtual offerings we have planned, the ways we are directly responding to acute community needs at this time, and to access a Spanish translation of this announcement, visit our website. We welcome your feedback and questions, though we ask for your patience with our response as we work through the logistics of this pivot. Please reach out to us at love@soulfirefarm.org.
Resources related to COVID-19:
- 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 Farmers in navigating the pandemic.
- BIPOC Farmers Community Skillshare on COVID-19 is a collaboration between Soul Fire Farm, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, Black Farmer Fund, HEAL Food Alliance, and the Castanea Fellowship. These virtual skillshares are every other Sunday and are streamed on Facebook live. You can learn more about these skillshares and how to join these calls here.
- Many people in our community have been asking for “how to” farming and gardening resources, including videos and online tutorials. We want to share this ever-growing list of BIPOC-led “how to” videos, gardening projects, and online learning resources.
- Ask a Sista Farmer! Are you ready to grow your own food and medicine for self-reliance and community resilience? Every Friday experienced Black womxn farmers answer your call-in questions about gardening, livestock, agroforestry, plant medicine, and food preservation. This event is FREE! And, if you have capacity, please donate to the farms of the presenters or a Black farmer near you. More info about the event and how to participate here. Linked here are recordings of episodes one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight.
- Read about Soul Fire Farms’s COVID-19 Response and our COVID-19 Press Release.
Other announcements:
- Soul Fire In the City: This year we are supporting over 40 families to build and care for home gardens in Albany and Troy, NY by providing the materials and expertise needed for people to start growing some of their own food and medicine. We are welcoming volunteers to help build raised beds, support with scouting garden locations, transport supplies (from soil to seedlings), and provide ongoing support for gardeners throughout the season. If you are interested in contributing time or labor, please fill out this form. You can donate here to support this project.
- 2019 was teeming with inspiration! Read our 2019 Annual Report, beautifully put together by Damaris Miller.
- 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.
- Learn more about our work by checking out our features in The New York Times, Civil Eats, Atlas of the Future, How to Survive the End of the World, Green America, the Journal of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society, The Best Advice Show, and Lonny Magazine.
The farm under snow.
Last month there were striking news reports about drastic reductions in air pollution due to mandated lockdowns and stay-at-home orders in response to the pandemic. Some major cities saw up to 60% reductions of deadly particulate matter, demonstrating that “out of these extraordinary circumstances, we can see how changes in our society’s activities can have a momentous impact on our environment and the air we breathe” [CNN]. Reports like this instill a hope in us that we humans have the capacity to make the shifts needed to come into right relationship with the Earth. These reminders can be especially helpful after worrisome, climate change-related weather events that pose challenges to those of us who grow food, such as the polar vortex we experienced earlier this month that deposited several inches of snow on the land.
Five new beehives established on the farm with bear protection.
We are committed to uplifting climate resilient farming practices, such as reduced tillage, establishing silvopasture and polycultures, and seed keeping. This spring we planted hundreds of perennials like elderberry, strawberry, and blueberries, plants that have a great capacity for storing carbon and reducing soil erosion. We are also slowly transforming our east field into silvopasture, an intercropping of trees and native perennial grasses that sequesters carbon and provides forage for livestock and fruits and nuts for people. Justin’s herd of pigs is being used to clear new silvopasture land in the forest, and our friend and alum Jonathan McRay sent us chestnut, persimmon, paw paw, and hazelnut trees to integrate into our silvopasture and our orchards, for which we are incredibly grateful! We think seed keeping is crucial for preserving biodiversity and celebrating our heritages, so we are keeping seeds for TrueLove Seeds such as the Plate de Haiti tomato, Scotch Bonnet peppers, Bee Balm #6, and calendula. We are also cultivating and saving Munsee black and white corn and Stockbridge Indian Beans in collaboration with Warren Mihtukwsun of the Mohican Nation, the original stewards of the land we grow food on.
Emet and Neshima transplanting seedlings.
In light of our decision to cancel on-farm programming, food we were growing in anticipation of our summer programs will now be “solidarity shared” with people impacted by food apartheid and state violence, as well as to community groups working on the frontlines. Last month, for example, we sent 50 bags of mint-lemon balm tea to the Victory Bus Project CSA that supports families impacted by mass incarceration by transporting them to visit family members in prison in the Hudson Valley and then gifting them with a box of fresh produce. While we continue building partnerships with other community organizations, we’ve been busy prepping our high tunnels that will accomodate heat-loving crops like peppers and tomatoes, inoculating shiitake mushroom logs, and transplanting annual vegetables and medicine.
Kiani and Naima during a Soul Fire in the City build.
As we shift our operations for 2020 we will continue focusing on our Soul Fire in the City program, as well as on developing virtual content for our community. In response to growing needs, we are increasing the number of gardens we are to at least 40. Kiani, Cheryl, Naima, and Leah have each been sharing the responsibility of scouting and building these gardens in Albany and Troy, NY. Special shoutout to our friend DJ Trumastr for DJing our live-streamed GreenHouse Music for Healing dance party, during which we were able to fundraise to support our Soul Fire in the City builds! This past Sunday we co-hosted our first Spanish-first BIPOC Farmers Community Skillshare on COVID-19, which we are so grateful to Larisa for coordinating with our friends at the Hudson Valley Farm Hub. We hope to continue offering Spanish-first skillshares as a commitment to language justice. We are also currently working on producing the Liberation on Land video series, 15-minute YouTube video will feature a BIPOC land steward sharing hands-on skills.
New employee duplex cabin.
We are constantly updating and improving our infrastructure to better accommodate our operations and we have several exciting projects underway! Jonah continues to manage all these projects simultaneously, often finding himself working with as many as 10 different crews at once. He’s also been closely working with Kai, Neshima, and Emet on some of these projects. Our new septic system is well underway and the new employee duplex cabin is entering the finishing stage. And Leah recently reinstalled our irrigation system on the farm, also making necessary repairs and replacements to ensure our crops will receive reliable irrigation this season.
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 us!
This month’s Love Notes was written by Lytisha Wyatt.