March ’23 Love Notes

Nothing we accomplish in life is totally free of the influence of spirit and community. We do nothing alone.
Tricia Hersey | Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

Happy Spring Family!

The time has come. We have tucked the first seeds into trays of soil in the greenhouse for the first farm plantings and Soul Fire in the City gardens!

Farming and Programming Season is picking up, and we are so excited to welcome you to the land for our first community Work & Learn Days of the year.

Black Earth Wisdom has been birthed and there’s been abundant reverence and revelry for this salient chorus of voices resounding for the Earth.

We are enlivened to share our March updates and April invitations below.

May the seeds you are planting in your life right now push up and reach for the light.

With love and renewal,

Briana, Brooke, Cheryl, Clara, Crysta, Danielle, Hillary, Ife, Jonah, Kai, Leah, Maya, Naima, Ria, Shay, and Susuyu

Soul Fire Farm is hiring for two positions: Site Coordinator and Liberation on Land (LOL) Video Presenter

The priority deadline for both positions is April 15, although we will continue to receive applications until the positions have been filled.

More information and applications are here.

The Site Coordinator is responsible for stewarding the physical spaces at Soul Fire Farm, including land, buildings, and equipment. Employee position starting in late May.

LOL Video Presenters are responsible for planning, filming, and submitting footage for 10-15 minute videos for our Liberation on Land series. Videos in the series showcase land-based skills + culturally-rooted storytelling for BIPOC gardeners, farmers, and food justice organizers.This project-based contract position begins May 8.

The sap rises in the maple trees and the streams start to flow under the snow pack.

For the farmers, this is greenhouse seeding time. We tuck dormant packets of genetic possibility into moist potting soil and wait for onions, cilantro, parsley, lettuce and other “cold crops” to germinate. In addition to our heated greenhouse, we have several unheated high tunnels on the land. This spring, we are completing the construction of two additional high tunnels to bring the total to four. In our harsh mountain climate, tender hot crops like okra, eggplant, lemongrass, and tomatoes – thrive under this protective cover.

We pay homage to our ancestors for their innovation in these greenhouse technologies. We give thanks to the 1000+ enslaved African people on the Wye Plantation, including Frederick Douglass, who built, engineered, and operated an impressive greenhouse in 1775 that still stands. They buried their protective amulets at the entrance, hid their sacred thunderstones in the roof, cultivated hundreds of culinary and medicinal plants, and held celebrations with song and dance in the space. Shout out to Tiffany LaShae for teaching us this history during a 3D skillshare. Check out our LOL Video to learn more about greenhouse propagation.

Soul Fire Farm youth need a space to create!

Emet VP, our youth operations assistant is taking the lead on furnishing this youth-centered space on campus. Named “The Den,” the creative room in the basement of the program center will feature media-making equipment, musical instruments, maker supplies, and furniture. Video launch here!

Please donate to support the youth! Donations can be made at www.soulfirefarm.org/support, and write “the den” in the comments box.

You can also donate from the wish list LINKED HERE. ALL IN-KIND DONATIONS MUST BE PRE-APPROVED BY EMET. Do not send anything without prior approval. Email emet@soulfirefarm.org.

Ask A Sista Farmer

Black Earth Wisdom is taking over Ask a Sista Farmer this spring so we can learn from the earth-listening contributors to our new book.

Your hosts are Leah Penniman and Clara AgborTabi of Soul Fire Farm.

Join us live alternating Fridays @ 4 PM ET (March 31, April 14, April 18, and May 12) Find our live on instagram @soulfirefarm

Check out the last episode with the brilliant Ayo Ngozi and Ibrahim Abdul-Matin here, Carolyn Finney and Enroue ‘Awo Onigbonna’ Halfkenny here, Chris Hill and Yeye Luisah Teish here, and Audrey Peterman and Khadeem Thomas here.

Learn more and get the book at blackearthwisdom.org and @black.earth.wisdom

Community Work & Learn

Each One, Teach One. Many Hands Make Light Work.

We have our first community Work & Learn Day coming up! You’re invited to join us at Soul Fire Farm to learn about some of our farming practices while supporting our food sovereignty work and getting your hands on the land.

April 4 – Registration Link
April 18 – Registration link
May 2 – Registration Link

Soul Fire In the City

To free ourselves we must feed ourselves

We planted the first spinach, scallion, purple cabbage and kale seeds in the greenhouse to prepare for the new gardens we’ll establish this year.

Soul Fire in the City provides raised bed gardens, seedlings, soil, labor, and ongoing guidance at no-cost to community members and groups in the 518.

We selected 10 more households and community groups to receive new gardens. We will additionally provide resources to returning gardeners from previous years.

We are gathering up tools, soil and compost in preparation for the builds that begin next week!

Click here if you would like to volunteer to support the effort. We are looking for Garden Mentors and volunteers to deliver seedlings and bagged soil. Thank you!

3D Skill Shares return in just a couple of weeks! We begin the 2023 season with an offering from Farm Manager, Leah, and Braiding Seeds Fellow, Angelique Taylor, farmer and digital creator who co-owns Smarter By Nature!

Are you an aspiring soil nerd? Come join us virtually, Thursday, April 13 from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET for Soil Health 3D, an interactive workshop on soil fertility. We will learn how to steward our soil sibling while reaping the benefits of an abundant harvest. We will cover regenerative principles and practices to protect and increase soil fertility. These methods include soil testing, minimizing soil disturbance, growing a diversity of plants, protecting soil with living plants, keeping soil covered, and replenishing soil nutrients with organic amendments. This 90-minute virtual workshop is a BIPOC event. Donations are accepted to support BIPOC participation and donors will receive resources after the workshop.

Learn More & Register

Farm Tours

Soul Fire Farm will host 6 tours throughout the 2023 farming season so that our beloved community can experience some of the plants, animals and humans that grow here. We will guide you through the growing fields and agroforestry gardens, take you up close to the building projects, share whole-hearted stories, and answer your questions.

Our first tour will be May 26 (tickets available April 14). Learn more and register here

This month we were graciously hosted by the Federation of Southern Cooperatives [FSC] to hold our very first in person Gathering with our recent alumni and current fellows. It was beautiful to come together at the historic FSC site in Gainesville, AL. We managed to do a site visit with Cassandra Hawkins, a newer farmer, who recently came into owning her family’s 150 acre land after her parents’ passing. Cassandra is receiving services from FSC and was able to share her experiences of unexpectedly navigating holding onto her family land, a narrative that many fellows resonated with.

We also spent time learning from Freddie Davis who is the Director of the Rural Training and Research Center for FSC who walked us through several workshops including the site history, contemporary work, a saw mill lesson, forestry and controlled burning. We have abundant gratitude for Tandelyn Daniels, Eshe Armah, Shaday Towns and her lovely kids, and the rest of the rural training site team who helped make this a fun and meaningful time. We loved being able to hold space with everyone and fully send off our recently graduated alumni. Everyone is still glowing from that experience.

BREAKING THE DOOM LOOP IN OUR MOVEMENTS

The Soul Fire Farm team recently read and discussed Maurice Mitchell’s article Building Resilient Organizations, resonating with many of the themes and reflecting on how we can grow collectively. It takes a lot of courage and generosity of heart to offer critique of movement dynamics, and we applaud Maurice and adrienne maree brown, among others, for voicing their insights. This article breaks down the historical context that has weakened our movements, and names some of the unhealthy patterns that we can perpetuate – glass houses, cherry-picking data, anti-leadership sentiment, maximalism, etc. The article is beautifully rigorous and offers solutions to help us become more compassionate, effective, and strategic in our sacred, crucial liberation work. We recommend that you read, discuss, and vision together around this offering.

The Praxis series reflects on how our community can best put our values into action, sharing resources, ideas, and practice toward collective liberation. These will be shared each month in Love Notes and also on social media.

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY

Soul Fire Farm was among hundreds of organizations, farmers, growers, and farm workers in DC the week of March 5th for the Farmers for Climate Action: Rally for Resilience organized by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. In solidarity with various partners, we bore witness to activating speeches, stories, prayers shared by stakeholders in our robust food system and marched from Freedom Plaza down to Capitol Hill making our voices heard, demanding for a Farm Bill that puts communities above corporations!

Soul Fire Farm and Liberation Farm also attended the HEAL Food Alliance Fly-in, during which we gathered to demand a transformational and anti-racist Farm Bill from our policy makers. With guidance and robust support from HEAL staff, Susuyu (SFF) and Nadia and Omowale (Liberation Farms) met with NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and NY Rep. Marc Molinaro.

During these lobby visits, we shared our experiences as Black producers in NY and urged both offices to recognize and rectify the racist and discriminatory history of the USDA. If you would like to learn more about the 2023 Farm Bill, our demands, and ways to engage, check out this robust 2023 Farm Bill Guide put together by our partners at HEAL Food Alliance. Click the link to learn more about the bill, access resources, and learn how you can engage collaboratively to push for a bill that is good for people and the environment!

Lastly, are you a Soul Fire Farm FIRE Immersion alumni working on the 2023 Farm Bill, or engaged in climate and agriculture policy advocacy? If so, you are invited to apply for Climate and Equity Policy Re-grant, for funds to support your policy advocacy work!

You can learn more by viewing the Re-grant announcement and application details + form linked here.

Mohican Nation Update

It is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are living in the ancestral homelands of the Muhheaconneok/Mohican Nation. Despite tremendous hardship in being forced from here, today their community resides in Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. They have put together a comprehensive resource guide for people interested in learning more about the Mohican Nation and supporting their work. We recommend that everyone living and working on Mohican land read and reflect on this guide.

Celina Ngozi (she, they) is a Black/Igbo agrarian and the founder of Ala Soul Earthworks/Dry Bones Heal Bottomland, which promotes connection to the earth through Afro-Indigenous practices, creativity, and nurturing community. Her earth-based practices are a convergence of her multi-cultural background. Celina is inspired by Igbo cosmology-being in relationship with Ala, Earth herself, understanding that just like a seed, we are born into her, out of her, and return back to her. Celina also embraces Southern Black traditions that evoke ancestral wisdom, while living on the land that has nurtured more than six generations of her family.

For a decade, she has grown food and worked with frontline communities to develop creative solutions to inequities in the food system. The summer of 2022, she transitioned full-time to her family land in a rural community in Central Texas. There she grows food from the Global South that supports an African Diasporic diet such as sweet potato, collards, okra, peanuts, cocoyam, beans, ginger, and turmeric and is building homes and the infrastructure to support community. Her plan is to specialize in locally grown ginger and turmeric for culinary and medicinal purposes. Projects in development include, a program for people of color that promotes (re)membering ancestral knowledge in order to support future generations of agrarians, upcycled seed libraries, and establishing a Black Agrarian Fund in Texas. She is a 2022-2023 Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition supporting equitable land access for growers. Visit www.Alasoulearthworks.net to learn more about Celina Ngozi’s work and to connect with her.

1. Kingston Land Trust:The Kingston Land Trust (KLT) is seeking one or two Seasonal Land Stewards for the 2023 season. The primary role of the Seasonal Land Steward will be the care-taking, stewardship, and monitoring of KLT-protected land in the City of Kingston, Town of Ulster, and Town of Hurley. A secondary role will be community outreach and engagement.

2. Massachusetts Avenue Project: Our Mission is to nurture the growth of a diverse, accessible, and equitable local food system, promote economic opportunities, and empower youth through social change education.

Mobile Market Procurement Coordinator (Full Time):

This is a full time, year round position with a starting annual salary of $38,000.
Applications will be accepted until March 31st, 2023.

Mobile Market Specialist (Part Time):

This is a seasonal, part-time position 20-30 hours per week paying $16.50/hr.
Multiple Seasonal Positions are available.
Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

Interested candidate may submit a cover letter, resume, and 3 references to Karine L. Amato, Markets Director via email: marketsdirector@mass-ave.org

3. SUNY Adirondack: SUNY Adirondack is a community college with an emphasis on community.

Farm manager: Full time (with benefits) year-round position to run and help grow the Farm@SUNYADK, a productive market garden working with college students and producing food for our communities.
Summer adjunct instructor: To teach AGR 103-Sustainable Food, a six week academic course covering the basics of home and market gardening.

Weave Your Bliss Podcast Farming for Joy with Crysta Bloom
Black Earth Podcast Love, Farming and Food Justice with Leah Penniman
Yale Climate Connections New and Recent Books about Climate and Environmental Justice with Leah Penniman
Healing with the Land: A Celebration of A DARKER WILDERNESS with Naima Penniman
Walk Talk Listen Podcast Virtual Walk Talk Listen with Leah Penniman
Our Medicine Conversation with Crysta Bloom

Oppression underwrites our food system, and a tangible action to address food sovereignty 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 Northeast Farmers of Color!

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