May ’24 Love Notes

Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.

Bondei proverb

Blessings Beloved Community,

The trunk of the Baobab tree, found in 32 African countries, can grow to be 29 feet in diameter and have a circumference of more than 82 feet. Wisdom keepers on the continent liken the enormity of this sacred being to the way knowledge is held in a community. No one person can wrap their arms around the entirety of the Baobab, in the same way that no one person can hold the entirety of knowledge in a movement. Each of our stories complete the circle.

This community thrives on the brilliance and vision that we each share. Below you’ll find lovingly crafted offerings, including our upcoming Farm Tour on May 31st and Shop Day on May 31st where participants have the opportunities to develop carpentry skills, practice tool use, learn about natural building, and get inspired by Soul Fire Farm’s ecologically-sustainable campus design. Offerings like these provide us with moments to be in community which strengthen our movement and fortify our collective wisdom.

We can’t wait to dream, strategize, and rejoice with you soon!

May your breath be your anchor.

With love and solidarity,

Briana, Brooke, Cheryl, Christina, Clara, Crysta, Danielle, Hana’, Hillary, Jonah, Leah, Maya, Naima, O’den, Ria, Shay, and Susuyu

Leah attended in her capacity as an African traditional priest (Manya, Olorisa, Omo Awo) and shared Yoruba sacred stories about moderation and the covenant of mutuality between all species. She also spoke about the vulnerability of farmworkers and agroecological systems to climate chaos. Representatives of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and other wisdom traditions were present and united in defense of the climate.

Chase Bank, TD Bank, and Bank of America continue to invest billions of dollars in fossil fuel infrastructure, all while 2023 was the hottest year in 125,000 years. They are financing an ecological crisis of global proportions, which has devastating impacts on people across the globe and robs future generations of a liveable planet.

Find out more and get involved with Third Act Upstate NY, Fridays for the Future, Rivers and Mountains Green Faith, and other cosponsors. 

Our soils are classified as BuC and BuD, very stony and poor for agriculture. In 2006, the local USDA agent told us we couldn’t farm here due to poor drainage and thin soils, but over the years we built up the soil and made abundant harvests possible. We aren’t mad at the stones, though. They are incredible building materials and we have integrated boulders into our entryways and hardscaping. This month, we are installing 100s of feet of beautiful stone walls, stone steps, and stone seats around the new program center under the direction of 5th generation master mason Nick Vacchio. Every stone is hand-selected from our walls and piles, and dry stacked into forms that will last for generations.

On the farm we are befriending stones as well, filling sacks and using them to weigh down our row covers. We install covers over all of our early spring crops to keep them cozy on cold nights, reduce insect pressure, and prevent herbivores from grazing. It’s a secretive, magical process because the crops grow big and beautiful obscured under light fabric and then have a fabulous reveal late in the month when they are strong enough to hold their own. The collards, onions, parsley, broccoli, lettuce and other cool season crops are thriving in the fields, and the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, and other hot crops are getting their bearings in the high tunnels. Our plates are graced for foraged greens, flowers, and herbs, and the honeybees have arrived to help us pollinate our plant friends.

June 4
June 18
July 2

Big thanks to everyone who came out for our Community Work and Learn Days in May. We brought our hands and hearts together to weed and mulch our perennial gardens, garble herbs, trellis raspberries, care for rows of freshly emerging mint and lemon balm, and love on the Jaden Lakou. We made sweet connections, sang under the sky, and enjoyed a delicious lunch with some of the first harvest of the land. 

Join us for a day-long on-farm opportunity to learn more about our growing practices and contribute to our mission! We’re offering group registration for most Work and Learn days. Check out our website for more information. Click on the dates below to register. 

Last month we held our first 3D skill share of the year, taking a deep dive into the topic of agroforestry. We gathered to plant trees and learn about the magic of the forest and how we can mimic the forest ecosystem in our orchards. Our facilitators Jonah Vitale-Wolff and Leah Penniman led us in a tour, presentation, and hands-on planting of plum trees in guilds with Canadian wild ginger and garlic. As part of our commitment to international solidarity with farmers, for every tree planted in our orchard, we sent a donation to have a tree planted in Palestine.

In May, we connected virtually with textile artist and facilitator, Sarah Gotowka of Luna Fiber Studio. Sarah led us on a study of color and land through textiles and plants. We learned the many colors we can explore with flowers, leaves, and other plant material, and some of the best ways to draw their pigments into fabric for our clothing and fiber arts. You can view a Natural Dyes video, presented by Sarah, in our Liberation on Land Skill Share Series here.

Upcoming 3D Skill Shares:

Beekeeping 3D 
with Hana’ Maaiah of Soul Fire Farm & Olka Forster 
In Person at Soul Fire Farm
June 14, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. 
Learn more and register here!

3D workshops are designed to be culturally relevant and safe spaces that center Black, Indigenous and People of Color (read why here).

Are you ready to get free?! This summer a team of professional chefs, farmers, musicians, artists, activists and healers are welcoming 15 youth to Soul Fire Farm to create art, grow food, make music, learn cooking skills, explore nature, and build relationships of trust, respect and joy. 

Liberation on Land Youth Immersion is for BIPOC youth (Black, indigenous, and other people of color) who are 14-16 years old. Local youth from the 518/Capital Region and regional youth living within 60 miles from Soul Fire Farm will be strongly prioritized. 

Learn more and apply 
Rolling Admission until slots are full

Many of us have a dream of moving back to the land, building a home, growing our food, and working towards community self-sufficiency and resiliency. How do we make that dream a reality? Join us for a crash course on homesteading rooted in 20+ years of successes, failures, and lessons learned. Through a combination of presentation and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, we will support each other in getting to the next steps of our land sovereignty journeys.

Register Here

On the cusp of summer, we will celebrate our interdependence with the land and each other. Join us for soul stirring live music, aerial trapeze, food vendors, sacred play, capoeira, camp fire, and the most starLIT dance party of the year!

Reserve your spot: www.bit.ly/soulstice24

We’re also seeking volunteers and sponsors to make this year’s SOULstice party better than ever! Volunteer tasks include set-up, clean-up, registration, and selling SFFI merchandise. Sponsorship opportunities range from $100 to $1,000. To learn more about volunteering, contact volunteer@soulfirefarm.org. For sponsorship inquiries, reach out to love@soulfirefarm.org.

This Spring, Soul Fire in the City established 10 new gardens for households in the Capital Region! Danielle, Naima, Clara, Maya, Christina and Hana’ rolled up in the big red farm truck with lumber, soil, compost, wheelbarrows, rakes, shovels, perennial shrubs, seeds and seedlings to support our neighbors to grow their own food and medicine towards self-reliance and community resilience.

The gardens are already flourishing with early season crops like collards, kale, spinach, parsley and cilantro. We have our first workshop coming up in Troy about how to harvest annuals to keep the bounty growing, and how to propagate to multiply the magic of perennial plants like raspberries, currants and elderberries.  

If you already obtained a garden through Soul Fire in the City in 2023 or earlier, and would like to continue receiving seeds, seedlings and ongoing guidance, or if you would like to volunteer to support Soul Fire in the City gardeners with labor, deliveries, or mentorship, please complete this form.

The next Soul Fire in the City application cycle begins late fall 2024. Join the WAITLIST to receive an email to apply at that time!

In May we hosted our first Hands on Introduction to Carpentry workshop and Shop Day, kicking off our revamped Building Skills series. Jonah, Sean, Kai, O’den and Neshima created an empowering learning environment where folks gained enough skills to build planters, benches and personal projects in the shop.

Check out upcoming opportunities to develop carpentry skills, practice tool use, learn about natural building, and get inspired by Soul Fire Farm’s ecologically-sustainable campus design here.

 May 31st

Soul Fire Farm will host 6 tours throughout the 2024 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 next tours will be May 31 and July 5 (Group registration available)
Learn more and register here

Ria and Jonah led a playful, exploratory walk through the fields and forests to greet our plant and fungi friends and learn about the abundance of food and medicine they provide. We discussed sustainable harvest and sacred foraging practices, and enjoyed a delicious fresh salad with white pine dressing with the harvest we gathered together.

Season 5 of our Instagram Live is LIVE! Every month, experienced Black farmers and food systems experts share their knowledge about agriculture, land tenure, markets, food policy, coops, cultural foods, and more. At the end of the show we have a GIVEAWAY to the person who wins our quiz. To free ourselves we must feed ourselves!

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

Check out the latest episodes with the brilliant Jay Smith and Christa Nunez of Khuba International/Quarter Acre for the People here & Kenya Crumel and Dr. Muhjah Shakir of National Black Food and Justice Alliance and Nature’s Garden for Victory and Peace here. See all past episodes at www.soulfirefarm.org/fwb-instalive/ 

Next up:
Jazz Kerr and Frances Perez-Rodriguez of Farm School NYC 
June 6, 2024  4:00 pm – 4:45 pm

Find our live on instagram @soulfirefarm

The Summit was a gathering space predominantly for Indigenous farmers and land stewards. We experienced two days full of panels. It was also full of interactive demonstrations such as building stickball sticks, Indigenous cooking, a rainfall simulation, and more. 

The @intertribalag is a member of our selection committee. Many thanks to our former fellow, Angie Comeaux @hummingbirdsprings_farm, for fortifying this space for collaboration. Angie is now an IAC Technical Assistant in Southeast as well as continuing to steward her own land project. Gratitude to the @tunicabiloxitribeofla for having us on land at the Tunica Biloxi Reservation.

The U.S. community of land workers is not English-dominant, with 78% of farmworkers being Latino/e or Hispanic and 62% speaking Spanish as their dominant language (NAWS). It is important for the farm and food justice community to think about how to make workplaces, programs, and advocacy accessible to folks who speak languages other than English. To that end, the amazing SFF language justice team put together this LJ Guide to support those efforts. At our farm, we hold a few Spanish-first events each year, some with interpretation to English. We also do solidarity work with our sibling farms in Latin America and the Caribbean, leaning on Spanish-speaking staff to nurture those connections. We are still very far from embodying LJ in all of our work, and we are open to learning and improving. How are you working on language justice in your community? 

Topics including archeological findings at the Papscanee Island and Stockbridge MA historical sites, history of land controversy, and Mohican basketry designs. You can watch the recordings HERE. 

Soul Fire Farm is located on unceded territory of the Mohican Nation. We remain committed to working in solidarity with the Mohican people and other Indigenous communities in our region. 

From April 29-May 2, we gathered at Hotel Tamaya, Santa Ana Pueblo, NM to joyfully fellowship in flesh, learn about each other’s sectors and work through member-led workshops, deep dive into our collective Land Justice efforts, and dream into new directions for our collective work as an alliance. SFF is also a founding member of Liberating Investment in the Food & Farm Ecosystem (LIFE). At the HEAL Summit, Soul Fire’s Briana Alfaro met with LIFE members to discuss strategies to intervene in the field of philanthropy and redistribute wealth back to BIPOC communities and organizations doing the work to regenerate people and the planet.

Farm Bill Update 

US Congress has released a high-level “framework” and draft text of the 2024 Farm Bill from both the House and Senate respectively. Here are a few pertinent updates on the Farm Bill as it stands, and what of our collective advocacy over the past year made it into the draft:

Carbon sequestration: SFF signed on to a letter advocating for the inclusion of the Advancing Research on Agricultural Climate Impacts Act in the 2024 Farm Bill. The core tenants of this act can be found in Senate Ag Chairwoman Stabenow’s draft Farm Bill overview under Title XII, Misc.- Sec. 12516.

Labor: The senate draft includes language around designating a farmworkers and food system workers liaison to work with the Farm and Food System Workforce Coordinator + the establishment of a Farmworker and Food System Worker Advisory Committee. More details can be found under Title XII, Sec. 12210.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs): Title II, Section 2702 includes language around “facilitating the conversion from concentrated animal feeding operations to climate-friendly agricultural production systems (including regenerative grazing, agroforestry, organic, and diversified crop and livestock production systems).”

Keep an eye out for more detailed information on which of our priorities around land access, non-predatory lending, SNAP access, labor, and regenerative practices made it into the draft bill by following coalitions such as HEAL Food Alliance and NBFJA. 

MoAD “Farming While Black” Screening (with Leah Penniman)| June 2, 2024  4:00 pm – 7:00 pm  MoAD Chef-in-Residence Jocelyn Jackson presents “The Soul of Black Land” Beginning with the viewing of the 75-minute documentary FARMING WHILE BLACK based on the book of the same title from Soul Fire Farm, this program will uplift the lived land experience of three powerful Black women farmers from across the United States – Leah Penniman, Brandi Mack, and Angie Provost. Reserve your ticket here!

Community Work & Learn June 4, 2024  10:00 am – 3:30 pm | Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138 | Registration is required. Registration begins April 23rd  Community Work & Learn June 18, 2024  10:00 am – 3:30 pm | Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138 | Registration is required. Registration begins May 7 Volunteer at Soul Fire Farm to learn about some of our farming practices while supporting our work and getting your hands on the land.

Farming While Black Instagram Live – Jazz Kerr + Frances Perez-Rodriguez Farm School NYC | June 6, 2024  4:00 pm – 4:45 pm Tune in via Instagram @soulfirefarm | Every month, experienced Black farmers and food systems experts share their knowledge about agriculture, land tenure, markets, food policy, coops, cultural foods, and more.

Rural Homesteading Skillshare a Black Farmer Fund Event with Leah Penniman | June 13, 2024  6:00 pm – 7:30 pm | Join us for a crash course on homesteading rooted in 20+ years of successes, failures, and lessons learned. Through a combination of presentation and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, we will support each other in getting to the next steps of our land sovereignty journeys. Register here

Beekeeping 3D Skill Share with Olka Forster & Hana’ Maaiah | June 14, 2024  10:00 am – 4:00 pm Soul Fire Farm, 1972 NY-2, Petersburgh, NY 12138, USA | When we tend to bees on land, they teach us about living in reciprocal communities, building resiliency through creative response, and how to dance and make sweet treats. This hands-on workshop will cover the basics of managing a backyard hive.   Learn more and register here! Registration required.

• Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY with Leah Active NY
• Of Grounding, Wisdom in a Black Earth New Haven Arts
• Blurb for the Encyclopedia of Rootical Folklore
• 2024 SFFILM Festival Schools at the Festival 
• At Soul Fire Farm in Rensselaer County, the goal is to use food to uproot racism WAMC Northeast Public Radio
• Sustainability pro Christina Mpilo shares the biggest environmental issue Rolling Out
• NY climate activists call on big banks to cease investing in new fossil fuel projects Spectrum News
• May 3 Stop Funding Climate Chaos March In Albany Hudson Mohawk Magazine
• Syracuse University and SUNY ESF Team Up to Convene Food Justice And Sustainable Agriculture Thought Leaders Together, They Will Host This Year’s 2024 AFHVS-ASFS Conference Urban CNY News

The food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and people of color. Our ecosystem partners, Northeast Farmers of Color Network and National Black Food and Justice Alliance are claiming our sovereignty and calling for reparations of land and resources so that we can grow nourishing food and distribute it in our communities. The specific projects and resource needs of BIPOC land-based projects are listed on Northeast Farmers of Color Network and National Black Food and Justice Alliance’s respective maps linked above. We are so excited about these powerful opportunities for people to people solidarity.

1 cup garlic mustard greens (roughly chopped)
1/2 cup ramps (roughly chopped)
1/2 cup other herb of choice such as cilantro, dill, parsley (roughly chopped) (optional)
~1 tsp salt (to taste)
1/2 lemon juiced
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce or coconut aminos
Red chili flakes to taste (optional)

Add your greens, ramps, herbs, and salt to the bowl of a food processor, Nutri bullet, or blender. Pulse them until fine. If you’re having trouble blending them, add in your lemon juice and some of the oil.

Blitz until finely chopped, remove to a bowl, and add olive oil, soy sauce, and salt to taste. Add chili flakes to taste if desired.

If you’re looking for more of a pesto texture, add parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast and a seed or nut of your choice to the blender. Great choices for pesto are pepitas, pine nuts, sunflower, or cashew.

Use to top your salads, stir fries, grilled meats, tofu, and fish. Also great as a dip for fresh baked bread if you add vinegar to the bowl for extra acidity.