Leah Penniman: Honoring the Past to Pave the Way for the Future of Food Justice
By Meredith Fucci, blog writer for BCAGlobal
Women’s History Month celebrates the accomplishments of women throughout history and around the world. Although women’s contributions to society should always be valued outside of the month of March, a designated month is necessary because their work is rarely acknowledged in history books or viewed as relevant in society. In U.S. society, traits such as cooperation, empathy, and nurturing are often considered feminine, which are seen as weak and emotional. Yet the greatest challenges in the United States, and globally, ought to be met with cooperation, empathy, and nourishment. One of these challenges is racism in America’s food system, and a woman who embodies these characteristics and directs them toward dismantling the unjust system is Leah Penniman.
Background
Leah Penniman is a Black Creole farmer, mother, soil enthusiast, author, and food justice activist. Her passion for the environment, and wanting more access to green spaces, and more access to and availability of organic produce stemmed from her work at The Food Project in Boston. Founded in 1991, The Food Project’s mission is to engage youth from diverse populations in building community-driven and sustainable food systems that provide fresh, healthy food for all. The non-profit organization promotes leadership opportunities for youth by having them work on 70 acres of urban and suburban farmland across eastern Massachusetts and grow 200,000 lbs. of fresh fruits and vegetables for food system initiatives (The Food Project, n.d.). Leah was one of the many youths the Food Project served who gained hands-on, first-hand experience of how proper farming nourishes people and the planet.
Leah continued her education by partnering with farmers from Ghana, Haiti, and Mexico. By expanding her scope of food justice and sustainable agriculture to an international level, Leah witnessed the connections and influences people have on each other across borders. For example, for the past 700 years women in Ghana and Liberia have combined various waste products to create a dark rich soil which results in “high concentrations of calcium and phosphorus, as well as 200 to 300 percent more organic carbon than soils typical to the region” (Penniman, 2019). In addition to the physical health benefits of nutrient-rich soils, Leah also recognized the spiritual and healing powers of working directly with the earth; she “found an anchor in the elegant simplicity of working the earth and sharing her bounty […] Shoulder to shoulder with [her] peers of all hues, feet planted firmly in the earth, stewarding life-giving crops for the Black community – [she] was home” (Green America, n.d.). It was this foundation of being connected to the land, learning about regenerative agriculture abroad, and finding community in the food justice space that inspired Leah Penniman to co-found Soul Fire Farm.
Addressing Injustices in Food Systems
Leah Penniman co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2010 with the mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim an ancestral connection to the land for Black, Indigenous, and Latine people. Soul Fire Farm operates as a fully functional farm and an educational facility that provides trainings and workshops to BIPOC farmers and food justice activists and delivers 100,000 lbs. of produce to over 200 individuals and organizations. Directed towards both youth and adults, the farm’s “Afro-Indigenous Farming” immersions and workshops are designed to equip Black, Indigenous, and Latine people with the skills, resources, and networks necessary to succeed. Such immersions and workshops address the systematic harm the United States has done to people of color in the agricultural space, specifically through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In response to the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, the USDA established programs to improve livelihoods and break the cycle of poverty for farmers and rural families through education, low-cost credit, technical assistance, and the opportunity to acquire land. One of the programs was the Farmers Home Administration, an assistance program intended to help farmers “acquire or expand their farms, to stock and equip them, and to improve their housing or financial position” (Hannah, et al., 1965). For poor White farmers, the loans were devised for their farms to sustainably expand, diversify, and stay in operation, but the same could not be said for poor Black farmers. Black farmers received fewer loans that would have expanded farmer ownership and rural housing: conditions critical for Black farmers to operate successfully without federal assistance. As a result, from 1920 to 1982, the percentage of Black-operated farms declined from 14% “to about 30,000—just 2 percent of the nation’s total” (Harvey, 2016). Leah Penniman and Soul Fire Farm acknowledge the racist policies and actions that prevented a majority of Black farmers from reaping the benefits that so many White farmers did from the USDA programs. Guided by the values of cooperation, empathy, and nourishment, Soul Fire Farm seeks to address the historical injustices by instilling in BIPOC farmers and youth a sense of belonging to the land that Leah Penniman first experienced in her youth.
Healing Traumas Through Farming
Soul Fire Farm provides invaluable opportunities for youth to connect with the earth in ways they have not been able to enjoy historically. In addition to the legacy of redlining and segregation separating Black people from green spaces, Black people intentionally avoid opportunities to work the land because they equate it with the traumatic experiences of enslavement and sharecropping. As Leah best summarizes it, “[w]e have confused the subjugation our ancestors experienced on land with the land herself, naming her the oppressor and running towards paved streets without looking back […] Part of the work of healing our relationship with soil is unearthing and relearning the lessons of soil reverence from the past” (Penniman, 2019). Not only were Black people unable to determine for themselves their relationship with the land, but the stories of their knowledge and inventions in agriculture before colonization were stolen from them as well. There is an oral tradition that women from the Upper Guinea Coast braided rice into their hair to keep the food source hidden while forcibly being transported across the Atlantic Ocean. For those who survived the Middle Passage, the rice they kept was grown as a subsistence crop and would later be considered a dietary staple in the “soul food” of the US South. In other words, “enslaved Africans left a culinary legacy that is seldom considered in standard historical treatments of rice origins in the western Atlantic” (Carney, 2004). It is in honor of these women and their impact that one of Soul Fire Farm’s programs, in partnership with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, is called the Braiding Seeds Fellowship. The Braiding Seeds Fellowship provides beginner Black, Indigenous, and Latine farmers with resources, professional development, and mentorship to support their livelihood on land (Soul Fire Farm, n.d.). It is an 18-month program in which fellows receive a $50,00 stipend, one-on-one mentorship opportunities, farm finance and business plan support, and the chance to share knowledge and learn from other farmers. The Braiding Seeds Fellowship provides similar services that the USDA programs did but with a focus on serving Black, Indigenous, and Latine farmers who were intentionally neglected and harmed by the United States.
Soul Fire Farm also centers Afro-Indigenous knowledge in its programs to emphasize the history, relationship, and expertise BIPOC communities have always had with the land. It is for this reason Leah intentionally uses the words “equip hundreds of adults and youth with the land-based skills needed to reclaim leadership as farmers and food justice organizers in their communities, to heal their relationship with earth, and to imagine bolder futures” when describing Soul Fire Farm’s BIPOC Immersions (Soul Fire Farm, n.d.). Soul Fire Farm teaches and uses Afro-Indigenous techniques such as agroforestry, polyculture, and composting to grow fruits, vegetables, honey, mushrooms, and more to give to people living under food apartheid. The farm promotes racial and food justice throughout the process — how they grow their produce, the farmers involved, and who they serve. Through co-founding Soul Fire Farm, Leah Penniman has been able to share the healing powers of working with and harvesting the land while promoting self-determination for BIPOC youth and farmers.
Conclusion
By centering Afro-Indigenous cultivation methods in Soul Fire Farm’s work and teachings, BIPOC farmers and youth can see themselves in these critical roles in a positive and empowering light. Leah Penniman brings these inventive techniques to the forefront to demonstrate how Black, Indigenous, and Latin people have always been leaders and inventors in the agricultural space and to inspire future leaders in the field. Leah Penniman’s story and the countless others shared during Women’s History Month showcase the accomplishments and legacies of women of the past and present to inspire women in our future.