Farming While Black

March 2023
Written By Betsy Cross

A Book Report

Martha Pinto Kinscherff

I was approached by a friend to join a new Zoom book club during the Covid pandemic. As a Master Naturalist and someone whose teaching career started in inner-city Houston, I was intrigued by the first book chosen. That book was Farming While Black by Leah Penniman, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018.

https://www.soulfirefarm.org/

The subtitle of this beautiful book is Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, but it's a book about so many things. It's a book about finding land and resources and how to plan to build a farm while restoring degraded land, feeding the soil crop, planning, tools and technology, seed keeping, raising animals, the use of plant medicine, urban farming, and cooking and preserving.  At the same time, there are strands about honoring the spirits of the land—the ancestor’s traditions that helped so many generations make it in the New World. It's also about black inner city youth and how to reactivate their relationship with the earth. It's about healing from trauma. It's about building a movement to help younger people and people who've been cut off from the land. It is a practical guide for helping the larger society to mend the schism of racial wounding. You cannot read this book without its touching your heart.

Look closer. The book begins with very practical information for anyone wanting to get back to the earth, starting with finding the right land and ways to finance the purchase. It advises what to look for in the right piece of property. Penniman shares vignettes of many different cooperative farming communities. She instructs on planning your farm, doing business, budgeting, buying tools, and getting expert information.

For example, in her practical chapter Restoring Degraded Land, she describes how to test your land for pollutants such as lead poisoning. Who knew there were ways to plant species promoting phytoremediation of the soil such as Cinta (Chlorophytum comosum; “spider plant”), geranium, Alpine Pennycress, mustard greens, and sunflowers?

On her Soul Fire Farm, Penniman and her partner have the goals of promoting advanced healing while training and empowering indigenous growers to seek justice for individuals and communities impacted by racism. In efforts to empower young people, the Farm offers education and publications to the community, provides weekly doorstep deliveries of fresh naturally grown food, and models a just and sustainable farm.

Penniman gives time-honored information on spacing trees and bushes that bear fruit and on how soil tests are done, tracing back to the indigenous soil testing in Africa. There's a remediation chart of how to improve your soil, information on how to prepare a bed, how to till, how to use a tractor, and how to irrigate with systems echoing ancestral methods from Africa.

Another very interesting chapter is about seed keeping. The recent Haitian peasant movement has brought together over 25 million rural farmers working with seeds and saving seeds, teaching hand pollination and seed storage. There's a chapter on raising animals for food, how to cut a chicken or a turkey, and how to raise pigs. There is a fascinating chapter on plant medicine, featuring plants that came from Africa. You can learn about Cuban urban agriculture, growing micro greens, and how important it is in an urban setting to have clean soil and clean water; there’s an eye-opening chart of levels of heavy metals in soil. Information on cooking and preserving fresh food includes some really good recipes!

To me one of the most difficult chapters to read was about healing from trauma. As a counselor, I'm interested in experiences that help people live fuller lives. An annotated timeline shows just how far many people have come on their journey. From the Doctrine of Discovery decreed by the Pope in 1455 to recent history, the author traces the history of how institutions gave credence to discrimination. Chapter 14 outlines the brutal succession of laws that put communities of color at a disadvantage. For example, lenders and realtors routinely outlined communities of color in red on maps to show they were too “risky” for mortgage support. As some of us have experienced, the Housing Act of 1949 gave local and state governments the power and funding to displace residents—whole communities—through laws of “eminent domain.” Local food initiatives are important because black communities can be “food deserts” without stores offering healthy choices.

Author Leah Penniman
https://www.soulfirefarm.org/

“Even if we could banish all racism today, we would still need to heal for several generations before we stopped doing it to one another,” the author notes.

Research shows that structural racism decreases black people's access to nature, which increases their chance for depression, learning disabilities, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, academic underperformance, stress, and social anxiety. Hormone cortisol studies show that trauma can be passed down through multiple generations. But the good news is that healing can also be passed down culturally!

We must support movements that honor each one of us—and our ancestors. Leah Penniman’s book explains teachings from various Caribbean and African communities, such as healing circles, where people can share some of their trauma and help one another believe in themselves. The community dance, an African concept of healing the community mind and body, uses holistic rituals of transformation. Today, community gardens like Soul Fire Farm help bring us back together.

I highly recommend this book, not only for its excellent information about so many aspects of sharing the earth’s bounty, but also for its cultural insights. We who value the natural world and aim to share it with others can harvest wisdom in its pages.

Martha (Pinto) Kinscherff is a Hays County Master Naturalist—Monarchs Class of 2014. She has been working with the Kyle Parks to help HCMNs do more on the east side of Hays County. She is a retired Licensed Professional Counselor who enjoys paddling on Texas rivers, traveling, and writing and singing music.

Betsy Cross
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