Soul Fire Farm

Combatting Food Deserts at Soul Fire Farm


By Lauren Johnson

Background

 

In the south end of Albany NY, Black-Jewish residents Leah and Jonah Penniman were struggling to access fresh food for their children in this federally classified “food desert.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes a food desert as a location that lacks access to the nutritious food that makes up a balanced diet (2021).  Leah Penniman, the author of Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, articulates the importance of switching the term food desert to food apartheid: recognizing this is an anthropogenic (human-created) system resulting from systemic injustice (2018). About 24 million Americans have difficulty accessing affordable nutritious food. Like many other Americans, Leah and Jonah Penniman were surrounded by corner stores offering artificially processed foods. And the nearest grocery stores, which had to be accessed by car, offered inflated prices of low-quality food. However, the couple both had previous experiences in organic farming, through the organizations Many Hands Organic Farm and Live Power Farm. These are both organic farms centered around crop and soil quality, through processes of producing their feed, fertilizer, and energy from their land base. These processes are a part of regenerative agriculture; the renewal or restoration of a biological system (Engelhart, 2022).  So when the couple’s south-end neighbors caught wind of their experience in agriculture, they asked the couple if they planned to create a community farm for the locals. Science teacher Leah and natural building business worker Jonah Penniman both pondered this question, they were busy with their full-time jobs and raising their children. However, a deeply rooted love for their people and the land had won the Black-Jewish family over.

Figure 1: Shows a figure titled "Soul Fire Farm"

After combining their previous organic farming knowledge, investing their modest savings and spending four years generating soil and building infrastructure on 80 acres of land, Soul Fire Farm was established in 2010. Providing food delivery once a week to low-income communities living in these food deserts, accepting government benefits such as the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as payment (Penniman, 2018). However, as a Black woman, Leah Penniman noticed that there was an issue beyond food insecurity in her local neighborhood. 

 

 Farm management is one of the most dominantly white professions, while farm labor is predominantly brown (Penniman, 2018). This contrast in management versus labor reflects a lack of Black and brown leadership in a range of industries. Furthermore, large-scale agriculture contributes to 24% of greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of water consumption, and 37% of land use in the U.S. (Soul Fire Farm Community FAQ, 2022).  

Soul Fire Farm quickly redesigned and expanded its mission of providing farm-fresh food to lower-income neighborhoods, to become a land ethic and social justice mission. Soul Fire Farm became a farm with a mission guided towards the needs of people in the Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) community, including youth empowerment/organization. Specifically working with court-adjudicated, institutionalized, and state-targeted youth (Penniman, 2018). The community of Soul Fire Farm provides life-sustaining food to communities affected by food apartheid. Soul Fire Farm shares its expertise and wisdom to the next generation of farmer activists; offering courses in Afro-Indigenous regenerative agriculture to thousands of inspiring Black and Brown farmers (Johnson, Wilkinson, & Penniman, 2021). 

Figure 2: shows a large group of individuals from Soul Fire Farm, lifting a first to the air, in reference to their social justice mission and solidarity.  

Reasons for hope

 

Over the past 12 years, Soul Fire Farm has: 

 

Healthy soil can store mass carbon out of the atmosphere (Engelhart, 2022). Plants and the atmosphere can store about 1,700 gigatons of carbon. Whereas soil can store 4,000+ gigatons of carbon. Healthy soil can absorb water and carbon dioxide much better than unhealthy dirt. So back in 2006, when the land was first being prepped for farming, Larisa Jacobson, co-director of Soul Fire Farm, explains the soil tests revealed a meager 3-4% carbon content, with the soil appearing as carbon-tired gray clay, and hard (Johnson, Wilkinson, & Penniman, 2021). But under Larisa’s leadership, organic matter on the farm now is at pre-colonial levels of 10-12%, and the soil is now black, rich, and thriving. 

Figure 3: shows two Soul Fire Farm’s volunteers ‘fist bumping’ while in the process of farming 

Soul Fire Farm uses agroforestry– growing crops through trees, and tree diversification as their main farming method (Engelhart, 2022). Being deeply committed to this form of climate-resilient form of agriculture, they have planted over 3 acres of Silvo pasture, 1 acre of annual vegetables, and ½ of an acre of lowbush blueberries (2021 Annual Report, 2022). Silvo pasture is an indigenous system that uses nut/fruit trees and grasses to feed livestock (Johnson, Wilkinson, & Penniman, 2021). This technique can trap up to 42 tons of carbon per acre per year, due to pastures being able to store a significant amount of carbon in both trees and soil. Additionally, this method values trees rather than trying to remove them to create more space for farming and livestock to graze, persevering the landscape of Soul Fire Farm. 

By switching to regenerative agriculture, American farmers would be able to grow more food per acre, scalable to our entire agriculture system, and increase microbial growth in their soil, which would improve plant growth and the percentage of rainfall per year (Engelhart, 2022). As well as, these farmers would have the possibility to increase their annual profit by over $100 billion, and virtually eliminate their subsidies.


Insights and applications


Soul Fire Farm offers a variety of workshops in person. As well, a variety of online resources, guides, videos, and other sources discussing food justice are available on their website. All of these are written and developed by their team, for people for whom in-person visits are not practical. These resources also discuss the importance of dismantling racism and liberation.  


Regenerative agriculture is not just used by large farms and organizations; it can be as simple as creating a backyard compost. Applying food scraps, animal manures, and recyclables will improve soil quality and water-holding and absorption capacity.  

 

Start by purchasing or making a compost bin. The Rodale Institute offers an informative article on backyard composting basics; providing a cheat sheet to the basics of composting. This includes the building blocks of compost, which system is right for you, what can be composted, and how to manage your pile. All great resources to begin your composting journey.

Figure 4: shows an example of a compost pile, made up of many different types of compostable materials

A simpler way to begin to participate in regenerative agriculture is by supporting farmers who are ethically growing the produce we consume--crops that are organically grown and pesticide-free. Start by doing a regenerative diet once a week--a plant-based diet or eating meat from pasture-raised grass-fed humanely raised farms (Engelhart, 2022). The more you stick to this diet, the more it will fit into your life. 

 

Interested in seeing regenerative farms located in your area? Use the Regenerative Farm Map as a resource; you can select the exact product and location (country, state/province, zip code, and results within a radius of your chosen location). 


If you’d like to learn more about Soul Fire Farms continuous social and environmental justice mission click here.  

If you'd like to learn more about how to begin your own process of regenerative farming straight from the great minds of Soul Fire Farm, click here. 


Date: Fall 2022

Location: Grafton, NY 

Tags: Community Action



References  


2021 Annual Report. SOUL FIRE FARM. (2022, March 30). Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://www.soulfirefarm.org/about/annualreport/#dearflip-df_8250/11/ 

Carr, R. (2019, November 4). Backyard Composting Basics: A cheatsheet. Rodale Institute. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/backyard-composting-basics-a-cheatsheet/ 

Crop Rotations. Rodale Institute. (2020, December 15). Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://rodaleinstitute.org/why-organic/organic-farming-practices/crop-rotations/#:~:text=What%20is%20crop%20rotation%3F,combat%20pest%20and%20weed%20pressure. 

Engelhart, R. (2022, June 14). Watch the kiss the ground movie! - climate documentary. Kiss the Ground. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://kisstheground.com/support-the-film/ 

Flynn, R., & Idowu, J. (2015, June). Nitrogen fixation by Legumes: New Mexico State University - be bold. shape the future. Nitrogen Fixation by Legumes | New Mexico State University - BE BOLD. Shape the Future. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://pubs.nmsu.edu/_a/A129/ 

Gonzalez, R. (2018, October 11). 4 DIY compost bins you can build in one day (video). Treehugger. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://www.treehugger.com/diy-compost-bins-you-can-build-one-day-video-4858394 

Google. (n.d.). Soul Fire Farm Community FAQ. Google Docs. Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bwn153phRVk-q1Hr4OMnOv_xK9pQPR40bIWk7r4WBMs/edit 

Johnson, A. E., Wilkinson, K. K., & Penniman , L. (2021). Black Gold . In All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, & Solutions for the Climate Crisis (pp. 301–310). essay, One World. 

Penniman, L. (2018). Farming While Black: Soul fire farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. Chelsea Green Publishing. 

Regenerative Farm Map. Regeneration International. (2021, March 4). Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://regenerationinternational.org/regenerative-farm-map 

Soul fire farm. SOUL FIRE FARM. (2010, September 1). Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://www.soulfirefarm.org/ 

What is a food desert? causes, statistics, & resources. Ohio University. (2021, November 9). Retrieved November 19, 2022, from https://onlinemasters.ohio.edu/food-deserts-definition/