npr: Leah Penniman was told she wasn’t welcome, from her first day in a conservative, almost all-whi
npr: Leah Penniman was told she wasn’t welcome, from her first day in a conservative, almost all-white kindergarten.She enjoyed learning and did well, but she also found solace in the natural world.Penniman later got a summer job farming in Boston, and she was hooked. She learned about sustainable agriculture and the African roots of those practices, but she also moved to Albany, N.Y., to a neighborhood classified as a food desert. To get fresh groceries from a farm share, she walked more than two miles with a newborn baby in a backpack and a toddler in the stroller, then walked back with the groceries resting on top of and around the sleeping toddler.She made it her goal to start a farm for her neighbors, and to provide fresh food to refugees, immigrants and people affected by mass incarceration. She calls the lack of access to fresh food “food apartheid” because it’s a human-created system of segregation.Penniman and her staff at Soul Fire Farm, located about 25 miles northeast of Albany, train black and Latinx farmers in growing techniques and management practices from the African diaspora, so they can play a part in addressing food access, health disparities, and other social issues. Penniman’s new book, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, details her experiences as a farmer and activist, how she found “real power and dignity” through food, and how people with zero experience in gardening and farming can do the same.‘Farming While Black’: A Guide To Finding Power And Dignity Through FoodFirst photo: Jamel Mosely/NPRSecond photo: Neshima Vitale-Penniman/NPR -- source link