Building Bridges Past Trauma to Reconnect with the Land

Teens from the Godman Guild Association worked in the Weinland Community Garden in Columbus, Ohio. Photo Credit: Yolanda Owns

This article is from the Summer 2022 Agraria Journal.

By Yolanda Owens

“When I say agriculture, what do you think of?”

That’s what I asked a class of 10th to 12th graders in the Agriculture Pathway Program at Linden-McKinley STEM Academy in Columbus, Ohio. The young, multicultural group of students all looked at each other, afraid to say what they were really thinking.

“I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking. Go on, say it, it’s a part of history, and it happened,” I said.

One student stammers, “Slavery.”

If you would have asked a young Yolanda what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you an astrophysicist. Mae Jemison was the epitome of cool to me. She was a Black girl overachiever, just like me. Never would I have imagined that a science fair project on gravitropism (the process or differential growth by a plant in response to gravity pulling on it) would have me thinking more about the plant than the possibility of growing it in space.

I am the daughter of a first-generation American mother and a father one generation removed from slavery. My relationship with agriculture is not one shared by many of my colleagues at work. Like the student in my class, I too have associated farming with menial work and the enslavement of Black people. But years of learning and unlearning have helped change that perception and heal my relationship with agriculture. I began to see the beauty in the power of a seed. How something so small held the power to exponentially impact the world, if only nurtured.

My first awakening gut punch was while working at the Godman Guild Association, a settlement house in the Weinland Park community in Columbus. This was exciting because it was my first “real job” after graduating college. I was paired with a group of 15 youth who were to work for the next 10 weeks in the quarter-acre, award-winning Weinland Park Community Garden. More times than I care to count, they made jokes and commented about how this was “slave work.”

Slavery is traumatic for those who identify as Black. It is an ugly time in the history of our country and its effects are still felt today as we look at the agricultural landscape across our country. One of the biggest pieces of getting through trauma, or trauma recovery, is to address it. Pretending that it didn’t happen, disassociating from it, or simply ignoring it, from either side, only allows for it to fester and cause further issues in the relationship — even if the relationship is an inanimate concept. Because of this, I encourage the youth to say it, to talk about why they feel that way. Then to take a step back and look at why this happened.

Agriculture first originated in the Fertile Crescent, where the earliest farmers lived. From there it spread across Africa and throughout Asia before finally extending to Europe. During the latter parts of this expansion, before moving to Europe, agriculture was simultaneously spreading in the Americas via Indigenous populations. By the time European colonizers set foot on this continent, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) had been establishing agricultural communities for thousands of years. This is why, when it became clear that agriculture was key to the economic stability of the North American colonies, these experienced farmers were the folks who were kidnapped and forced into labor. They had both the knowledge and the strength because they had been doing this work for generations.

When I saw the impact of this knowledge on those youth, I knew that this was the story that I had to tell.

In the 1920s, approximately 14% of American farmers were Black or African American, mirroring the demographics of the general population. Today, while representing more than 12% of the general population, Black and African American farmers represent a mere 1.4% of all farmers. This small subset of farmers represent less than 0.5% of total U.S. farm sales.

Food and agriculture is one of the top industries in Ohio, accounting for nearly one in seven jobs. And yet Black and African Americans are missing out on the potential offered by this sector as a path to sustainability through land stewardship, access to healthy food, and economic progress.

For a group of folks who have historically been marginalized through work in the very same field, their relationship to agriculture is fraught with negative associations.

We must work to mend the relationship between Black folks and the land. Without having all the answers, because none of us do, we must look for ways to do our part by creating inclusive and affirming spaces. Talking about the trauma. Decentering the majority experiences and showing up to listen. Listening to learn, not to fix, not to affirm, but to learn why the feelings are there. Then showing up to do the work of creating a container that holds the truth of that trauma and the history that came before it. The history that connects this community, my community, to its glory of collaborative land stewardship.

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer was on to something when she said, “Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.”

Through my role as the newly appointed Pathways and Partnerships Strategist at The Ohio State University, it is my job to forge and grow partnerships and create pathways, across all life stages, for people to engage with the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. And, because of my own journey and experiences, I am passionate about collaborating to create inclusive spaces to re-engage disenfranchised populations.

Years of learning and unlearning have helped to restore my relationship with agriculture, and now it is my honor, and responsibility, to help restore that relationship for others.

Yolanda Owens is a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, and lover of things that are green. She is the Chief Cultivator of Forage + Black, a lifestyle brand at the intersection of Black culture and green thumbs. She was the first woman of color to serve as President of the Alumni Society at the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, where she now serves as the Pathways and Partnerships Strategist

Click here read the full Summer 2022 issue of the Agraria Journal.