Reconnecting to Ancestral Heritage: Black Farming in the Here and Now

The 2022 Regenerative Farmer Fellowship, from left: Sharifa Tomlinson, Sierra Hayden, Anita Armstead, RFF Assistant Coordinator River Johnson, Jordan Mapel, Amari Spears, Chebrya (Brie) Jeffery, Rhonda Miller, Gregory Muhammad, Alicia Chereton, RFF Coordinator Tia Stuart and Agraria Facilities Director Matthew Salazar. Not shown is Fellow Isabel Matos. (Photo by Dennie Eagleson)

This article is the introduction to the Summer 2022 Agraria Journal.

By Amy Harper

"We are the seeds of our ancestors' dreams." —Jim Embry

In the foreward to her book We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy, Natalie Baszile writes about a two-story mural along Interstate 80 between San Francisco and Sacramento. An homage to the rich agricultural heritage of the Central Valley, the mural shows a farmer kneeling among sunflowers. “He is a middle- aged man . . . and he’s white,” but that “tells only part of the story,” writes Baszile. “Surely, somewhere across the thousands of acres there must be a handful of Black and brown farmers. Who are they? What stories might they tell if given a chance?”

They might remember a time when Black-owned farms and farmers were visible, and plentiful.

In 1931, there were 480 Black farmers in Greene County, Ohio, where Agraria is located, according to a farm survey done by an Ohio State University student for his master’s thesis.

The story is starkly different today. According to the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture, there were no Black farmers in Greene County. Or at least none recorded by the census. The numbers state- and nationwide tell a similar story of loss and decline, due in large part to racist and discriminatory government policies and practices, as well as harassment and violence, that drove Black farmers from their lands and livelihoods.

But statistics tell only part of the story. As Dr. Analena Hope Hassberg points out in her introduction to Baszile’s book, “farming still lives in the bones and bodies of Black people.” And it lives in the “returning generation” of Black farmers who are reclaiming the rich and communal agricultural heritage of African-descended peoples.

That’s the story Baszile’s illuminating book tells. And that’s the story we have come to know at Agraria through our annual Black Farming Conference, our BIPOC Farming Network, and our Regenerative Farmer Fellowship Program. It’s also clear in this issue of the Agraria Journal.

Woven through it are stories that speak of an ancestral connection to seed and soil. Yolanda Owens writes about the “learning and unlearning” that helped heal her fraught relationship with agriculture and awakened her to the “beauty in the power of a seed.” Beth Bridgeman shares an interview with Ira Wallace, who believes in the importance of saving both seeds and seed stories. Cheryl Durgans and Sophia Buggs find their way to ancestral knowledge, heritage, and healing practices through connection and reconnection to soil and the plant families it sustains.

Omopé Carter Daboiku finds a calling and sanctuary in the simple acts of growing food and burying her hands in dirt. Cheryl Smith sends out a prayer of gratitude for the Black men and women who farmed and grew this country into existence, creating a lifeline to the present, and Tia Stuart paints an idyllic picture of a day in the life of her family farm. Susan Jennings finds a systemic solution to environmental meltdown in recognizing our interconnection with the natural world, as evidenced in the pioneering work of George Washington Carver and Indigenous agriculturalists. Terence Courtney and Rose Hardesty write about interconnection between people and place, about what has grown from the seeds planted by farmer cooperatives and community land trusts. Megan Bachman’s piece about our bioregional work also recognizes the importance of interconnection, of working together to strengthen regional resilience.

Our Journal would not be complete without a look at the multifaceted work we’re doing on the farm and in our region to train and support BIPOC farmers, demonstrate regenerative practices, explore alternative crops, connect kids with nature, restore our waterways and ecosystem, and strengthen the regional food system.

The pictorial timeline in this issue of the Journal acknowledges and celebrates our five-year journey from March 2017, when we purchased the farm, to now. Soon after the purchase we invited community members to join us in creating a vision for Agraria and a roadmap to guide our development.

We listened to what they said, and we listened to what the land was telling us.

What we heard was encapsulated in a conceptual map created by Antioch College professor Michael Casselli. It showed Agraria as a center for educational programming, a partner with local schools, and as a place for showcasing demonstration gardens and regenerative practices like agroforestry and rotational grazing. It envisioned our barn as a community gathering place, a compost center on site, a greenhouse for season extension, our partnership with The Nature Conservancy, and our bioregional work to strengthen the local food system.

We dreamed together, we planted seeds, and we have seen them grow over the last five years from vision to reality. We are grateful to the many friends and supporters who have worked with us to bring our visions to life, and we invite you to join us as we continue to grow together into a regenerative future.

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

Amy Harper is project manager at Agraria and editor of Agraria Journal.