Why Race Matters: Black Farmers and Land Ownership

Providing Market Opportunity to Under-Represented Farmers

Duane Reed of Black Farmers Index helps set up the La Fete Holiday market, the organization's pop-up winter market in Louisiana. Photo credit: Black Farmers Index

What does it mean to grow great food but nowhere to sell it? That is a question we’ve tackled at The Index since our inception. 

Market opportunities are critical for farmers to sustain themselves and grow, but in Louisiana, that can be far and few between, especially for growers of color. So we decided to launch a market startup to give farmers in towns, smaller parishes, and medium-sized cities the opportunity as a marketplace featuring Black growers. As a result, La Fȇte Holiday Market was birthed. 

After breakfast and the meeting, farmers were invited to set up an outdoor farmers' marketplace called La Fête Holiday Market. Our pop-up was a holiday-themed event so that Lafayette residents and surrounding towns could buy locally grown, freshly harvested produce for their winter celebrations. 

The staff at Black Farmers Index saw the importance of providing market opportunities to farmers and offering a platform to gain more agricultural knowledge while building their networks of peers in the state. 

In total, nine farmers sold fresh raw honey, eggs, a variety of fruits such as apples, oranges, and persimmons, and a range of vegetables such as okra, mustard greens, kale, radishes, green onions, collards, and bok choy. 

The farmers were the following: Cryer’s Produce, 4Vics Farm, L4S Farms, Driftwood Farms, Jubilee Justice, Dr. Nettles Farm, Catalan Farms, Maison de Creole, and Lafayette Community Garden. The event was open to the local community members.

Since the meeting was held at the Francois-Benoit American Legion Post No. 504, the organization's members assisted veteran farmers in learning about the benefits they can receive as farmers and vets. 

“We think it is important to give underrepresented growers every opportunity to showcase their operations and bring their food to the market,” said Amara Brown, the organization’s communications strategist and event coordinator.

The event had such an impact on the community and farmers that the Legion extended an invitation for it to be held there annually.

If you give a hungry man food, he will eat it. 

If you give him land, he will grow his own food.

Fannie Lou Hamer talking about her Freedom Farm Cooperative

Reference:  https://blackfarmersindex.com/f/providing-market-opportunity-to-under-represented-farmers

Our Roots: Black Farmers Index

Reposted for Caryl Henry Alexander:  https://blackfarmersindex.com/reg-3-maryland

Black Farmers Index started as a solutions-based journalism project launched by Ark Republic on April 14, 2020, to provide a small list of Black farmers to address the rising food security issues during the global pandemic.

Initially, the list was 150 farmers. Today, we have over 1,200 row crop farmers, ranchers, poultry farmers, vegetable and fruit producers, grains and nut harvesters, beekeepers, fisherfolk, oystermen, foresters, foragers, and vintners. 

How did we grow? Because of the overwhelming response from the public during the George Floyd protests, when Juneteenth came along, there was an explosion of people across racial and social lines interested in supporting Black growers. Quickly, the Index organically evolved into its own identity.

In July 2020, we became a non-profit organization. In November 2021, we were granted 501 c3 status.

Today, we focus on several main areas:

1. Expanding the directory 

2. Highlighting Black agriculturalists 

3. Bringing business to our Index members

4. Providing information to farmers 

5. Educating farmers and the public

6. Hosting events connecting growers to consumers

7. Researching and writing reports on Black farmers

The Back Story

Food is the backbone of any society. During the global Covid-19 crisis, food as the world's lifeline has become more evident. However, when the online news outlet Ark Republic saw growing food insecurities in the US, they wanted to offer a solution.

During Ark Republic’s reporting and analysis from China to Europe, they predicted that food security would be one of the most critical issues in the US. When they discovered the fast-growing food security issues in the country, they wanted to offer a solution rather than continue to report on the problems. One of their answers was to compile a list of Black farmers who could sell directly to consumers immediately.

They selected Black farmers due to an ongoing history of experiencing the roughest hardships during every economic crisis in the US. In general, Blacks have undergone generations of systemic racism and domestic terror, but agrarian Black communities were the first, and longest to know the various types of economic assault and lack of security post-Emancipation. Knowing that, we concluded that the most vulnerable and exploited group in the farming industry should be used.

From a practical view, Black farmers understand how to carry out some of the most challenging work with little resources. With the current state of the US, we are in dire need of that type of mastery of knowledge. As a result, Ark Republic reached out to farming networks on several social media platforms, spoke to farmers directly, and conducted extensive research for two weeks.

In the first wave of data gathering, they discovered a grave lack of information on Black farms and farmers, which proved difficult for our project. According to the Department of Agriculture, in 2017, there were 3.2 million white farmers, but only 45,508 Black-owned farms. Along with their under-representation and financial woes, we discovered that many Black farmers fall within the Baby Boomer generation and have limited access to technology or effective digital literacy skills. Nonetheless, the response was overwhelming by a younger wave of the Black agrarian community who insisted on compiling data for them. 

Due to the strong response, the Black Farmers Index was birthed as its own entity. It became a non-profit organization in July 2020. Now, it is a sister organization and fiscal sponsor to Ark Republic. 

In the Black Farmer’s Index, we offer a region-by-region listing of Black farms. The data is ever-growing, so if you have a farmer to add, we welcome the addition.

Behind The Index

Sistars Samaria Marley- Host Juniper's Garden

https://www.junipersgarden.org/

Junipers Garden is a small-scale family farm in Brandywine, Maryland. We grow herbs, flowers, African American heritage crops, and more. This year we are excited to offer a Herbal C.S.A. membership. The C.S.A. will provide fresh herbs, herbal products, seedlings, and nourishing foods. This C.S.A. is perfect for herbalists, foodies, gardeners, and spiritualists. Build your own home apothecary! 

https://issuu.com/mncppc/docs/brandywine_study/4

2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods:

An Art & Wellness Festival

Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467

"2023 Summer Solstice: The Land" is a living, creative, and cultural experiment with sustainable practice at its center. It incubates the artist's and community's personal and collective transformation.

For one week, June 12-16, 2023, artists of diverse disciplines and ages will converge at Juniper's Garden for a week-long residency. Their collective goal is to build generational bridges while working with ideas and materials that emanate from the land to create installations that answer the question, "How we will rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable places to live." Importantly, this conversation addresses environmental justice's physical and psychological dimensions and impact. The residency will occur in Maryland's Prince Georges's County, the Southernmost region, and its remaining rural tier.

On Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm, as part of the 2023 Summer Solstice Oasis In The Woods: An Art & Wellness Festival at Juniper's Garden, the artists will host an open house where they will be present to offer free and open to the public gallery walks. In addition, they will be contributing stories of their experiences with the South County ecosystem and the process by which their installations came together.

HOST: Samaria Marley

Junipers Garden- 18104 Croom Rd Brandywine MD, 20613/ 202-270-2039 /samariamarley@gmail.com

About the Facilitators, Samaria is a farmer, herbalist, and co-owner of Junipers Garden. She has worked in agriculture and food justice in the D.C. metro region for over ten years. Her innovative and visionary approach has helped to usher in accessible models of food access and community-centered care. She developed the first low-cost C.S.A. model, C.R.I.S.P., in DC 2016. Then went on to manage The Farm at Kelly Miller in NE DC for four years. She is also the co-founder of the D.C. Mutual Aid Apothecary, a mutual aid organization that connects people to herbal medicine, education, and community.

She began her herbalism journey in 2015 and has studied with Wild Ginger Herbal Center, Well of Indigenous Wisdom, and the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She is also a 2022 Braiding Seeds Fellow. Samaria and her partner Blain recently opened Junipers Garden, a small-scale vegetable and medicinal herb farm in Brandywine, MD, whose mission is to provide a space for black and brown people to be on land, reclaim their ancestral healing and farming practices, traditions, and seeds and gain access to valuable knowledge and resources. The farm hosts seasonal events, herbalism workshops, retreats, and natural building workshops.

D.M.V. Black Owned and Operated Farms

https://www.marylandmarketmoney.org/news/dmv-black-owned-and-operated-farms-d6ta3

Special thanks to the Black Church Food Security Network, Future Harvest, and Maryland Market Money participating markets for helping us compile this perpetually growing list. If we left somebody out, it was not intentional. Please let us know using the form below.

Maryland

Harwood Community Garden Baltimore, MD

Hidden Harvest Farm Baltimore, MD

Honey Hemp Farms Upper Marlboro, MD

Jenny's Market Friendship, Maryland

Kindread Hill Farm Ellicott City, MD

Maxine's Garden at Pleasant Hope Baptist Church Baltimore, MD

My Mustard Seed St. Leonard, MD

Myles Produce Capitol Heights, MD

Native Mountain Farm Boonsboro, MD

New Brooklyn Farms Prince George's County, MD

Peaceful Acres Farm Glenwood, MD

Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm Baltimore, MD

Pop! Farm Baltimore, MD

Primo Noir Capital Heights, MD

Purple Mountain Organics Takoma Park, MD

Real Food Farm Baltimore, MD

Strength to Love II Baltimore, MD

Sweet Love Flower Farm Upper Marlboro, MD

Tripple Springs Farm Brandywine, MD

Whitelock Community Farm Baltimore, MD

Windy Willow Farm Sunderland, MD

804 Cattle Company Upper Marlboro, MD

Backyard Basecamp Baltimore, MD

Baltimore Free Farm Baltimore, MD

Bearfoot Farm Baltimore, MD

BLISS Meadows Baltimore, MD

Bon Secours Community Works Baltimore, MD

Cherry Hill Urban Community Garden Baltimore, MD

Elements of Nature Clinton, MD

Curemore Farms Upper Marlboro, MD

Deep Roots Farm Brandywine, MD

Dodo Farms Brookeville, MD

Double Z Cowboy Corral Faulkner, MD

Empower Project Baltimore Baltimore, MD

Eco City Farms Riverdale, MD

Filbert Street Garden Baltimore, MD

Flower of the Forest Farm Lexington Park, MD

Four Mothers Farm Princess Anne, MD

Friends of Great Kids Farm Baltimore, MD

The Green Anarchist Annapolis, MD

The Greener Garden Urban Farm Baltimore, MD

Harlem Park Community Farm Baltimore, MD

The H.A.T. Shop (Healthy Alternative Treatment) MD

Washington, D.C.

Good Sense Farm Washington, DC

Three Part Harmony Farm Washington, DC

Soilful City Washington, DC

Cultivate the City Washington, DC

DC Greens Washington, DC

Dreaming out Loud Washington, DC

District Growers Washington, DC

Virginia

Gardens of Khmet Madison County, VA

GoGreen Farms and Greenhouses VA

Melanated Medicinals Prospect, VA

Mighty Thundercloud Edible Forest Birdsnest, VA

Sun Path Gardens Richmond, VA

Sylvanaqua Farms Montross, VA

Vanguard Ranch Gordonsville, VA

Waddle Om Farm Scottsville, VA

WoodBox Farm Engleside, VA

5th District Mini Farm Richmond, VA

Airport Food Forest Ashland, VA

Botanical Bites Provisions Fredericksburg, VA

Browntown Farms Warfield, VA

AgNCulture Brunswick County, VA

Carter Farms Orange County, VA

Cusheeba Earth Onley, VA

Haynie Farms Reedville, VA

Fitrah Farms Orange County, VA

https://farmersmarketcoalition.org/the-anti-racist-farmers-market-toolkit/

Rekindling this list of Black farmers and growers in the D.M.V. region (with a focus on Maryland) in honor of Black History Month. 

Black farmers comprised 14% of America's farmers almost a century ago. Today, they account for less than 2%. 

Maryland Market Money is proud to support Black farmers and food producers.

We encourage you to use your dollars to do the same at markets, farm stands, and C.S.A.s every month.

Chantel Bennett Joins "Oasis in the Woods" 2023 Retreat

My name is Chantel Bennett, and my preferred pronouns are she/her. I hold a Master's degree in Social Work. I believe in dreaming before thinking as you climb the ladder of trust and power. This is beautifully captured in the words of Toni Morrison.

Chantel (she/her) is a Caribbean-American multidisciplinary artist and spiritual diviner. She hasn't found a medium she won't try at least once and often cycles through periods of focusing on one or three mediums more than others. She is currently focusing on fiber arts and collage.

 

After learning how to knit through TikTok and YouTube University, she is working on replacing her storebought sweaters and knitwear with clothes she knit or crocheted herself. She learned how to crochet from her mother at a young age and often has at least two fiber projects going at once. 

She uses collages for emotional expression and has led therapeutic art journaling and collaging sessions for over 7 years. After completing her Master's in Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, in May 2023, she plans to become an art therapist and incorporate creative self-expression into her therapy practice.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467

Grandmother's Circle, "Those That Help Us Find Our Way"

How will we rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable living places? 

Six artists will answer this question with land-based art installations during a week-long artist residency at Juniper's Garden. 

FEATURED ARTISTS AND GUEST CURATOR ALPHA BRUTON

Alpha Bruton, 2012 Wanderlust, in a German Garden 

Alpha Bruton, phantomgallerychicago@gmail.com,  

Chief Curator Phantom Gallery Chicago Network, the Phantom Galleries, are temporary exhibitions in nontraditional gallery settings. The mission of the (PGCN) is to promote the betterment of the visual arts community through the arts, promote personal achievement in striving for excellence and continual growth as an artist, and promote cultural activities in exhibits, workshops; galleries exhibitions; art centers; artists in residence projects. 

She is the Co-founder of the Visual Arts Development Project (VADP), formed in 1996. It is an art service organization - that develops projects as living experiments for sustainable practices and an incubator for personal and collective transformation. Visual Arts Development Project is a community-based art organization that provides children, adults, and emerging artists with resources, workshops, and venues to show and express their art form. 

Oasis in the Woods is a 2-Day Arts Festival Showcasing 

2023 Environmental Installations Artists and Celebrating the Summer Solstice!

Mark your calendars now & stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks!

Brought to you by @junipersgarden, @carylhenryalexander, @Phantomgallerychicago. @liminal.grace

 ELEMENTS FROM THE ARCHIVES 2013 "THE LAND" 

Fire Pit, Found Objects Repurposed, 2013 @ Bruton

Grandmother's Circle, installation, 2013 @ Bruton 

Labyrinth by Caryl Henry Alexander,  Happy Hyder, 2013

What is the spiritual meaning of a labyrinth? A labyrinth is an ancient symbol of wholeness. The imagery of the Circle and spiral combine into a meandering but purposeful journey. The Labyrinth represents a journey or path to our center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools.

Grandmother's Circle Storytelling, 2013

Tree Decorating @Caryl Henry Alexander

Nature, Culture, Public Space Curator Caryl Henry Alexander

2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods:
An Art & Wellness Festival
Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467

"2023 Summer Solstice: The Land" is a living creative, and cultural experiment with sustainable practice at its center. It incubates the artist's and community's personal and collective transformation.

For one week, June 12-16, 2023, artists of diverse disciplines and ages will converge at Juniper's Garden for a week-long residency. Their collective goal is to build generational bridges while working with ideas and materials that emanate from the land to create installations that answer the question, "How we will rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable places to live." Importantly, this conversation addresses environmental justice's physical and psychological dimensions and impact. The residency will occur in Maryland's Prince George's County, the Southernmost region, and its remaining rural tier.

On Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm, as part of the 2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods: An Art & Wellness Festival at Juniper's Garden, the artists will host an open house where they will be present to offer free and open to the public gallery walks. In addition, they will be contributing stories of their experiences with the South County ecosystem and the process by which their installations came together.

Curator/ Environmental Installation:

For more information, artists that wish to participate.

Caryl Henry Alexander, carylhenryalexander@gmail.com  https://www.carylhenryalexander.com/

For more than 40 years, Caryl Henry Alexander's work has harnessed the power of creative collaboration with multi-generational, multicultural, and interfaith communities to conceive, design, and implement community art projects in diverse public settings around the globe. In the studio, Caryl's work includes painting, printmaking, papermaking, textiles, installations, and sculpture. Her media are traditional and experimental, often incorporating recycled or found objects and natural plant materials. Out in the community, she combines her roles as a visual artist, teaching artist, curator, researcher, lecturer, writer, and social activist to support communities in clarifying their shared goals and turning their ideas into action. Her long-term focus is on culture, environment, and nature. She has exhibited throughout the US and abroad. Her media are traditional and experimental, often incorporating recycled or found objects and natural plant materials.

FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE PHANTOM GALLERY CHICAGO

WOMEN ARTISTS OF THE AMERICAN WEST - FEATURED CARYL HENRY

2001 Nature, Culture, Public Space-- 

 "My life as an artist comprises several activities reflected in my artworks. I work as a studio artist, a community and public artist, and an educator.

For me, art is medicined: it brings me in close touch with the life force at the center of my being. It reflects where I am and how I can travel through the world at this time in history. This search for self and connection with community speaks to all present in our post-modern culture. I often look for places where I can feel a solid connection to nature.

Travel figures prominently in my process, as it is often through collaboration with other artists that I can see my own truth. Toward this end, I have traveled to France, Cuba, Mexico, and most recently to Nigeria and West Africa to share ideas and processes with artists and to exhibit my work.

I was trained as a printmaker and have worked in sculpture, painting, mixed media, installation, and public art throughout my career. 

My current concerns are fully integrating my African experiences and processing a more robust vision of who I am as an African American into my art. This is taking the form of studio paintings, prints, and sculptures. Also, I am working to bring my images and vision out of the traditional gallery environment and into the public arena through site-specific public artworks. 

2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods: An Art & Wellness Festival

 

2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods:
An Art & Wellness Festival
Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467

“2023 Summer Solstice: The Land” is a living creative, and cultural experiment with sustainable practice at its center. It is an incubator for the artist’s and community’s personal and collective transformation.

 

For one week, June 12-16, 2023, artists of diverse disciplines and ages will converge at Juniper’s Garden for a week-long residency. Their collective goal is to build generational bridges while working with ideas and materials that emanate from the land to create installations that answer the question, “How we will rebuild our communities to be stronger and recreate sustainable places to live.” Importantly, this conversation addresses environmental justice's physical and psychological dimensions and impact. The residency will occur in Maryland’s Prince George's County, the Southernmost region, and its remaining rural tier.

 

On Friday, June 16, 2023, 6-9 pm, as part of the 2023 Summer Solstice Oasis in The Woods: An Art & Wellness Festival at Juniper’s Garden, the artists will host an open house where they will be present to offer free and open to the public gallery walks. In addition, they will be contributing stories of their experiences with the South County ecosystem and the process by which their installations came together.

2023 ARTIST/CURATORS/FACULTY 

FACILITATOR/HOST: Samaria Marley

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oasis-in-the-woods-an-arts-wellness-festival-tickets-638393942467

Samaria is a farmer, herbalist, and co-owner of Junipers Garden. She has worked in agriculture and food justice in the DC metro region for over ten years. Her innovative and visionary approach has helped to usher in accessible models of food access and community-centered care. She developed the first low-cost CSA model, C.R.I.S.P., in DC in 2016. Then went on to manage The Farm at Kelly Miller in NE DC for four years. She is also the co-founder of the DC Mutual Aid Apothecary, a mutual aid organization that connects people to herbal medicine, education, and community.

She began her herbalism journey in 2015 and has studied with Wild Ginger Herbal Center, Well of Indigenous Wisdom, and the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. She is also a 2022 Braiding Seeds Fellow. Samaria and her partner Blain recently opened Junipers Garden, a small-scale vegetable and medicinal herb farm in Brandywine, MD, whose mission is to provide a space for black and brown people to be on land, reclaim their ancestral healing and farming practices, traditions, and seeds and gain access to valuable knowledge and resources. The farm hosts seasonal events, herbalism workshops, retreats, and natural building workshops.

Curators:

Caryl Henry Alexander,

For more than 40 years, Caryl Henry Alexander’s work has harnessed the power of creative collaboration with multi-generational, multicultural, and interfaith communities to conceive, design, and implement community art projects in diverse public settings around the globe. In the studio, Caryl's work includes painting, printmaking, papermaking, textiles, installations, and sculpture. Her media are traditional and experimental, often incorporating recycled or found objects and natural plant materials. 

Out in the community, she combines her roles as a visual artist, teaching artist, curator, researcher, lecturer, writer, and social activist to support communities in clarifying their shared goals and turning their ideas into action.  Her long-term focus is on culture, environment, and nature. She has exhibited throughout the US and abroad. Her media are traditional and experimental, often incorporating recycled or found objects and natural plant materials.

Alpha Bruton, 

Chief Curator Phantom Gallery Chicago Network, the Phantom Galleries, are temporary exhibitions in nontraditional gallery settings. The mission of the (PGCN) is to promote the betterment of the visual arts community through the arts, promote personal achievement in striving for excellence and continual growth as an artist, and promote cultural activities in exhibits, workshops; galleries exhibitions; art centers; artists in residence projects. She is the Co-founder of the Visual Arts Development Project (VADP), formed in 1996. It is an art service organization - that develops projects as living experiments for sustainable practices and an incubator for personal and collective transformation. Visual Arts Development Project is a community-based art organization that provides children, adults, and emerging artists with resources, workshops, and venues to show and express their art form. https://vartsdevelopmentproject.blogspot.com

Jennifer Andrea "YAYA" Porras- Holds a B.A. in Theater/Dance Arts from CSU- Sacramento. 

During her studies and the American Southwest, she was a cultural ambassador, arts educator, and performing artist in China, Mexico, Africa, and Cuba. A multi-talented artist who has received Fellowships from Teatro Campesino, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), was a youth mentor and video documenter for the Center for African Peace Conflict Resolution. Curator of the International Society of Altar Making artist constructs temporary installations which are curated by master altar makers drawing on personal history: Envisioned to evoke the transformative value of historical and contemporary cultural traditions, MAP's Gallery uses the power of myth, stories, and imagination to give voice to the universality of cultural traditions.

https://vartsdevelopmentproject.blogspot.com/2023/02/yaya-porras-berkeley-poetry-festival.html

Happy/L. A Hyder – Photographer executive director of Lesbians in the Visual Arts has been an arts activist and fine art photographer in the Bay Area for more than three decades. She taught herself photography with a Hasselblad camera in 1971 (the same year she learned to belly dance) and has been developing her craft ever since. https://www.edgewater-gallery.com/happyla-hyder-1/

I am an artist using the camera as my tool and the negative as my canvas.  Loving the intricacies of architecture, I seek the same in nature.  Every day since spring 2016 (my first in Mendocino following 47 years in San Francisco) finds me ecstatic as I became physically and visually immersed in this vibrant area. I claim the pictorialist photographers of 1950s' Life Magazine as mentors; their crisp, sometimes stark, B&W images began my love of photography, informing my budding vision and, to this day, making me exact in my choice of image to take and to print.

Gabrielle Gilliam, g.gilliam024@gmail.com

Gigi is a holistic wellness educator, experienced curator, 200-hour certified vinyasa yoga teacher, social justice advocate, and an eternal student of life. She uses the principles of yoga, mindfulness attitudes, and natural wisdom as catalysts for ease, empowerment, and liberation. With a strong belief that holding space for collective reflection, imagination, and transformation is the key to meaningful change, Gigi regards her work as spiritual activism. Her teaching style honors the beauty and nuance of the human experience while encouraging individual power and curiosity along the way.

"Vinyasa" is a Place for Collective Reflection, Imagination, and Transformation