April Love Notes

The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.

Chinua Achebe

Welcome Spring!

We are in transitional time marked by days of wearing shorts out in the field and others where we are farming in the snow! This month has been almost entirely devoted to soil building and care, and germinating new seedlings. We’ve established urban gardens to help nourish our folks right where they’re at, and we’ve had our first on-farm workshops filled with the excitement of crocus flowers opening to sunlight. 

Despite the bustling and demanding nature of the season, 9 staff members have taken some vacation time this spring. We are taking turns to support one another’s rest and reset while we continue to move our vast and sacred work forward.

We are growing, together. 

Read on for April updates and May invitations below. 

With tender love and care,

Azuré, Briana, Brooke, Cheryl, Clara, Danielle, Hillary, Ife, Jonah, Kai, Leah, Naima, Ria and Shay

This month has been almost entirely devoted to soil building and care. We built beautiful garden terraces out of compost and forest debris, covered our annual planting beds and high tunnels with silage tarps, spread compost on the perennial bushes, and moved the goat and chicken manure that had accumulated over the winter into compost piles.

The farm team together with the entire Soul Fire Farm farm-ily would like to make you a special offer from our hearts. As you know, over 950,000 people have died from COVID-19 in this country alone since the start of the pandemic, with Black, Indigenous, and Latine communities disproportionately impacted. As we continue to plant our east field fruit and nut orchard, we would like to dedicate the trees and plants to our beloved ancestors who have been lost in this upending time. If you would like a tree dedicated to your loved one, please let us know by filling out THIS FORM. There is no cost for dedicating a tree to a loved one. 

Learn about foraging and wildcrafting with the Soul Fire Farm team.

Learn about foraging and wildcrafting from BIPOC, queer, and rural perspectives. Soul Fire Farm team members Ria and Jonah will lead a playful, exploratory walk through the fields and forests to greet our plant and fungi friends and learn about how they provide food and medicine. Together with Leah, they will include discussion of sustainable harvest and sacred foraging practices in the Black Diaspora, Jewish Diaspora, and Indigenous Indonesian cultures. We will finish by cooking up some of our harvest together and tasting the bounty.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER

This event is part of Foraged NY – Troy. Learn more at https://www.foragednewyork.org/

Admission is by freewill donation and no one is turned away for lack of funds.

Ethnomycology in Africa and the Diaspora + Hands-on Mushroom Cultivation

For our first 3D, Darren Springer, mycologist and educator based in the UK, came to Soul Fire Farm to share his knowledge and passion about the astounding world of fungi! 

We traveled far into the past and future, underground and into outer space learning about mushrooms’ role in the development of our planet and species. After a delicious mushroom lasagna lunch prepared by Ria, Darren taught us how to make our own cultures, inoculate grain spawn, and create our own substrates. And Naima shared outdoor mushroom cultivation techniques including growing wine caps in wood chips and shiitakes on logs. We had a blast!

And we have more 3D Skillshares coming up…!

Honoring the Land
Thursday, May 12, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm EDT

Next up in our 3D Skill Share series, Farm Director Leah Penniman and xóchicoatl bello of la mala yerba will guide us through an offering to deepen with our collective responsibility as earth stewards. 

Honoring the Land uplifts ecological humility as part of the cultural heritage of Black and Indigenous people. Leah and xóchicoatl share how they hold onto their ancestral practices, in the Yoruba Orisa, Vodun, and Mexica traditions, revering land and water as family members. Join us in learning how to cultivate the art of listening to our beyond human siblings and how to be in reciprocity with the spirit of the land and people of the lands we make our homes 

This 90 minute virtual workshop is a BIPOC event. 

Register here.

Naima and Danielle have been cruising around Albany, Troy and Schenectady in a big red truck filled with soil, compost and seedlings. They have been establishing gardens for community members who are looking to increase their food sovereignty.  

So far we’ve set up 6 gardens and we’ll do 4 more next week! We are also continuing to support our returning gardeners with seedling deliveries and ongoing guidance. 

Click here if you would like to volunteer to support the effort.

In our last Ask A Sista Farmer, we were joined by the incredible Leslie Woodward, creator of Edenesque, who discussed entrepreneurship, resilience, and innovation! Listen to that episode here. 

Join us on Friday, May 6th, 4:00-4:40 ET for our next episode on instagram live @soulfirefarm with Kimberly Haynie, founder of RivahView Farms and The Lavender Noir. She’ll be dropping knowledge on row crop farming, navigating USDA to obtain loans, and bookkeeping. Tune in!

Check out past episodes here (IGTV) and here (FB). Full list of past episodes here. 

Soul Fire Farm is hosting 8 tours throughout the 2022 farming season so that our beloved community can experience some of the plants, animals and humans that grow here. Starting in May, we will guide you through the growing fields and agroforestry gardens, take you up close to the building projects, share whole-hearted stories, and answer your questions. 

Our first one kicks off May 27 with Darrow students, and we have in-person tickets and virtual tickets available beginning June 10! Learn more and register here.

Farm-ily! We are delighted that after a 2-year pandemic pause, we are able to resume our alumni reunion in person at Soul Fire Farm! Please join us Friday, June 24 through Sunday, June 26 for a weekend of reconnecting to one another and to the land. We will enjoy shared meals, hands-on-the-land, workshops, sacred play, and rest. The weekend culminates with our SOULstice party, which welcomes hundreds of community members to the land for one of the most lit dance parties upstate!

⇨ REGISTER HERE ⇦

May 1st is the deadline to apply for the Braiding Seeds Fellowship for the 2022-2023 cohort!

*If you are a beginning BIPOC farmer with 1-4 years of experience please click here to find the full eligibility details and information on how to apply.*

On April 6th we had our annual Selection Committee Q&A Webinar. Selection Committee members and key partners were invited to share the relevancy of the fellowship to their communities and to share information about their organizations. Those organizations are as follows:  Federation of Southern Cooperatives, Land Loss Prevention Project. Fresh Future Farm, National Black Food and Justice Alliance, NEFOC, New Communities Inc/SW GA Project., Black Church Food Security Network, Southeastern African American Farmers’ Organic Network, Farms to Grow,  Black Farmer Fund, and Farm School NYC. The co-managers of the fellowship were also able to answer any questions about the application process. Slides from the event can be found here.

Our Office renovation project is now “dried in”, meaning the new addition currently has the weather resistant barrier installed on the roof and walls. This means that the new building is protected from the elements while allowing us to work comfortably and safely on the interior of the building. We completed the interior demolition, installed the subfloor, and are working on framing our interior partition walls, stairs and deck, and are coordinating plumbing, electric, HVAC and insulation.

Our commitment to ecological farming practices is so foundational that we sometimes forget to make it visible. We use farming practices like perennial polycultures, minimal tillage, mulch and compost, silvopasture, semi-permanent raised beds, crop rotation, and cover crops that sequester carbon, increase soil biodiversity, and protect the health of humans and other beings. We do not use chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and we minimize fossil fuel inputs. In order to be more accountable to our community, we participate in the Certified Naturally Grown program and submit to an annual inspection to verify that we farm according to strict environmental standards. We are working with CNG to make the program more accessible to Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other farmers who have not found a home in the USDA Organic program. We welcome dialogue about farming practices and certifications – what has worked for you? 

The Praxis series reflects on how our community can best put our values into action, sharing resources, ideas, and practice toward collective liberation. These will be shared each month in Love Notes and also on social media. 

Greetings and abundant goodness to all reading this, and especially to our illustrious alumni!  The transitions from winter to spring have ushered in big changes and even bigger plans that  bring renewed energy and excitement. Check out the Alumni Reunion Campout announcement below, as well as highlights of the great work of our alumni! 

Alumni of any weeklong farming or building immersion are welcome to join us Friday, June 24 through Sunday, June 26 IN REAL LIFE for a weekend of reconnecting to one another and to the land. We will enjoy shared meals, hands-on-the-land, workshops, sacred play, and rest. The weekend culminates with our SOULstice party, which welcomes hundreds of community members to the land for one of the most lit dance parties upstate! More details

⇨ REGISTER HERE ⇦

“We have plans to expand to a farm share/community farm,” she shares. “Currently, the jobs assigned are as follows: Christopher Sr, Christopher Jr, and Christen will be in charge of the marijuana enterprise, Chris will be in charge of the dog breeding and goat herding enterprises, Bless’n will be in charge of the chicken and goat herding enterprises, Trust will be in charge of the beekeeping and goat herding enterprises, Zion and Reign will be in charge of the vegetable and herbal garden enterprises. I will be managing the farm along with soil care, vegetable, berries, flowers, and herb growth. Later on down the line, we will have fruit and nut trees as well. Making this decision to take this farm journey is one of the best decisions I have made. Although I’m not as profitable as I would like to be, I am still a lot more knowledgeable and skilled than I was 5 years ago.” 

• Article on NPQ: Rethinking Food Culture Might Save Us with Leah Penniman
• Article in Saveur with Naima Penniman

Oppression underwrites our food system, and a tangible action to address food sovereignty in our communities is taking reparations into our own hands through the creation of the Reparations Map for Black-Indigenous Farmers. We recognize that the food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and other people of color. We also know that we cannot wait for the government to acknowledge that stolen wealth and land must be returned. Some farmers have already received funding through this project, and we want to provide that opportunity to other Black and Brown farmers. If you have resources you want to share contact a farmer directly to share them, or if you have a project you want to include on the map contact Northeast Farmers of Color!