LEAH PENNIMAN on Land Based Liberation /72
Photo Soul Fire Farm
This week we are honored to host activist, farmer and educator, Leah Penniman. Leah lives in steadfast dedication to her mission of weaving the vast and vital threads of honoring heritage, building relationship to land and ending racism and injustice in the food system.
Soul Fire Farm in Upstate New York is a hotbed for regeneration, grassroots activism and education based in agroecology and Afro-Ecology, a form of art, movement, practice, and process of social and ecological transformation that involves the re-evaluation of our sacred relationships with land, water, air, seeds and food.
In 2009, Soul Fire’s soil was initially ranked on the worst level by the USDA Agricultural Soil Classification, with only 6 inches of topsoil. From 2009 to 2017, their topsoil increased by 300% (6 to 18 inches) through regenerative and ancestral farming practices now sequestering up to 4,000 pounds of carbon.
Leah and the folks of Soul Fire Farm leave no stone unturned in the integration between social and environmental justice. Leah serves as a true leader of our generation, asking us to show up to these times with full heart rooted tangible action, healing the earth and one another.
Leah Penniman
Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol educator, farmer/peyizan, author, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY. She co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2010 with the mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim our ancestral connection to land. As co-Executive Director, Leah is part of a team that facilitates powerful food sovereignty programs - including farmer training for Black & Brown people, a subsidized farm food distribution program for communities living under food apartheid, and domestic and international organizing toward equity in the food system.
Leah has been farming since 1996, holds an MA in Science Education and a BA in Environmental Science and International Development from Clark University, and is a Manye (Queen Mother) in Vodun. The work of Leah and Soul Fire Farm has been recognized by the Soros Racial Justice Fellowship, Fulbright Program, Grist 50, and James Beard Leadership Award, among others. Her book, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land is a love song for the land and her people.
♫ Music is “Night Glide” by Hana Shin.
For The Wild Podcast is an anthology of the Anthropocene; focused on land-based protection, co-liberation and intersectional storytelling rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth and consumerism.