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Farming While Black: African Diasporic Wisdom for Farming and Food Justice

Oct 28, 2020 - 5:00 PM
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Farming While Black: African Diasporic Wisdom for Farming and Food Justice

Poster for the event

The Sustainable Agriculture Graduate Program invites you to join us for:

Farming While Black: African Diasporic Wisdom for Farming and Food Justice

with 

Naima Penniman

Program Director - Soul Fire Farm

Petersburg, New York

Some of our most cherished sustainable farming practices - from organic agriculture to the farm cooperative and the CSA - have roots in African and Indigenous wisdom. And the vast majority of the food we consume in this country is grown by People of Color. Yet Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (B.I.P.O.C.) communities suffer disproportionately from illnesses related to lack of access to fresh food, healthy natural ecosystems and land.

Soul Fire Farm is committed to ending racism and injustice in our food system. Through programs such as the Black-Indigenous Farmers Immersion, a sliding-scale farmshare CSA, and Youth Food Justice leadership training, Soul Fire Farm is part of a global network of farmers working to increase farmland stewardship by people of color, restore Afro-indigenous farming practices, and end food apartheid.

Naima Penniman, Program Director at Soul Fire Farm, will guide us through the history and structural realities of racial injustice in the food system, and uplift the movement strategies of frontlines communities struggling for food sovereignty.

Join us to learn how you too can be part of the movement for food sovereignty and help build a food system based on justice, dignity, and abundance for all members of our community.

Wednesday, October 28 - Online Meeting

5:00 - 6:15 p.m. Presentation with Q&A Session

WebEx link: https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/j.php?MTID=m1724e63e161d3a42875356aba6...

Password: SUSAG600

Those not enrolled in SUSAG 600 may request to attend. Please send an email to kellis@iastate.edu

Naima Penniman is a multi-dimensional artist, movement builder, healer, grower and educator committed to planetary health and community resilience. She is the Program Director at SOUL FIRE FARM, where she coordinates Afro-Indigenous farming immersions and workshops to equip hundreds of adults and youth annually with the land-based skills needed to reclaim leadership as farmers and food justice organizers in their communities, to heal their relationship with earth, and to imagine bolder futures. She is the Co-Founder of WILDSEED Community Farm & Healing Village, a Black and Brown-led intentional community focused on ecological collaboration, transformative justice, and intergenerational responsibility. She is also the Co-Founder/Co-Artistic Director of CLIMBING POETREE, an internationally-acclaimed performance duo that uses art as a tool for popular education, community activism, and personal transformation. Naima is devoted to subverting injustice, igniting imagination, and cultivating collaborations that elevate the healing of our earth, ourselves, our communities, lineages and descendants.

Special thanks to Iowa State Lectures Series, Office of Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Diversity Committee, ISU Theatre, the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment, and the departments of Agronomy, and Horticulture for their financial support of this event.

Click here to view a recording of this presentation.

Resources Mentioned During the Presentation: