Tucked away in the rolling hills of rural Rensselaer County, Soul Fire Farm is a sprouting seed of agricultural possibilities, a community farm committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system.
Soul Fire Farm started life as 80 acres of vacant undeveloped land in Petersburg.
"I'm Leah Penniman. I'm the co-founder and farm director at Soul Fire Farm and today we're having a community work and learn day. So folks have come from near and far. We have folks from Brooklyn, from Akwesasne, four and a half hours north, folks from nearby Bennington. And they're here to volunteer on the farm and learn a little bit about the regenerative, sustainable practices we use to grow our crops."
A true labor of love for Penniman, the farm is a work in progress.
“So I started farming in 1996. As a teenager, my first job was at the Food Project in Boston and Lincoln, Massachusetts," said Penniman. "I worked at several organic farms across most of Massachusetts, in my teens and early 20s. And then my spouse, Jonah, and I opened Soul Fire Farm in 2010, after four years of building up the infrastructure and soil.”
Penniman was working in Albany as a public schoolteacher while Jonah ran a "natural building" company.
“My spouse and I were living in the South End of Albany back in'05, our kids were very young then," Penniman said. "And it's a food apartheid neighborhood. You know, there's no fresh grocery stores or farmers markets. And so when our neighbors found out that we knew how to farm, they were encouraging us to create a farm for the people. And that was the original vision for Soul Fire Farm. So we started looking for land to fulfill that. And this land out here in Petersburg is quite inexpensive. We bought 80 acres for $150,000. At that time of raw vacant land, there was no infrastructure whatsoever.”
When the farm became a non-profit organization in 2015, special grants and funding projects were used to put up commercial buildings including a dining commons, sanctuary classroom and a lodging facility. Each year thousands of aspiring farmers and food system organizers participate in the farm's training and advocacy programs. The farm also delivers food to Capital Region households in need.
Penniman's sister Naima is Director of Education at the farm. She often leads tours of the farm that include a look at greenhouses, gardens, farm animals and even a mushroom patch. “So we’re a community farm and a learning center, and also a living community. So there's people who both call this home, and also a place of work, and we welcome thousands of people every year to learn with us. We teach Afro-indigenous farming skills that regenerate the land and grow an abundance of food for our community,” Naima said.
Lunch served on Community Work and Learn Day begins with a song. Danielle Peláez is the Farm Education Manager at Soul Fire Farm. Known for her work as a seedkeeper, she has a background in international public health but comes from a family of farmers and wanted to "get more connected to the land," eventually moving from Maryland. “And also working with kind of agricultural or like an environmental program in Albany called Radix where I was doing, like youth education that also involves like urban agriculture," said Peláez. "And yeah, had followed Soul Fire’s work for years by then, since I lived in Baltimore. And you know, just found it as a huge kind of inspiration.”
Penniman says crops are cultivated using organic and ancestral techniques. “Like Black and brown folks have been taking leadership in sustainable agriculture for time immemorial. I mean these raised beds that we're creating, these were invented by the Ovambo people of Namibia thousands of years ago, this compost we're using, you know, shout out to the Black earth, compost work of the folks of Liberia and Ghana. It’s been happening. It's just a matter of carrying on that legacy, increasing its visibility, trying to bring people into it. But I think of ourselves as, as both ancient and futuristic, you know, in terms of carrying on that work,” Penniman said.
Giovanni Harvey is spending a day of service during Earth Week volunteering at the farm. He is a graduate student at the University at Albany and current Chief of Staff of the student assembly. "Today here, just seeing how crucial and vital some of these things are not only to our personal health, but our societal health," said Harvey. "It's important for us to recognize that we only have one planet one earth and we have to be good stewards of that and be good stewards of the land then we've been given."
Before heading out to work in the fields, Penniman was in one of several greenhouses tending to young plants. "We have eggplant, peppers, peanuts. Yeah, those are peanuts right there I'm watering," Penniman said.
Dave Lucas: "Do they actually grow here?"
"They sure do. Yeah, we grow them in the high tunnel where it's a little warmer obviously. You got lettuce, spinach, cabbage, scallions, onions, kale, broccoli, peppers and tomatoes over here. Sorghum, flowers, summer squash and cucumbers, zucchini. That's not up yet, but that'll be up," said Penniman.
Rows of young fruit trees dot the land outside the greenhouses. Some have been planted on terraces.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that provides technical assistance to farmers and other private landowners and managers, once deemed the land, now regarded as a "regenerative sustainability hub," unfit for agricultural purposes.
Signs of new life in springtime are evident all across Soul Fire Farm. At the end of the day, Harvey looks forward to another visit. “I feel really tired but it was good. And it's interesting to see how you know what we eat on the dinner table gets made it gives you more of an appreciation for the work that this farm does and [I’m] excited to come back.”
