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I’m super excited because my guest is as passionate about social justice as I am and she’s used her life and skills to really connect social justice and food justice together. I think you will love this interview with Leah Penniman from http://www.soulfirefarm.org/ (Soul Fire Farm ) in New York!   http://www.soulfirefarm.org/ (Soul Fire Farm )is committed to ending racism and injustice in our food system. 20 years of experience as a soil steward and food sovereignty activist. Tell us a little about yourself. https://amzn.to/2uEWpNq (Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land)Definitely, I’d be happy to! I’ve been farming 22 years and I am the founding co-director of http://www.soulfirefarm.org/ (Soul Fire Farms) IT’s a little community farm run by Black-Indigenous Latin and located up in the mountains of Grafton NY in love with farming my whole life, NY and really see it as a foundation for social justice and environmental stewardship. Here at http://www.soulfirefarm.org/ (Soul Fire Farms) http://www.soulfirefarm.org/ () We are committed to ending racism in the food system.Part of that is what we grow in our food.http://www.soulfirefarm.org/ () We grow on 5 acres and all of that gets boxed up to those who need it most in the communityrefugeesimmigrantspeople who have an incarcerated loved onelatin indigenous folks who want to farm We have cultivated 500 new farmers over the years through our program. How are you supporting your farm if you are donating all of this food? Where are you getting your money from do you sell some food too? Do you get donations? Where do you get your income from? That’s a really valid question, we started out as a family farm and we started out to be a viable business. it would be a little strange to be training the next generation of farmers if it was a farm that relies on donations or a slush fund.  So we use a sliding scale model people who earn more money and have more wealth pay more less balance The farmer get’s market value for the produce non-profit branch to our work we get some funds for that that helps with our education  youth programs we do public education We travel all around the regions sharing information about food justice. I love all this, this weekend was the indigenous march in Washington DC and the kids at a large interaction with the and the government shut down over immigration and here you are helping train immigrants and doing all this wonderful work. I feel like it’s such a timely topic. Tell me about your first gardening experience?So, I did not grow up gardening I did grow up in a rural area and was friends with the trees for sure. Our family was often one of the only brown skin families in town. We got bullied taunted So we spent quite a bit of time outside and the forest was really our first friend. When it was time to get a summer job as a team got a job in Boston at the food project From the very first time I felt the satisfaction of using a strip hoe  to clean up a row of cilantro I was just completely hooked. Not only did we grow food on 40 acres urban market garden in the city on vacant lots soup kitchens social justice and working with the earth directly! Fascinating! I love the way you talk about getting hooked cleaning up a row of cilatnro? So what were the next steps how did you start a farm? yeah! So Soul Fire farm started with just our partner Jonah and our 2 children newborn and  south end of Albany my high poverty area food deserts food apartheid results in certain folks being hungry others having join a farm csa that was super expensive and walk over 2 miles to pick up the vegetables Our neighbors, didn’t have that luxury and when they found out we knew how to farm encouraging us purchased this inexpensive and highly eroded land up in the hills Support this podcast