A feature film about the rising generation of young black farmers.
Featuring Leah Penniman, author of “Farming While Black.”

Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, reflects on the plight of Black farmers in the United States. From the height of Black-owned farms at 14% in 1910 to less than 2% today, Leah, and other compatriots help propel a rising generation of Black farmers finding strength in the deep historical knowledge of African agrarianism — and its potential to save the planet.

Farming While Black Trailer

Farming While Black is a feature-length documentary film which examines the historical plight of Black farmers in the United States and the rising generation of Black farmers reclaiming their rightful ownership to land and reconnecting with their ancestral roots.
As the co-founder of Soul Fire Farm in upstate New York, Leah Penniman finds strength in the deep historical knowledge of African agrarianism – agricultural practices that can heal people and the planet. Influenced and inspired by Karen Washington, a pioneer in urban community gardens in New York City, and fellow farmer and organizer Blain Snipstal, Leah galvanizes around farming as the basis of revolutionary justice.
In 1910, Black farmers owned 14 percent of all American farmland. Over the intervening decades, that number fell below two percent, the result of racism, discrimination, and dispossession. The film chronicles Penniman and two other Black farmers’ efforts to reclaim their agricultural heritage. Collectively, their work has a major impact, as each is a leader in sustainable agriculture and food justice movements.

TAKE ACTION!

Here are three ways to help Black farmers regain land and their agricultural heritage:

For Black Farmer priorities, visit the Federation of Southern Cooperatives: Federation.Coop/advocacy
Fund Black land sovereignty at BlackFarmerFund.org
To support Afro-Indigenous Food Sovereignty visit SoulFireFarm.org, RiseandRootfarm.com, and BlackDirtFarmCollective.com

Can Afro-Indigenous regenerative agricultural practices be the solution to climate change?

Leah Penniman, and other BIPOC farmers, know that by changing the industrialized food system to regenerative agriculture can not only save the planet, but also provide liberation for marginalized peoples around the world.