Farming While Black

by Leah Penniman

  16.  Nikki Giovanni, Racism 101 (New York, NY: Quill, 1995), 154–55.

  17.  Dana Martin and Melissa Fery, Growing Farms: Successful Whole Farm Management Planning Book: Think It! Write It! (Corvallis: Oregon State University Extension Service, 2011).

  Chapter 3: Honoring the Spirits of the Land

    1.  Alik Shahadah, “Religions in Africa Today,” African Holocaust Society, March 23, 2017, http://www.africanbelief.com.

    2.  Wande Abimbola, “Religion, World Order, and Peace: An Indigenous African Perspective,” Cross Currents 60 (2010): 307–09.

    3.  “Ifa Divination System,” United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/ifa-divination-system-00146.

    4.  Ayò Salami, Ifá: A Complete Divination (Lagos: NIDD Publishing and Printing, 2002).

    5.  John Henley, “Haiti: A Long Descent into Hell,” Guardian, January 14, 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-history-earthquake-disaster.

    6.  Asia Austin Colter, “Azaka, the Loa,” in Encyclopedia of African Religion, vol. 1, ed., Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2009), 82–83.

    7.  Charlotte Hammond, “‘Children’ of the Gods: Filming the Private Rituals of Haitian Vodou,” Journal of Haitian Studies 18 (2012): 64–82.

    8.  Jacob Kẹhinde Olupona and Terry Rey, Òrìşà Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008).

    9.  Marcel Carty. Vodou: The Next Stage (Xlibris US, 2010).

  10.  Awo Olumide Achaba, Orisha Oko—Orisha of Fertility, Progress and Evolution: A Guide to Accessing the Divinity’s Blessings (Amazon Digital Services, LLC, 2014).

  11.  Milo Rigaud, Secrets of Voodoo (San Francisco: City Light Books, 1969).

  12.  Terry Rey and Alex Stepick, Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith: Haitian Religion in Miami (New York: NYU Press, 2013).

  13.  Boakye Agyarko, “The Manya Krobo Annual Ngmayem Festival,” October 30, 2015, https://www.modernghana.com/news/652710/the-manya-krobo-annual-ngmayem-festival.html.

  14.  Rose Mary Allen, “The Harvest Ceremony Seú as a Case Study of the Dynamics of Power in Post-Emancipation Curaçao (1863–1915),” Caribbean Quarterly 56 (2010): 13–29.

  15.  Jeffrey E. Anderson, The Voodoo Encyclopedia: Magic, Ritual, and Religion (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2015).

  16.  Fred Opie, Zora Neale Hurston on Florida Food: Recipes, Remedies, and Simple Pleasures (Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2015).

  17.  “Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher African Ceremonies Collection,” JSTOR World Heritage Sites Africa, 1980–1999, https://www.aluka.org/heritage/collection/BFAC.

  18.  Benjamin Hebbkethwaite and Joanne Bartley, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011).

  19.  Hebbkethwaite and Bartley, Vodou Songs.

  20.  Hebbkethwaite and Bartley, Vodou Songs.

  21.  “Slave Work Songs,” Colonial Williamsburg, http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/february03/worksongs.cfm; Hoe, Emma, Hoe, video, 1:17, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIoWRVE-H58.

  22.  Zora Neale Hurston, Halimufack, audio, 2:07, 1939, https://www.loc.gov/item/flwpa000014.

  23.  Ann Hoog, Zora Neale Hurston: Recordings, Manuscripts, Photographs, and Ephemera, in the Archive of Folk Culture and Other Divisions of the Library of Congress, 2014, https://www.loc.gov/folklife/guides/Hurston.html.

  24.  Toshi Reagon, A Sower Went Out to Sow Her Seed: Parable of the Sower—An Opera, video, 2016, https://vimeo.com/158102311.

  25.  Jephté Guillaume, Ibo Lele, audio, 7:18, http://music.spirituallifemusic.net/track/ibo-lele.

  Chapter 4: Restoring Degraded Land

    1.  Steven E. Hollinger, Midwestern Climate Center Soil Atlas and Database (Champaign: Illinois State Water Survey, 1995), http://www.isws.illinois.edu/pubdoc/c/iswsc-179.pdf.

    2.  “370.8 Ranking of Mineral Soils,” in Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (Toronto: Thomson Reuters Westlaw, 2017).

    3.  “Lead at Superfund Sites: Human Health,” US Environmental Protection Agency, 2016, https://www.epa.gov/superfund/lead-superfund-sites-human-health.

    4.  M. R. O’Connor, “The World’s Favorite Disaster Story,” Vice News, October 13, 2016, https://news.vice.com/story/one-of-the-most-repeated-facts-about-deforestation-in-haiti-is-a-lie.

    5.  Brian Wheeler, “Gullah Geechee: Descendants of Slaves Fight for Their Land,” BBC News, December 5, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37994938.

    6.  “Hazard Standards for Lead in Paint, Dust and Soil (TSCA Section 403)a,” US Environmental Protection Agency, May 8, 2017.

    7.  Michael V. Mickelbart, Kelly M. Stanton, Steve Hawkins, and James Camberato, “Commercial Greenhouse and Nursery Production,” Purdue University, 2017.

    8.  Andreas D. Peuke and Heinz Rennenberg, “Phytoremediation,” Science and Society 6, no. 6 (2005): 497–501, doi: 10.1038/sj.embor.7400445.

    9.  David E. Stilwell and John F. Ranciato, Use of Phosphates to Immobilize Lead in Community Garden Soils (New Haven: Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, 2008), http://www.ct.gov/caes/lib/caes/documents/publications/bulletins/b1018.pdf.

  10.  Carl J. Rosen and Peter M. Bierman, “Using Manure and Compost as Nutrient Sources for Fruit and Vegetable Crops,” University of Minnesota Extension, https://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/fruit-vegetable/using-manure-and-compost.

  11.  Emmanuel Krieke, Environmental Infrastructure in African History: Examining the Myth of Natural Resource Management in Namibia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

  12.  Edda Fields-Black, Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).

  13.  Lead-Safe Yard Manual: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Low-Cost Soil Remediation and Safe Greening (Worcester, MA: Worcester Roots Project, 2017), http://www.worcesterroots.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/DIY_leadsafe_landscapingFinalDraft7-29-11sm.pdf.

  14.  Mark D. Hersey, My Work Is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 126.

  15.  Julianna White, “Terracing Practice Increases Food Security and Mitigates Climate Change in East Africa,” Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, 2016, https://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/terracing-practice-increases-food-security-and-mitigates-climate-change-east-africa#.WJTUEhsrLIU.

  16.  Mark Hertsgaard, Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth (New York: Mariner Books, 2011).

  17.  Diane Toomey, “Exploring How and Why Trees Talk to Each Other,” Yale Environment 360, 2016, https://e360.yale.edu/features/exploring_how_and_why_trees_talk_to_each_other.

  18.  Jack Kittredge, Soil Carbon Remediation: Can Biology Do the Job? (Barre, MA: Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts Chapter, 2015), http://www.nofamass.org/sites/default/files/2015_White_Paper_web.pdf.

  19.  Mark Schonbeck, “What Is ‘Organic No-Till,’ and Is It Practical?,” eOrganic, July 20, 2015.

  20.  Mark Schonbeck and Ron Morse, “Choosing the Best Cover Crops for Your Organic No-Till Vegetable System: A Detailed Guide to Using 29 Species,” Rodale Institute, January 29, 2004, http://www.newfarm.org/features/0104/no-till/chart.shtml.

  Chapter 5: Feeding the Soil

    1.  C. V. Cole et al., “Analysis of Historical Changes in Soil Fertility and Organic Matter Levels of the North American Great Plains,” in 1989 Soils and Crops Workshop Proceedings (Saskatoon, Canada: University of Saskatchewan, 1989).

    2.  K. W. Flach et al., “Impact of Agriculture on Atmospheric CO2,” in Soil Organic Matter in Te
mperate Agroecosystems: Long-Term Experiments in North America, ed. E. A. Paul et al. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1997).

    3.  Ann Lewandowski, “Organic Matter Management,” University of Minnesota Extension, 2002, https://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/soils/soil-properties/soil-management-series/organic-matter-management.

    4.  “Guide to Texture by Feel,” USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Soils, https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/edu/?cid=nrcs142p2_054311.

    5.  A. Jones et al., Soil Atlas of Africa (Luxemburg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013), http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Library/Maps/Africa_Atlas/Download/49.pdf; Christien Ettema, Indigenous Soil Classifications: What Is Their Structure and Function, and How Do They Compare to Scientific Soil Classifications? (Athens: University of Georgia, 1994), http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/dgr2/Docs/Misc/IntroToEthnopedology.pdf.

    6.  James Fairhead et al., “Indigenous African Soil Enrichment as a Climate-Smart Sustainable Agriculture Alternative,” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 14, no. 2 (2016): 71–76.

    7.  Paul Yeboah, email to research assistant, August 4, 2017.

    8.  Mae-Wan Ho, “Beware the Biochar Initiative,” Permaculture Research Institute, November 18, 2010, https://permaculturenews.org/2010/11/18/beware-the-biochar-initiative.

    9.  Tom DeGomez et al., “Basic Soil Components,” eXtension, January 21, 2015, http://articles.extension.org/pages/54401/basic-soil-components.

  10.  Jerry Minnich, The Earthworm Book: How to Raise and Use Earthworms for Your Farm and Garden (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1977).

  11.  Mohammadtaghi Vakili et al., “A Review on Composting of Oil Palm Biomass,” Environment, Development and Sustainability 17, no. 4 (2015): 691–709.

  12.  Justice Cudjoe, email to research assistant, August 4, 2017

  13.  Demalda Newsome, personal communication to the author, February 5, 2017.

  14.  Lorinda Balfanz et al., “Vermicompost Tea,” University of Minnesota Extension, http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/soils/vermicompost-tea.

  15.  Thomas Björkman, “NY Cover Crop Guide,” Cornell University College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, http://covercrops.cals.cornell.edu.

  16.  Mark D. Hersey, My Work Is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011).

  17.  Paul Yeboah, email to research assistant, August 4, 2017.

  Chapter 6: Crop Planning

    1.  Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013), 130.

    2.  James McCann, Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500–2000 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), xiii, 289.

    3.  “Leading Causes of Death in Males, 2014,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014, https://www.cdc.gov/healthequity/lcod/men/2014/black/index.htm.

    4.  Judith Carney, Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001).

    5.  Logan Kistlera et al., “Transoceanic Drift and the Domestication of African Bottle Gourds in the Americas,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111, no. 8 (2014).

    6.  Homowo Harvest Collection Brochure (Winston-Salem, NC: Old Salem Museums & Gardens, 2017).

    7.  G. L. Nesom, “Toward Consistency of Taxonomic Rank in Wild/Domesticated Cucurbitaceae,” Phytoneuron 13 (2011): 1–33.

    8.  Catherine Zuckerman, “5 African Foods You Thought Were American,” National Geographic, September 21, 2016, http://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/the-plate/2016/09/5-foods-from-africa.

    9.  Edda Fields-Black, Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).

  10.  Andrew Smith, The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and Cookery (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2001).

  11.  Camila Domonoske, “A Legume with Many Names: The Story of ‘Goober,’” NPR Code Switch, April 20, 2014, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/04/20/304585019/a-legume-with-many-names-the-story-of-goober.

  12.  Larisa Jacobson, personal communication to the author, 2018.

  13.  “Corn Growing Guide,” Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, 2017, http://www.southernexposure.com/corn-growing-guide-ezp-52.html.

  14.  Gretchen Kell, “Millet Project Shows Grain Isn’t Just for the Birds,” Berkeley News, August 28, 2015, http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/08/28/the-millet-project.

  15.  Olga Linares, “African Rice (Oryza glaberrima): History and Future Potential,” Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences 99, no. 25 (2002).

  16.  Michael Twitty, “A Letter to the Newgrorati: Of Collards and Amnesia,” AfroCulinaria, 2016, https://afroculinaria.com/2016/01/16/a-letter-to-the-newgrorati-of-collards-and-amnesia.

  17.  “Heirloom Herb & Vegetable Garden,” Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, http://cbmm.org/pdf/Heirloom_Garden_Handout2012.pdf.

  18.  Variety information comes from 2017 interviews with Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, D. Landreth Seed Company (https://cottagegardenliving.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/african-american-collection-landreth-heirloom-seeds), Owen Taylor, and Chris Bolden-Newsome.

  19.  Akinola A. Agboola, “Crop Mixtures in Traditional Systems,” United Nations University, 2017, http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80364e/80364E08.htm.

  20.  Amanda Stone et al., Africa’s Indigenous Crops (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 2011), http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/NtP-Africa%27s-Indigenous-Crops.pdf.

  21.  Justice Cudjoe, email to research assistant, August 4, 2017.

  22.  Paul Yeboah, email to research assistant, August 4, 2017.

  23.  R. T. Martinez, An Evaluation of the Productivity of the Native American ‘Three Sisters’ Agriculture System in Northern Wisconsin (Stevens Point: University of Wisconsin, 2007).

  24.  George Kuepper and Mardi Dodson, “Companion Planting and Botanical Pesticides: Concepts & Resources,” ATTRA, 2001, updated 2016, https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/viewhtml.php?id=72; B. Amoako-Atta, “Observations on the Pest Status of the Striped Bean Weevil Alcidodes leucogrammus Erichs. on Cowpea Under Intercropping Systems in Kenya,” International Journal of Tropical Insect Science 11, no. 4 (1983): 351–56.

  25.  B. T. Kang, “Introduction to Alley Farming,” Food and Agriculture Organization, 1992, http://www.fao.org/Wairdocs/ILRI/x5545E/x5545e04.htm.

  Chapter 7: Tools and Technology

    1.  Josef Kienzle and Úna Murray, “Tools Used by Women Farmers in Africa,” presented at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Workshop on Food Security, September 1998.

    2.  Susan Ferris and Ricardo Sandoval, The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement (New York: Mariner Books, 1997).

    3.  “Effectiveness of ROPS for Preventing Injuries Associated with Agricultural Tractors,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1993, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00019495.htm.

    4.  Owusu Bandele, “The Deep Roots of Our Land-Based Heritage: Cultural, Social, Political, and Environmental Implications,” in Land and Power: Sustainable Agriculture and African Americans, ed. Jeffrey Jordan et al. (Waldolf, MD: SARE, 2009).

    5.  Remini Boualem et al., “The Foggara: A Traditional System of Irrigation in Arid Regions,” GeoScience Engineering 60, no. 2 (2014): 32–39.

    6.  Randy Creswell and Dr. Franklin Martin, Dryland Farming: Crops & Techniques for Arid Regions (Fort Myers, FL: Echo, 1998).

    7.  Angela Lakwete, Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America (Baltimore:
John Hopkins University Press, 2003).

    8.  Mary Schons, “African American Inventors II,” National Geographic, June 21, 2011, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/news/african-american-inventors-19th-century.

    9.  Patricia Sluby, The Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2004).

  Chapter 8: Seed Keeping

    1.  Judith Carney, Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).

    2.  Beverly Bell, “Black Farmers Still Valiantly Fighting to Save Their Farms: Black Farmers’ Lives Matter: Defending African-American Land and Agriculture in the Deep South,” Black Left Unity, October 9, 2015, http://www.blunblog.org/2015/10/black-farmers-still-valiantly-fighting.html.

    3.  “Who Owns Nature? Corporate Power and the Final Frontier in the Commodification of Life,” ETC Group, November 12, 2008, http://www.etcgroup.org/content/who-owns-nature.

    4.  Gloria Kostadinove, “Peasant Farmers Unite to Secure Food Sovereignty,” Borgen Magazine, April 2, 2014, http://www.borgenmagazine.com/peasant-farmers-unite-secure-food-sovereignty.

    5.  Jared Metzker, “Haitian Farmers Lauded for Food Sovereignty Work,” Food Sovereignty Prize, August 14, 2013, http://foodsovereigntyprize.org/haitian-farmers-lauded-for-food-sovereignty-work.

    6.  “What Is AFSA?,” Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, 2017, http://afsafrica.org/home/what-is-afsa.

    7.  “Crop Diversity: Use it or Lose It,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2010, http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/46803/icode.

    8.  Chris Bolden-Newsome, interview with the author, 2017.

    9.  Lee Buttala and Shanyn Siegel, The Seed Garden: The Art & Practice of Seed Saving (Decorah, IA: Seed Savers Exchange, 2015).

  10.  Jill Neimark, “A Lost Rice Variety—And the Story of the Free ‘Merikins’ Who Kept It Alive,” NPR The Salt, May 10, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/05/10/527449714/a-lost-rice-variety-and-the-story-of-the-freed-merikins-who-kept-it-alive.