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Soul Fire Farm, located in Grafton, New York, is a BIPOC-centered community farm tackling racism and injustice within the food system through organic and ancestral farming practices across its 80-acre property.
Founded by Leah Penniman and her spouse, the farm emphasizes food and land justice. It addresses food inequities by delivering fresh produce to communities in food apartheid areas, including programs like doorstep delivery.
One of its initiatives, Soul Fire Farm Solidarity Shares, offers community-supported agriculture, supplying fresh produce to immigrants, refugees, and others impacted by food apartheid.
Penniman highlights the farm’s broader mission as it relates to the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities, noting, “The impact of climate change on vulnerable communities often forces them into becoming climate refugees. Resource scarcity and political violence frequently drive people from their lands, linking environmental issues to the factors compelling migration.”
Called to the Soil
When Penniman was 16, her mom alerted her to a job with The Food Project. This non-profit organization employs teenagers on farms in Massachusetts and focuses on community improvement, outreach, and education about health, leadership, charity, and sustainable agriculture.
While at The Food Project, Penniman discovered her passion for farming. “There’s something so satisfying about pulling carrots from the earth and feeding people. I never looked back.” She went on to farm at The Food Project, farm school, and various organic farms in Massachusetts, eventually co-founding Youth Grove, a youth farming program.
Penniman holds a master’s in science in science education and a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and international development from Clark University. She later taught high school science for 17 years.
After moving to upstate New York, she and her family faced a lack of fresh produce in their neighborhood. “We call it food apartheid, not a food desert—no supermarkets, farmers’ markets, or community gardens, just fast food and liquor stores.”
When locals learned of her farming background, Penniman said they asked, “So when are we getting our farm?” That was the push they needed to start searching for land.
Penniman and her spouse committed to the land in 2006, and it officially opened as Soul Fire Farm in 2010. Despite its size, only ten acres are dedicated to farming, and the remainder is preserved as forested land supporting local wildlife.
The farm runs various programs, including a doorstep delivery service, educational programs, and training sessions. “Our team focuses on three main areas of work. We have a staff of 18, including full-time and part-time members, some on-site and others remote. I primarily manage our land-based operations.”
She continues, “The first area of our work involves actual farming. We cultivate vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, chickens, and goats, harvesting this produce for doorstep delivery. Additionally, we welcome visitors to learn about our regenerative and heritage practices, such as raised beds, cover crops, and polycultures, which benefit the earth, combat climate change, and support biodiversity.”
Ancestral Farm Practices
Another key area is Soul Fire Farm’s educational programming. They have approximately 2,000 people visiting the farm each year, with over 50,000 more participating in our online classes. “We offer various topics, from beekeeping and seedling to farm-to-table cooking and business planning. Our programs vary, from week-long intensives to year-and-a-half fellowships, strongly emphasizing supporting Black, Indigenous, and Latino farmers.”
Soul Fire Farm addresses the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities by utilizing ancestral farming practices, such as regenerative methods, to build resilience and sustainability. “Our third area of focus is systems change,” Penniman says.
“As you’re likely aware, current laws and institutions often favor extraction and capitalism over fairness. We advocate for equitable policies and institutions through public education initiatives, including public speaking, writing and media outreach. We aim to raise awareness about supporting Black farmers and promoting sustainable agricultural practices.”
Regenerative Farming
Penniman implements regenerative farming on Soul Fire Farm, a conservation-focused approach that restores topsoil, boosts biodiversity, improves the water cycle, enhances ecosystem services, supports carbon capture, increases climate resilience, and strengthens soil health. So how does that work?
“One example is Dr. George Washington Carver, a Black agronomist from Tuskegee University in the late 1800s,” Penniman explains. “He’s considered the godfather of the modern organic movement. He introduced farmers to cover crops, which are plants grown not for eating but to enrich the soil. Crops like peanuts and beans pull nitrogen and carbon from the air, and when laid on the soil, they nourish it and prevent erosion.
Another technique is perennial polycultures. A perennial is a plant that returns yearly, like apple trees, blueberry bushes, or mint. ‘Poly’ refers to growing multiple crops together instead of just one, like soybeans or corn. We use many perennial polycultures from Nigeria, Haiti, and West Africa,” Soul Fire Farm’s co-founder says.
“My favorite is from Haiti, called the Jaden Lakou—Creole for house garden. It’s a mixture of trees, herbs, and shrubs that work together. For example, chives or garlic repel pests around a tree, and plants like comfrey pull nutrients from deep soil to feed the tree. Pollinators like bees are attracted to certain plants, which helps the tree bear fruit.”
She adds, “The third practice I’ll mention is raised beds. Instead of planting directly in the ground, we mound up the soil. This technique comes from the Ovambo people of Namibia. It reduces erosion and warms the soil, allowing us to grow warm season crops even in colder climates.”
Penniman notes that ancestral practices saved Soul Fire Farm during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. “It downgraded to a tropical storm when it reached New York,” she says. “And it brought an unexpected flood to our farm. We woke to a river rushing toward us, threatening to destroy our crops. Our kids were small then, so we woke them up, grabbed shovels, and dug trenches to divert the water. We did our best but eventually went to sleep, bracing for destruction,” she remembers.
“The next day, while neighboring farms lost everything, we lost nothing. We avoided erosion thanks to ancestral practices that improved our soil’s organic matter. These methods help combat climate change and protect against its effects. In moments like this, we remember our ancestors who braided seeds into their hair before enslavement, believing in a future on the soil. If they survived, so can we.”
However, Soul Fire Farm’s practices are not typical in modern farming. “In conventional agriculture, you’ll see tractor-based methods that don’t mound the soil, and large-scale monocropping—acres, and acres of just one crop, like corn or soybeans, with heavy use of chemicals.”
She explains further, ”They also focus on annual crops, which means planting each year and leaving bare soil in between, contributing to climate change. In fact, human-caused climate change didn’t begin with fossil fuels—it started earlier, with the tilling of the Great Plains for agriculture. Repeatedly turning the soil releases stored carbon into the atmosphere. You can see this in historical carbon graphs, which show an increase when colonizers began expanding their agricultural practices. If you trash the soil, it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.”
Impact of Climate Change on Vulnerable Communities
The impact of climate change on vulnerable communities extends beyond food and land, affecting their health and spiritual well-being. In upstate New York, immigrants comprise seven percent of the population (around 475,000).
Penniman explains that one driving force behind Soul Fire Farm is the health challenges immigrants face upon arriving in the U.S., especially when settled in areas with limited access to healthy food.
“We have some partners in the medical field who run community clinics, and they’ve said that once refugees arrive, they often start developing Western-related health problems very quickly. This is largely because the only foods they can access are highly processed, food-bank kind of foods. So, ensuring they have access to fresh food from the start will prevent additional morbidities that impact these communities. Engaging with refugee communities in this way is really important,” says Penniman.
Because of the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities, Penniman notes that marginalized communities are on the edge. “When there’s a climate disaster like a hurricane, flood, or fire, they are the least likely to recover,” she says.
“This is especially true for farm workers who experience the highest rates of heat-related illness and death of any profession. These folks are considered essential workers, yet their lives aren’t considered essential. They’re often out harvesting the food that keeps the economy running, but they’re not protected from extreme heat with shade or water. It’s a major human rights issue that impacts vulnerable communities and is an ecological issue.”
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Spiritual Practices and the Land
Soul Fire Farm also incorporates spiritual activism, which Penniman describes as a spiritual duty to heal, repair, and improve the world. “This duty extends to caring for other humans and all living beings,” she says.
“We infuse our spirituality into our activism. In response to the genocide in Gaza, we collaborate with a Buddhist temple, our local synagogue, the Muslim community and African traditional communities.”
Penniman, a West African Indigenous Orisa tradition clergy member, says spiritual activism is not just about getting the most for ourselves in this lifetime. “We’re woven into the fabric of creation and must do our part. When we care for the land, we understand that humans are not meant to be supreme over other creatures.”
She continues, “We practice ecological humility, which means asking permission before digging a pond, cutting down a tree, and offering gifts to the land. Many follow Indigenous religions centered on the earth and our ancestors.”
Penniman’s sense of justice comes from her parents, both pastors and civil rights activists. “I grew up very much understanding that we’re not just here for ourselves. We’re here for the community. We’re here to serve.”
Staying Responsive to Community Needs
“Our goal of achieving food sovereignty and uprooting oppressive systems will take generations, but we stay responsive to community needs. Every program we’ve created—whether Spanish-language classes or youth farming programs—has been in direct response to requests from the community,” says Penniman.
She also has internship plans. “People have asked for help finding farm internships. After completing our basic course, they’re ready to spend a year on a farm, so we’re considering a matchmaking internship program with funding. Another idea is to share our campus with mission-aligned groups since we don’t run programs year-round. We’re working on these initiatives, but at our core, we’re a farm. We’ll keep feeding people, teaching farming, and helping folks connect with the earth.”
Follow Soul Fire Farm on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Follow Leah Penniman on Instagram and read her book, Farming While Black.