Farming While Black

by Leah Penniman

  Additionally, Indigenous people in Africa and the Americas developed a system called relay cropping, where a second crop is planted after the first crop is well established but immature. For example, maize can be established before seeding cowpeas and groundnuts. The cowpea’s deep taproot mines the soil for water and nutrients and climbs up the stalk of the maize. This legume also fixes nitrogen and provides moisture-conserving shade, making the area more hospitable to other crops. Maize can also be relay-cropped with cassava and yam. The maize is shallow-rooted and relies on the cassava and yam to mine the soil for nutrients.21 In sub-Saharan Africa the lablab ornamental flower is relay-cropped in rice fields following the rice harvest.

  In Ghana farmers have developed several polycultures of vegetables and fruit trees. A few among the vegetable combinations are: okra, tomatoes, and peppers; carrots, papaya, moringa, and lettuce; cabbage, pepper, and onion; watermelon, garden eggs, and pepper; cucumber, okra, onion, and pepper. A few among the fruit tree combinations are: citrus, pigeon pea, sweet potato, platina, coco yam, and native timber species; mangoes, sweet potatoes, pigeon pea, banana, cassava, and native timber species; cashew, ground nuts, maize, and native timber species; cocoa, pigeon pea, coco yam, cassava, plantain, citrus, avocado pear, and native timber species.22

  Another intercropping strategy that we employ is the use of one crop as the living mulch of its companion. For example, we broadcast lettuce seeds into a freshly prepared bed and then plant brassica seedlings into the same bed at their normal spacing. The lettuce smothers the weeds, yet does not compete with the brassicas, as their roots reach to different depths. We also use low-growing Dutch white clover as a living mulch in the pathways between mounds of winter squash, seeded at the time of transplanting. The clover fixes nitrogen and attracts spiders, which patrol the crops for damaging insects. Living mulches improve soil structure, control moisture, and prevent runoff.

  Parsley, onions, basil, and other aromatic plants have pest-repellent properties and can be planted on bed edges and in the understory of tall crops. In our high tunnel the tomatoes are trellised up to the ceiling while onions and parsley fill in the spaces around their base. Occasionally we transplant a few beets in there as well, which love the warm, protected environment of the high tunnel and don’t mind sharing space with other species. Similarly, we plant scallions, basil, and parsley along the bed edges of tomatillos, lettuce, and other crops out in the field.

  Companion planting need not be simultaneous. One example of sequential companion planting is the use of wheat as a nurse crop for strawberries and other plants susceptible to wire worms. The wheat is direct seeded eight days before the strawberries are transplanted into the ground. Wire worms are drawn to the wheat and leave the strawberry crop alone. The wheat can be weeded out once the strawberries are well established.

  Rye is another grain that can provide benefits to vegetable crops. It has allelopathic qualities, meaning that it secretes chemicals that prevent weed germination. We plant rye in the fall and use a mower to kill it before it goes to seed. The next spring tomatoes, broccoli, melons, and other crops can be planted right into the rye mulch. The rye protects the soil from erosion and drying out, in addition to leaching its 16 different allelopathic chemicals into the soil to control weeds.

  The “three sisters,” or milpa polyculture, is of course the queen of all intercropping systems. Developed by Indigenous farmers of this continent over 3,000 years ago, the brilliant interdependence of these crops provides complete nutrition to the people and higher productivity than any monocrop. Studies using the Land Equivalency Ratio—a way of measuring the agricultural productivity of land—found that intercropped fields often yield 40 to 50 percent more than monocropped ones. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, an increase in “cropping intensity” could avert the need to clear an additional 153 million acres for crops by 2050, an area the size of France. H. Garrison Wilkes, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, calls milpa “one of the most successful human inventions ever created.”23

  Maize and beans are grown together in a highly productive milpa polyculture. Photo by Neshima Vitale-Penniman.

  In the milpa, bean plants fix atmospheric nitrogen and help reduce damage caused by the corn earworm pest (Helicoverpa zea). Squash plants inhibit weed growth with their dense network of thick, broad leaves and retain soil humidity. Natural chemicals (cucurbitacins) washed from the leaf surface of the squash act as a mild natural herbicide and pesticide. For many farmers, the three sisters are just the foundation for a polyculture that may contain a dozen or more annual crops. In our milpa we integrate maize, pole beans, black-eyed peas, squash, gourds, amaranth, and sunflowers. We give the maize and sunflowers a head start before planting the legumes that will climb their stalks and the cucurbits that will spread out beneath them. Amaranth is planted on the edges of the beds so that it can get established before the vining squashes shade out the ground. All of these crops are fall-harvested, so the milpa gets to self-regulate throughout the season with only the occasional weeding. We harvest and dry all of the crops in autumn for storage and winter nourishment.

  Beets, onions, and parsley share the precious space in the high tunnel. Soon tomatoes will join them in a synergistic intercropping. Photo by Neshima Vitale-Penniman.

  African farmers have experimented with our own versions of the milpa. Chris Bolden-Newsome of Philadelphia grows sorghum, sweet potato, and cowpeas as the African American “three mo’ sisters” combination. These foods “are in our DNA,” Chris explains. His garden doubles as a shrine and a learning space where okra, cotton, collard greens, taro, castor bean, and other culturally important crops thrive. The castor bean is notable, not only because it is allelopathic, repelling mice and voles, but because of its role in the biblical story of Jonah, a symbol of the gifts freely given to us by the Divine, regardless of whether we earn them.

  In Kenya, Black farmers have developed a system where tick clover (Desmodium spp.) takes the place of squash in the “milpa” and serves a fourfold role. It suppresses striga, a devastating parasitic vine, fixes nitrogen, repels pests, and serves as a forage legume for livestock. The integration of Desmodium has doubled labor inputs, but tripled revenues for African farmers.24

  Animal companions, such as our dog Rowe, are an important part of our pest management strategy. She scares off the deer, coyotes, mice, and rabbits. Photo by Jonah Vitale-Wolff.

  UPLIFT

  Swidden Agriculture

  In sub-Saharan Africa, the dominant food crop production technology is swidden agriculture, also called the bush-fallow system, shifting cultivation, or “slash and burn.” In the swidden system, short periods of agricultural production (1 to 2 years) are followed by long fallow periods (6 to 25 years). During the fallow period the forest regrows, sending its deep roots into the soil to recycle nutrients and build up organic matter. The roots prevent erosion, increase the infiltration of water, and reduce runoff. Further, the fallow period provides cooling shade to the soil, enhancing its moisture content and moderating its temperature. Farmers continue to interact with the land during the fallow period, gathering wood for building materials and fuel, and collecting herbal medicines and livestock feed. At the conclusion of the long fallow, the trees and shrubs are cut down and burned. This releases nutrients into the soil, making artificial fertilizer unnecessary. The burning also destroys weed seeds and eliminates pests, providing a suitable seedbed for food crops.

  In 1957 the Food and Agriculture Organization pronounced swidden agriculture “a backward type of agricultural practice,” and later Western theorists blamed it for climate change. However, recent studies by scientists at the Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples Foundation found that swidden practices sequester nearly 750,000 tons of carbon per 7,500 acres, while the burning only releases 400 to 500 tons, a ratio that puts industrial agriculture to shame. Soil formed under this system has more above- and belowground organic matter, and subsequently more carbo
n storage.

  The challenge with swidden agriculture is not the method itself, but the reduction of the length of the fallow period due to land theft and overpopulation. As more people have been pushed onto smaller areas of land, the long fallow periods of 10 to 25 years have been reduced to just a few years.25 The principle of intensive cultivation interspersed with fallow remains viable and sustainable.

  Farm Layouts with Rotations

  Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) larvae are squishy, slimy creatures that devour potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants. Not only can they pass through several generations in a season, with 300 offspring per female, but they also overwinter several inches down in the soil. In the spring they emerge ready to feed on your tender solanaceous seedlings as soon as you put them in the ground. Crop rotation is one way to “confuse” Colorado potato beetles and other herbivorous insects. Imagine that you have potatoes in a certain bed in the first year, and the beetles burrow down at the end of the season. They emerge in the spring hungry, only to find, not potatoes, but beans. They do not like to eat beans, so they have to spend days to weeks trying to find the potatoes. In the meantime the potatoes get bigger, stronger, and more able to withstand the hungry larvae.

  Our ancestors gifted us with the concept of crop rotation with a fallow, or rest, period. The basic principle is to shift what is grown in a given area over time. Crop rotation has the benefit of reducing pests and diseases, and preventing soil depletion. There are several guidelines to keep in mind when designing your crop rotation:

  Avoid planting crops from the same plant family in the same place in successive years.

  Precede nitrogen lovers, such as brassicas, tomatoes, and corn, with nitrogen fixers (legumes).

  Crops with lower nitrogen requirements, such as root vegetables and herbs, can follow heavy nitrogen feeders.

  Organize your crop rotation around the plant families that will take up the most space on your farm. For example, the area of brassicas you plant may equal the combined area of alliums, solanums, and legumes.

  Tables 6.2 and 6.3 are two example of crop rotation plans that we have used at Soul Fire Farm. The first plan (table 6.2) is organized by plant family. After the first year, the crops in area 1 move to area 2, the crops in area 5 move to area 1, and so on.

  Table 6.2. Crop Rotation by Plant Family

  Table 6.3. Crop Rotation by Planting Date

  While the temporal crop rotation plan (table 6.3) does not perfectly follow the rule of not repeating by family, it is the most straightforward method I have devised and a great place to start if you are daunted by arranging your planting by families. I divide the planting area up into five or more sections. In the spring I start planting the seasonally appropriate crops in area 1, beginning with the nearest bed and working my way down the adjacent beds. In the following year, I start my planting in area 2, and the year after that in area 3. The result is that it takes five years for a given area to be cropped with the same vegetables. In real life it’s not as neat and clean as the chart would suggest. We plant several successions of lettuce, turnips, radishes, carrots, and other fast-growing crops, so they end up planted in several areas. Still, I have had good success with arranging my crop rotation based on planting date.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tools and Technology

  The white man, preoccupied with the abstractions of the economic exploitation and ownership of the land, necessarily has lived on the country as a destructive force, an ecological catastrophe, because he assigned the hand labor, and in that the possibility of intimate knowledge of the land, to a people he considered racially inferior; in thus debasing labor, he destroyed the possibility of meaningful contact with the earth. He was literally blinded by his presuppositions and prejudices. Because he did not know the land, it was inevitable that he would squander its natural bounty, deplete its richness, corrupt and pollute it, or destroy it altogether. The history of the white man’s use of the earth in America is a scandal.

  —WENDELL BERRY

  I am in love with the hoe. An ancient, versatile African tool that can open new ground, form mounds, plant, cultivate weeds, and harvest—this piece of flat iron was first put into my hands at age 16 at The Food Project in Boston. In the beginning it was awkward trying to work between the broccoli plants to remove the tender pigweed threatening from beneath. With mentorship and practice I got my stride and learned to dance with the hoe, employing a gentle rocking motion where the tool did most of the work and I just guided gently. I got the nickname “Alacrity” for moving quickly down the beds, outpacing my contemporaries twofold, little beads of sweat erupting on my nose.

  When I first traveled to Ghana, West Africa, in my early twenties, I learned that the so-called hoe that I cherished was actually a flimsy lesser relative of the true African hoe. The farmers in Odumase-Krobo handed me a tool that weighed at least four times what a US-style hoe did, with a piercing blade and sturdy construction. They taught me to dig hills for beans, canals for irrigation, and terraces for erosion control, all with this single tool. Choice of technology drives the culture of use. In the case of the hoe, it works better when many people use it together in community. In moving to tractors, we begin to relinquish community. Now each time I go visit our sibling farm in Haiti, I purchase a few of these legitimate hoes and negotiate with the airline about my overweight, oddly shaped baggage. Used correctly, the hoe is an efficient technology to accomplish many farm tasks, and keeps us in direct contact with the land and our own physical power.

  The farmers of Ghana also taught me how to build structures out of soil. Across the Dahomey region of West Africa, schools, homes, and places of worship are sculpted out of the earth. Inspired by this model, we constructed our home and educational center from local clay, straw, sand, ground limestone, local wood, and recycled materials. The primary building is a timber-frame straw-bale structure with passive solar design, interior thermal mass, earthen floor, and solar panels for heat and hot water. Choosing to build in harmony with nature is not the quick-and-easy path. We do not subscribe to the capitalist perspective that buildings should go up in a few months and be disposable after 30 years. It took us over three years to construct the durable primary building, and we endured many challenges along the way. For example, when we had almost finished digging the foundation using our undersized tractor and hand shovels through the hard, rocky clay of the mountainside, we realized that solar and magnetic south are about 13 degrees different in our area. This magnetic declination matters, because a solar home must face solar south. Needless to say, many tears of frustration were shed as we picked up the shovels to redig the foundation in the correct direction. We drew strength from the deep knowing that our ancestors faced greater challenges, and endured.

  In this chapter we discuss the tools, technologies, and equipment needed for all parts of your vegetable growing operations, from bed preparation, to harvesting, to irrigation. We uplift the contributions of Black farmers in developing these technologies that make efficient, sustainable growing possible.

  Bed Preparation

  In 2012 Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, swept across the Caribbean and the entire eastern seaboard of the United States. We were alerted to Sandy’s arrival on our farm in the middle of the night, when we heard a deafening and perplexing roar from the forest. Jonah and I sat straight up in bed, looked at each other wordlessly, and headed outside. The powerful sound was coming from a newly formed “river” cascading from the forest and headed right toward our crop fields. It was dark, windy, and cold, yet we knew that if we did not act, we might lose our fall harvest. We woke up the children, put shovels in their hands, and got to work digging a trench to divert the waters from the crops. After several muddy hours, we retired to our beds and hoped for the best. In the morning news of devastation began trickling in. Both of the roads, Routes 2 and 22, that serve our town of Grafton were completely washed out, and residents were trapped. Neighboring farms had lo
st between 50 and 100 percent of their topsoil in the heavy rains. New York City was without electricity. And on our farm, we experienced erosion in one small section. In all of the other areas, the water was gently infiltrating in the pathways of our raised beds. We realized that our decision to “mound” the soil on our farm had quite literally saved our farm.

  UPLIFT

  African Hoe

  Egyptian farmers began forging and using hoes between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, predating the first pharaoh. The hoe is versatile and can be used to plow the soil, dig planting holes, hill the earth into mounds, remove weeds, and harvest. The hoe is suitable for wetland and dryland farming, heavy clay soils as well as light, sandy earth. The hand hoe remains the most used tool in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Senegal, and Burkina Faso.1 The African style of hoe is distinct in its large, heavy blade suitable for primary tillage, in contrast with the lighter European hoe designed mainly for cultivation. Originally the African hoe had a short handle to ensure precision of work. However, it led to debilitating back injuries when applied to commercial agriculture with its relentless work hours and repetitive tasks. Cesar Chavez and others in the farmworkers’ movement did essential organizing to replace the short-handled hoe, el cortito, with the long-handled version in the agricultural fields of the United States. Farmworkers were able to get the hand hoe banned in California in 1975.2 The short-handled hoe continues to be used appropriately in small-scale, diversified agriculture across Africa.