Black Entrepreneurs Sow Seeds Of Healthier Eating During Pandemic Gardening Boom
She says that connecting to the soil empowers people, whether they are growing their own food or selling seeds as an entrepreneur.
By Chandra Thomas Whitfield
NPR
May 19, 2021
Excerpt:
He and his wife launched an impromptu campaign: mailing out thousands of the more than 42,000 packets of kale, beets and arugula seeds that he’d planned to sell at his shows, all emblazoned with his likeness and the QR code to hear his digital album.
With the help of a crowdfunding campaign, he sent them at no cost to urban farmers anywhere and everywhere the couple could think of — Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, New York City, several parts of California and his hometown of Denver. He hoped the seeds might help alleviate shortages and long lines at grocery stores and food banks in economically disadvantaged communities hit hard during the pandemic.
His effort at putting out beets with his beats was a success. And more than a year later, his seed business is still growing. Vita is among an expanding number of Black gardening enthusiasts-turned-entrepreneurs across the country. They run seed businesses that have benefited from the pandemic-inspired global gardening boom that seed providers, still overwhelmed with orders, hope won’t subside anytime soon.
Gods Garden Girl, Coco and Seed, Urban Farms Garden Shop and I Grow S*** are all Black-owned companies that share in Vita’s mission of drawing more diverse people into gardening and also illuminating it as an active, pandemic-safe pastime that facilitates healthy eating.
