Meet the Modern Farmer Saving Seeds of the African Diaspora
With Sistah Seeds, Amirah Mitchell aims to make culturally significant heirlooms more readily available.
By Lindsay Campbell
Modern Farmer
Dec 11, 2021
Excerpt:
Since she started farming, Amirah Mitchell has sought to honor past generations of Black growers who worked the land before her. At the heart of her journey has been a desire to cultivate and save African, African-American and Afro-Caribbean heirloom seeds of vegetables such as okra, peppers, squash and black-eyed peas.
“I have felt called to the land by my ancestors to do this work for my community. It feels important to me that farmers of color have greater food sovereignty,” she says. “Getting at the heart of inequities that impact Black farmers in the food system starts with seed.”
Mitchell, who resides in Philadelphia, has more than a decade of farming experience and a degree in horticulture from Temple University. She’s currently completing a fellowship at Greensgrow Farm, an educational urban farm, while working at Truelove Seeds, an heirloom and open pollinated seed supplier. In both positions, she has been exposed to and grown various fruits and vegetables of the African diaspora, including collard greens, black-eyed peas, okra and watermelon.
She finds the work rewarding, but over the past year, she has yearned to create her own seed hub. Now, thanks to a GoFundMe campaign, which has raised more than $20,000 since October, she’s almost ready to launch her own farm.
