Black farmers in cities and small towns preach the importance of growing your own food
“With farming and gardening, generally there’s some relationship between the amount of effort you put into it and what you get out of it,”
By Stateside Staff
Michigan Radio
Aug 10, 2020
Excerpt:
Melvin Parson is founder of We the People Opportunity Farm, a nonprofit in Ypsilanti Township that works with formerly incarcerated people to teach them agricultural skills. Their mission is to break the cycle of incarceration in Washtenaw County. Parson says that, in addition to the institutional barriers of farming, one of the things holding many Black people back from joining the agricultural industry is that they associate farming with slavery.
“Part of the reason they fled from the south was because of their time on plantations and being forced to grow food for other people,” Parson said. “Even today, even two generations beyond my grandparents, I’ll talk to young Black folks, folks my age, and they’ll associate growing food with slavery. There’s still a huge need for land reconciliation and food reconciliation that flows through my community.”
Besides teaching them new skills, Parson says, the chance to grow food also creates an opportunity for the formerly incarcerated people he works with to contribute meaningfully to their local community. For instance, during the pandemic, Parson’s nonprofit was able to shift its business model to give a bulk of the food they grew to their neighbors experiencing food scarcity.
