This week on Nourish by MN350, host Barbara Norblom talks urban agriculture in Minneapolis with a whole smorgasbord of guests. Today’s show includes poet Michael Chaney of Project Sweetie Pie, a nonprofit teaching youth in North Minneapolis how to grow and sell their own food; Hindolo Pokawa from Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy, which provides education, childcare, and trainings in sustainable farming based on generations-old methods; and DeVon Nolen, who is both part of the Northside Fresh team and a former Chair of the Homegrown Minneapolis Food Policy Council, a citywide initiative expanding our community’s ability to grow, process, distribute, eat and compost more healthy, sustainable, locally grown foods. Our guests discuss how they learned about and got started in urban farming, the missions of their organizations, and their visions and solutions for healing our broken food system.
Full episode transcript available here.
This week on Nourish by MN350, host Barbara Norblom talks urban agriculture in Minneapolis with a whole smorgasbord of guests. Today’s show includes poet Michael Chaney of Project Sweetie Pie, a nonprofit teaching youth in North Minneapolis how to grow and sell their own food; Hindolo Pokawa from Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy, which provides education, childcare, and trainings in sustainable farming based on generations-old methods; and DeVon Nolen, who is both part of the Northside Fresh team and a former Chair of the Homegrown Minneapolis Food Policy Council, a citywide initiative expanding our community’s ability to grow, process, distribute, eat and compost more healthy, sustainable, locally grown foods. Our guests discuss how they learned about and got started in urban farming, the missions of their organizations, and their visions and solutions for healing our broken food system.
Full episode transcript available here.
Architects of Our Own Destinies
Tuesday, January 12 8:00 a.m.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
food, community, northside, growing, urban farming, farm, sierra leone, garden, north minneapolis, permaculture
SPEAKERS
Michael Chaney, Hindolo Pokawa, DeVon Nolan, Barbara Norblom
Michael Chaney 00:00
North Minneapolis is going green. Give us a call and learn what we mean. Where once lie urban blight now sits luscious garden sites, gardens without borders, classrooms without walls, architects of our own destinies, access to food, justice for all.
Barbara Norblom 01:04
Hello and welcome to Nourish by MN350. I'm your host Barbara Norblom, and we are coming to you from the original homeland of the Dakota and Anishinaabeg peoples or what is now known as Minnesota. The focus of today's show is local urban bipod farming where we will explore the intersection of climate justice and food justice. To help us answer our questions we have with us in our virtual studio three visionary community organizers, Michael Chaney of Project Sweetie Pie in North Minneapolis. Project Sweetie Pie is a nonprofit operating at the intersection of climate change, racial justice, and food security. The focus of Project Sweetie Pie has been to work with the City of Minneapolis to grow community gardens. Michael Chaney is its founder. Michael has also been very active in setting aside state resources for urban farm land. Michael describes himself as a community activist, organizer, ag patriot and youth advocate. He currently serves on the City of Minneapolis Green Zone Task Force and is a key partner in the family of trees initiative. Welcome, Michael. And thank you for being here.
Michael Chaney 02:07
Thank you for having me,
Barbara Norblom 02:08
DeVon Nolan,who serves on the operations team of the Northside Fresh Coalition. She's also a former chair of the Homegrown Food Policy Council, and is a Minnesota Food Charter Champion. The Northside Fresh Coalition is a community based partnership born as a project in 2008 by the NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center and currently incubated by Appetite for Change. Northside Fresh is a network of over 60 community members, organizations, and businesses committed to building a more self-reliant, just, anf connected food system on the north side of Minneapolis. The homegrown Minneapolis Food Policy Council is a citywide initiative expanding our community's ability to grow, process, distribute, eat and compost more healthy, sustainable, locally grown foods. Homegrown Minneapolis brings together key partners from local government, area businesses, community organizations, nonprofits and residents to build a healthy, local food system. Thank you, DeVon, for being here today.
DeVon Nolan 03:08
Thank you so much for the invitation. Glad to be in such an esteemed group.
Barbara Norblom 03:13
And Hindolo Pokowa, Founder of Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy. Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy, or SLFND, is providing education, childcare, and trainings in sustainable farming and peacebuilding in the poorest and most neglected villages in Sierra Leone and throughout Africa. Born and raised in Sierra Leone, but trained in social work in the US, Hindolo Pokowa put aside pursuing a career here to start the Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy in order to help those whose main dream is simply to survive. Hindolo,thank you so much for being here.
Hindolo Pokawa 03:49
It's a pleasure. Thank you.
Barbara Norblom 03:51
We're talking with these three today to get their perspectives on how their work relates to the creation of a more just food system. Alright, so having said that, we're going to begin, Michael, would you mind telling our listeners briefly about the mission of Project Sweetie Pie?
Michael Chaney 04:09
Certainly. North Minneapolis is going green, give us a call and learn what we mean. Where once lie urban blight now sits luscious garden sites, gardens without borders, classrooms without walls, architects of our own destinies, access to food, justice for all. Hello, my name is Michael Chaney. I'm an activist and organizer. In the 80s I was the founder of the Juneteenth celebration. In the 90s. I was one of the founders, with Sam Grant, in fact, of the Wendell Phillips Credit Union, and in 2010 when North High came under attack, myself and others were all part of a group called AfroEco. Notables in that group were Tim Page, Collie Graddick, Metric and Melvin Giles, and so many of the people that you know, as African Americans, Rose McGee, Dr. Rose Brewer. It was an esteemed crowd, to use DeVon's word, and we were sitting around commiserating about the threatened closing of North High, because we realized that the killing of a school is the killing of the heart of any community. And so in all good conscience, we couldn't sit back passively and watch that happen. And so we got to talking and realized that there was a green room at North High, somebody brought up to me. And so I approached the school, and asked them, because in the 90s, I had done a program there called the Video Brigade. By training, in my professional career, I worked for 25 years for Fox TV as a cameraman, sound technician. And so most of my work professionally has been within Media and Communications. And so I approached the school and asked them "if I could get the youth of North Minneapolis to start growing vegetables, could I use that space?" They agreed, and thus was born Project Sweetie Pie.
Barbara Norblom 06:19
Okay, Thank you so much. That's very interesting. I didn't know that about North High. And DeVon, would you mind telling our listeners briefly about the Northside Fresh Coalition?
DeVon Nolan 06:32
Sure. The way I like to talk about the work of the Northside Fresh Coalition is really a grassroots effort to look at how we transform our food system here in North Minneapolis. There are, like you said, about 60 partners, and I should say that Elder Chaney and myself both serve on the operations team. And we found that we can be much more effective when we work in coalition as it relates to policy change, as it relates to, things around land access, and really building capacity at the community level, to understand why our local food system is important, and how we build one. And so while I'm involved in policy work at several different levels, this is kind of my heart because it is that grassroots work, where we reach the average community member here in North Minneapolis, whether they grow food or not, and really build a coalition around that. And what we found, I think we're heading into our 11th year with the coalition work, and what we found is that people are growing food all across the city. And that thread, really, really pulls people together. Every time I'm in the garden there's always someone there. So how do we continue to leverage that in a way that addresses healthy food access, and that addresses the food economy. And really looking at what are the policy barriers that make it difficult?
Barbara Norblom 07:54
Alright, that's fantastic. Thank you very much. And Hindolo, would you please tell us briefly about the mission of Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy?
Hindolo Pokawa 08:04
Absolutely. Again, my name is Hindolo Pokowa. I'm the founder and the Director of Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy. I'm originally from Sierra Leone, in West Africa. I've been in Minnesota for 20 years. And I approach the work of development from an intersectional relationship, where communities see themselves as agents of change and approaching their own development from an appreciative inquiry point of view; that they understand their problems. They know what the situation is, they have solutions to their problems, and that all they really need is a little bit of push in genuine partnership with stakeholders to be able to support them in achieving their goals. And so one of our goals with the Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy. is looking at the country in Sierra Leone, West Africa., That is one of the poorest in the world, highest infant mortality rate, very low literacy rates at about 37-43%. And you have a country that has endured a civil war, the Ebola crisis in 2014, and a mudslide that really decimated a part of the city in 2017. In all of that, there's an increase in the extractive and exploitative relationships that we have identified coming out of colonial projects, that does not allow us to be able to feed ourselves. It doesn't allow us to be able to grow food or engage in communities and development that is grounded in their own experiences. And so the Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy has structured itself to be able to push on those ideas that move away from the extractive and the exploitative dynamics, and enable communities to thrive in building their own wealth.
Barbara Norblom 10:05
Thank you so much. That's absolutely amazing work. Okay, so I'd like to dig a bit deeper with each of you about your personal journeys into urban agriculture and your initial inspirations. DeVon, how did you first get into urban farming and why? And there's a second question. What is your vision for urban agriculture in the local food economy 10, 30, 100 years from now?
DeVon Nolan 10:29
Yes. Well, I'm glad you asked that Barb. And I'm so glad that Elder Michael Chaney is on the call, because he is the reason that I'm involved in any of this work. I continue to give you credit for that Elder Chaney, because I didn't even know that we could do something about it. I knew that our food system was not serving my community very well. But the very first time I went to the legislature on Christmas Eve, I don't know what year that was, it was just me, you and Karen Clark at the time, and started the process of learning how to draft an urban agriculture bill. I've never done those types of things before. So Elder Michael Chaney is the reason why I do this. First and foremost, I stand on the shoulders of giants, I really do. And my personal journey is that I've been here my whole life, and I have watched my community change in ways that are painful and don't serve my community very well. We can give it all the pretty names - you can call it gentrification, you can call it a whole bunch of things. But there are systems at play that create these conditions. And so my very first encounter with urban agriculture was when I was with Emerge Community Development and doing supportive and transitional housing. And they called me over to one of the apartment complexes because they were having challenges with the young people there who were being destructive - in other people's eyes. And so I came over and I sat out on the steps with some popsicles. And I made friends, and we decided we were going to grow a garden in the courtyard in between. And this was down at Homewood Apartments. And that was my very first experience, outside of my family growing, but growing in community. And this garden became a catalyst for helping to build a healthy community - in that apartment complex and beyond. Those young people who were previously seen as a menace now caring for that garden. The elders were watering and praying over that garden, and boy did that garden produce. I didn't know the squash grew under those big old leaves. And so I had some huge squash coming out of there, and lots of tomatoes and things. And it really just became a catalyst for, for community. And that sparked this journey, really: thinking about the importance of self reliance and the importance of us being able to feed ourselves. I often make the joke that nobody likes a hungry DeVon, like, I am no fun to be around, when I need to eat. And what we find is that food is sacred, across cultures, across all the isms that we can ponder. Food is sacred, and it really can be a catalyst. So I just want to thank Elder Chaney again .And elders like Candace McCovey, and Collie Graddick, and those who who've been fighting against these injustices before I was even born. And now have b;lazed a trail, and have another generation of folks coming behind them. So we're not done yet.
Barbara Norblom 13:30
All right, that's wonderful. And Hindolo. How did you get into farming and why?
Hindolo Pokawa 13:35
When I finished my graduate degree here, it was very difficult to find a job. So I ended up driving taxis in the Twin Cities. From that humble experience. When I was sitting one day in my taxi waiting for a call, the light bulb just went off: the fact that I've been doing farming back in Sierra Leone for years. I come from a farming community and I come from a landholding family. And access to land was not a problem to me. So I decided to make a phone call. And I spoke to my Grandpa, "grandpa, can you give me my own share of the land?" and I was like this prodigal son in the Bible, you know, give me my own share; I want to go and do my own thing. And they thought that I wanted to come and dig for gold and diamonds, because that is the livelihood economy that is there in this community. And I said, no, I'm not digging for gold and diamonds, I want to grow food. I want to build preschool. I want to feed children organic food, so that they're able to pay attention to education in the classroom, and let them be able to become good, productive citizens. And so they gave me my own 20 acres of land as part of the family. I had gone through my permaculture training, I had my certification. So I combining the education that I had, which was focusing on literacy and ecology at the University of Minnesota, I basically took off and put together the Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy, went back home, using the very appreciative inquiry: what does the community want? How do you see a preschool built where children are being fed two meals every day, and you don't have to pay any tuition? You're nourishing their capacity to think critically. The idea of me growing up in Sierra Leone not having food, how do we move from that trend to something new. So that has been our focus. And it all came out of, you know, sitting in the cold here in Minnesota, waiting for that taxi ride.
Barbara Norblom 16:01
That's wonderful. Thank you very much for that. And,Michael,how did you first get into urban farming?
Michael Chaney 16:11
I didn't get into urban farming, I was born into farming.
Barbara Norblom 16:15
Okay,
Michael Chaney 16:15
I have a rural background, actually several generations. At the turn of the century, my grandfather owned 1000 acres in northern Wisconsin, and there was a whole convoy of African American families out of Iowa who came north to northwestern Wisconsin with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. They wanted to get away from the cities and get back to their agrarian roots that might have been, you know, lost for a generation or so. And so there were a number of families that acquired farmland. But farming is more than a notion. And so over a course of time,most of those families left and as they left, my grandfather acquired their land. And so again, he had 1000 acres, which is a remarkable story, given the history of racism in this country. So he had seven children. And then my father had seven children, and as his siblings left that area and moved to the Milwaukee's and the Minneapolises. What happened in my father's generation, happened in mine:,we all left the country to come to the city, because we had stars In our eyes of fame and fortune. And so I came to the city. But as the old saying goes, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out the boy. And so in fact,, about probably 20 years ago, I went to Will Allen, and I asked him if he'd come to North Minneapolis, because my uncle is kind of a who's who in Milwaukee, first black bank president. President, of the NAACP, president of the Urban League. And so long before I knew anything about Malcolm and Martin, I knew that being a modern day abolitionists, that's what you do. It wasn't about your profession. It wasn't about your career. It was abou is your role in establishing and keeping alive the Underground Railroad. And so that's what I based my whole life on following in the footsteps of my uncle, who was a community organizer, activist, civic leader, and I continue that legacy.
Barbara Norblom 18:57
So you were involved in agriculture before you heard about the closing of North High.
Michael Chaney 19:02
Right, I was born and raised on a farm. And, you know, 160 acre farm was what we had. We grew chickens. We grew pigs. We had seven children. So they had to feed them something. Right. And so that's what we did. And my mother was a big gardener. And so, I spent most of my early life trying to run away from the farm. And now I found myself at this end of life running back to the farm. I own two farms in Wisconsin, and we have an initiative called Black to the Farm.
Barbara Norblom 19:38
It's a great title.
Michael Chaney 19:40
Right. Well, again, like I said, I spent 25 years in communication and media. So, I learned a long time ago that if you want people to get engaged, you have to be engaging. And so, you know, communication being a poet and a spoken word artist. Everything that I do really comes from the Spirit. And I'm Spirit led. I take very little credit for anything that I've done, or anything that I've really ever said' it's always been modern day grieux as to who was being fed knowledge, fed wisdom, and trying to just follow in the footsteps of all those ancestors who still speak to all of us, if we are wise enough to listen. Back in the 90sI tried to get Will Allen to think outside of Milwaukee. He was in Milwaukee and when I compare him to my uncle, I see two ends of the spectrum. Will was talking about urban farming—he was certainly a rare bird there. He was talking about folks really getting skills and being self sufficient. And my uncle was on the other end of the spectrum with the Urban League and the NAACP. And so at that time, in our communities, folks had spent their lives trying to get away from the farm - to get to the city. And still today, all of that pain and suffering of history. I know people today who I've tried to take to the country, and it's something that they resist because of all those fears. I've had young women in urban communities tell me that they 'don't do dirt.' So it's really a learning curve,, really a lifestyle change, a paradigm shift. How do we get residents in urban communities, who've been socially engineered, to be consumers? How do we change that narrative so that they become pre-producers? It's really hard to live in a free enterprise system. If you don't have a product and a service in this nonprofit complex that we live in, which is really just the overseers on the new plantation, then they, too, are showing that their lifestyle is really not that different from the very same people that they claim to serve. So how do we sever that tie, and get back to the health and well being of the land. And so I have some folks up on one of my farms, a brother than a sister who are urban residents who wanted to get off the grid. And they're growing goats, and they're growing chickens, and they're homeschooling their children. And so it's so remarkable, that I've been able to help create that pathway for people to get back to the country.
Barbara Norblom 22:57
That's fantastic. Okay, this looks like a good place to stop and take a short station break. We'll be right back. Here at MN350, our Food Systems Team advocates for establishing a regenerative food economy. We believe that local food produced in a way that empowers those who have traditionally been harmed or marginalized by the industrial food system plays an important role in a regenerative food economy. And MN350 is a climate justice organization and we recognize that the industrial food system is contributing to climate change, which is why we're advocating for the types of regenerative food economy that our guests are creating through their work at Project Sweetie Pie, SLFND and Northside Fresh. Welcome back, everyone.We are talking with DeVon Nolan of the Northside Fresh Coalition, Michael Chaney of Project Sweetie Pie, and Hindolo Pokowa of the Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy, and we're talking about food justice. I would like to ask anyone here what they think the relationship is between agriculture, community and education. What relationship do they have in your work?
Hindolo Pokawa 24:34
I think that there's a clear connection between education, regenerative agriculture, and the particular advocacy that we're involved with. And I tied that to precisely the work that Michael is doing. Michael has been a mentor for me over the years and having that relationship with him, but also, Sam Grant whom he mentioned. is somebody that I've worked with for years. But the connection for me has to do with, for instance, an aspect that we often ignore in dealing with food systems, here and around the world, which is international solidarity around the food system. And what do I mean by that? The work that Michael is doing, at the same time that he's dreaming his wonderful ideas, or Sam Grant, or any of these sort of people, is the same dream that is happening down south. In other parts of the world, when we think about, for instance, the Hmong community in Minnesota, and the agricultural work that they're doing in a very regenerative framework, or from a regenerative platform, you understand that international solidarity plays a huge role. And this is where I come in, by saying, what Michael is doing, how he has mentored me, how he has been able to coach me, has actually mimicked the very practices that I grew up on being on a farm in rural Sierra Leone. And now being a farm manager at Frogtown Farm in St. Paul, working on regenerative agriculture, requires knowledge-building from an indigenous inquiry. And I come from an indigenous background, I've been able to utilize that to say those skills can be applied in other parts of the world. And that knowledge base, from understanding the climate system, the impact of that and its effect on other parts of the world regardless of where it is originating. It's a knowledge base that we constantly do not understand. And for me, international solidarity plays a huge role. And we have to be able to appreciate the indigenous values that come with it.
DeVon Nolan 27:04
I can jump in next, One of the questions was about education, and I tend to just challenge our language a little bit. When we use things like education, that's a very Eurocentric way of looking at it. Often black folks and African descendants of slaves, have not had a favorable experience with the Eurocentric and Western idea of education. So I often talk about knowledge building and harvesting what already exists. There's lots of information and skills and understanding that just come with our ways of knowing and being that already exist, And that because of colonization, they have been dismissed and minimized and co-opted, and a whole bunch of other words that I could use, in that the originators don't get credit. And so when we talk about the intersection of education or knowledge building, it's really just tapping into what already exists. I do a lot of work with the Cultural Wellness Center, where we consider the idea of black thought, and the idea of getting back to our original ways of knowing and being in community. And it's sometimes difficult to do in this day and age with technology and this little pandemic thing that we're dealing with here. But what we're finding is that it is creating a sense of urgency for people to get back to their old ways of knowing and being. There are more people growing food now than ever. You can't even find any jars for canning or preservation because people are really starting to pay attention to the issues with our industrialized food system, and the fact that it will likely fail in our lifetime. There are those of us who have parents or grandparents who lived through the Great Depression, and I remember my grandfather often telling stories about when this time would happen, and it's mind blowing, that we're actually living through it. But what he did pass down was some deep knowledge and understanding about what to do. Whether he knew he was giving us those lessons or not, I know exactly what to do. And I find more often than not, more people around me know what to do than not. And often, someone else is writing that narrative about the fact that we need to be educated about this. And we need to be educated about that. That's not how we speak about ourselves. And that's not how we live in this world. And so I just want to challenge that a little bit to acknowledge that people know more than we give them credit for, and rather than assuming they don't know we should ask.
Barbara Norblom 29:51
Absolutely, I hear you. Michael, do you have anything to add to that?
Michael Chaney 29:57
Oh, I can talk all day long; I'd rather do poetry. So for traders and slave raiders and industrial coal agers, they claimed her as their savior. Yet the Mississippi treated her foul, pollutants are what they gave her in exchange for all tables. And now we piddle pedal paddle fast, past our dirty, ugly past, in a desperate attempt to try to save ourselves from exploding greenhouse gas. You know, when we start talking about urban farming, when we start talking about the green New Deal, when we start talking about all of these issues, it's always from a white perspective, as if they are the only inhabitants of the earth. But I push back on that, because if that's the case, then who is Will Allen? If that's the case, then who is Van Jones? And so, if that's the case, who was Fannie Lou Hamer? There have been people all over the world. When we start talking about global warming and climate change we can go to the green wall in Africa. So, even though we pompously, self-centeredly, think that only we and we alone, as Americans, if that's who we are, as the United States, if that's who we are, are the people in charge. But, I know that we are an extractive system, still practicing colonial extraction, still exploiting people, still exploiting the earth for our own personal, self centered, savage greed. And until we can really respect that river, until we realize that that river, that that tree, that that plant that we plant, that we, as the Native American people say, need to get past this little notion of time, that leadership is not one year or two years, that instead it's a lifetime of giving, it's a lifetime of service, that we are stewards of the earth, and that we are servants to the Most High. And until we can get beyond this little pomp and ceremony called popular American culture, that's divisive, that's distractive, that's extractive, we will continue to perpetuate, not reform, not readdress, not bring reconciliation, but it's about divide and conquer. We come to realize, through the murder of George Floyd, that we're sitting on a fault line. Two cities, the story of the haves and the have nots, and we've lost sight of the fact that in 1985 slavery supposedly came to an end. But, indeed, poverty is slavery, and that as long as we are about taking advantage of people, taking advantage of Mother Earth, and the work these folks are doing at Minnesota 350, that all of these issues are all one. So when we're talking about farming, even urban farming is an extractive process. So, again, until we really come to grips with our indigenous ways, and realize that it's not about us, but it's about the children yet unborn: that's who we serve.
Barbara Norblom 33:58
Yes, we did not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. That was beautiful. Okay, so now I'd like to discuss how urban black, indigenous, and people of color, or bipoc, farming addresses issues created by the industrial food system. Hindolo, the vision of SLFND is around building relationships among peoples and the earth. How does this differ from the current industrial food system?
Hindolo Pokawa 34:26
It is very different, very, very different. We're looking at temperatures rising like we've never seen before, we're looking at massive food desert communities being created, even right here in Minnesota that we've never seen before. We're looking at the disparities of access to food, which really speaks volumes to who gets access, I think we need to be asking those questions as to who gets to grow food, who gets access to even the resources? How do we think about the infrastructure capacity to be able to make food available and growing the right kind of food? When we reflect on the diversity of the population, and the diversity of food coming from different parts of the world, how does all of that operate? Now what regenerative agricultural is trying to do, and this is where I think MN350 is really strong, is looking at how addressing those fundamental issues, and making the question of food access, is the right approach. And it's a fundamental right to be able to make sure that we can get food, but also be able to grow food in a way that is supportive, and moving away from this industrialized, farming demands, going back to agrarian ecology, agrarian ways of growing food in small communities, and making sure that those communities are being fed. What we at SLFND are doing is exactly that. We take in one village at a time, engaging with the process of ecological resilience and designing from a bottom-up approach. This is very different from industrialized farming, which grows food at a mass scale to be able to make sure it is coming from a top-bottom approach. And therefore, whatever is in this food, we don't know. We don't know about the chemicals that come with this food, we have no idea about who participates in even growing the food. It's all very limited and very controlled. What organic, or small farm holders who are growing food, would actually want to do is to be able to make sure that the sufficiency of food is a priority. And that is very different from the industrialized mechanisms that we are seeing. So in summary, on the work that we are doing, we grow food and feed the community, we do not sell food to start with, we allow for things like seed saving, where somebody who controls seeds, controls knowledge, and controls what you eat. We have women who have to go take micro loans to be able to get seeds, which then they will put in the soil to grow. And if that soil doesn't do well, because of chemical fertilizers that are sprayed on the ground, the seed doesn't do well. Then that woman is taking a loan that she has to pay back. So these are the realities happening not only in Sierra Leone but in other parts of Africa, and the same thing is happening on this side of the world. So yes, it's very different. And we are looking at a framework that supports a permaculture platform, very different from an industrialized one.
Barbara Norblom 38:02
Excellent, thank you so much for that. And Michael, would you please tell us what prompted you to create Project Sweetie Pie? What challenges and opportunities in the community are you trying to address and how does this connect to the industrial food system?
Michael Chaney 38:17
I think it's the antithesis. First of all, when I say I'm an ag patriot, what does that mean? That means I'm using urban farming, I'm using gardening; you know the story of Adam and Eve, right? Can we go back to the garden—the garden being a petri dish where culture is grown. And so I'm using gardening as a tool, as a device, to really change culture, and to bring people back to their ancient roots. To get back to nature. You know, there are so many dimensions, there are so many intersections that we can't just talk about urban farming or local food production. Hindolo alluded to land development. That's also part of it. I see urban farming, local food production, and public land development as the latest iteration of the civil rights movement. And in using that as the framework to really try to organize and get people to realize that this is genocide that we're witnessing—wars are fought and won over food supply. And so for people not to be able to have this knowledge, waiting back passively for somebody to deliver. That's why I'm not an advocate for hunger solutions. That's not teaching a man how to fish, that's giving a man fish, and if you give a man a fish, you take away his freedom, you take away his knowledge.
Barbara Norblom 40:08
Absolutely. Okay, so DeVon how has your work with Northside Fresh, on the grassroots community level, informed the work you and others do on the policy and systems level with the Minneapolis Food Policy Council?
DeVon Nolan 40:21
Yeah. that's a lofty question, I would say. It has taken a high level of intentionality and great partners. This is what our community government partnership looks like when it is really functioning in a way that can challenge and change systems. And so the Minneapolis Food Policy Council work around our food action planning is the first thing that comes to mind. And we have had coalition partners through Northside, Fresh as well. And the Food Action Plan is a roadmap toward a more equitable, climate resilient, just and sustainable local food system and local food economy. And so it is meant to serve as a document, an appendix and a standalone document, that will be complementary and work in tandem with the Minneapolis Climate Action Plan. And I'm grateful for this work, because what we found in the initial Climate Action Plan is that there was no mention of food. And so because we have great food activists and food organizers and folks who are always thinking about food, our foodie community, we're always looking for those gaps. And so when I look at the Food Action Plan, it's informed by things like the fact that in 2017, the City of Minneapolis signed on to the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. And some of those policies were adopted as a part of the Minneapolis 2040 comp plan. And I know that the policy talk is just you know, why? Because we're working within the same systems of oppression, working within the same system that were not designed to serve my community. But I'm a big proponent in having an inside/outside game, I'm all for dismantling systems of oppression that do not serve my people. I also understand that some of those systems continue to exist, and that if I work from the inside, we can do both; we can have parallel work. And so our food action plan has several different topics around food justice, and equity, diets and community demand, agriculture, food production, retail, wholesale processing and distribution, food waste generation and management, and then governance, finance and implementation. And so it's meant to, the way I like to think about it is, put some teeth to what we know we need in our community. And so, how do you translate how the community helps inform this plan, but also make sure that it moves beyond just a plan—that it's a living, working document that informs the actions that we take with our work around land access, and other barriers that socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers deal with all the time. That's the federal designation of what we're doing here. We are socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. And the USDA has a whole program designed just for that, from the 2008 Farm Bill. And so it's not enough to just have these policies. It takes someone who, and again, I'll give credit to Elder Cheney, I didn't know that we could influence these things—I didn't know that I could do this. And so he lit a fire and probably created a monster, and you can blame him later. But we have worked all the way up to the federal level on this work with the understanding that, again, something I've heard coined over and over,is, food is a basic human right. How do we leverage what we know are the challenges around food access in a way that is not only serving ourselves, but it's also caring for the earth? I've learned so much through this process of food action planning, and looking at the intersection of food, climate, water, and our carbon footprint, and working with the University of Minnesota, greenhouse gases, just all these things that in our day-to-day life, are really easy to be detached from. In particular, communities like mine, where we have the long history of divestment, and disinvestment and disenfranchisement. I mean, you could just go through all the 'dises.' We've got all of them here. And so we have historically not been a part of these processes, but we are the most heavily impacted; and often the subject of the research, but not always the benefactor of what comes out of that. And so we're trying to change that.
Barbara Norblom 44:53
Excellent, thank you so much. Well, and it's almost time for another break, but before we go, let me just say that Hindolo has to leave. So we'd like to have him give us some information about how our listeners can support him in his work with SLFND.
Hindolo Pokawa 45:09
Absolutely, thank you. First of all, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to be on this podcast. The work that is happening across the world speaks volumes to us reclaiming the land. We have to reclaim the land, we have to be part of this process. In whichever part of the world we're coming from. With the Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy, our work around land issues, access to land, regenerative agriculture, building the soil, the microbes, looking at water management systems, all of that comes within the framework that we have set up called the Pact Program: Permaculture Africa Cross Training, which you can find on our website at www.slfnd.org. And what that program supports is permaculture and the very indigenous philosophies with which the pioneers are acquainted—they basically studied what permaculture was about in other parts of the world. So we want to bring that back through the Permaculture, Africa Cross Training. We've done trainings in permaculture with communities in Sierra Leone. We've done one in Liberia, and are currently contracting right now to do a second one in Liberia. But we would like to spread that across the African continent, and participants in Africa so that they will be able to begin to reduce the food shortages that we're experiencing on a yearly basis by training them to go back to the land and letting them reclaim and work with the land. So listeners can support the work that we are doing at www.slfnd.org by sponsoring participants in Africa to undertake a permaculture training, by supporting these scholarships, and by allowing us to come to anywhere on the African continent to do training. And we can definitely work with different communities based on their needs, their assessment, and things that will be able to help support moving away from this industrialized farming to more sustainable agricultural mechanisms.
Barbara Norblom 47:26
Well, thank you, Hindolo. Great to hear from you.The Sierra Leone Foundation for New Democracy, you can find that at www.slfnd.org. And now we will take a short break and we will be back shortly. Hello, everyone, welcome back. We are still speaking with DeVon Nolan and Michael Chaney. Now, I'm not sure who wants to chime in first, but what can our listeners do to support your work in your organizations?
Michael Chaney 48:09
Well, to me, this is a movement, it's not just an enterprise or an action, it's a lifestyle change, it is life and death. The pandemic has made it even more obvious. The social unrest has made it more painfully clear that this system is corrosive, and it's eroding right before our eyes, exploding right before our ears. And it's prudent to each and every one of us that we have an obligation to our young to change the world. It's real clear that in a society that when they tried to get names of the gradients in the food that we eat, and that didn't pass, well that's shocking, that's unconscionable. That in a democracy we as citizens, are entitled to know the ingredients in our food. And I think that, that speaks volumes. And so as an activist, first and foremost, I'm not in this for the money. I'm in this for my children's children's children. And so I will continue to fight and to try to plant the seeds of change and to create a brave new world that is fair, and more equitable to all. And on a regular basis. I look for folks who share that sentiment, who are passionate about freedom; freedom fighters are abolitionists. And so, yeah, Project, Sweetie Pie is a thought leader, we are disruptors. It's not about black or white, it's about wrong or right, and trying to bring folks who are righteous keepers of the earth to come and see if we can salvage a world that we can pass on to the next generation of young people.
Barbara Norblom 50:46
It's a ripe moment for that, isn't it? So thank you so much, Michael. And hopefully, our listeners will go on over to www.projectsweetiepie.org and check it out and seehow they can get involved.
Michael Chaney 51:01
Well, they can come on over and pick some vegetables. We've got 15 gardens that are ripe and ready to be picked. And you know, we invite them and encourage them to. It all begins with the food. The food is medicine. And if we eat right, we'll be right.
Barbara Norblom 51:26
Right. Well, I may join them. And DeVon, how can people directly support Northside, Fresh?
DeVon Nolan 51:34
Yeah, Northside Fresh, my baby. I get excited when I think about Northside Fresh. We've been through a lot together. And we're still standing. And I'm so grateful for partners that have emerged over the years from the onset like NorthPoint and BlueCross BlueShield, Center for Prevention who provided that initial support to get us started. But what we know is it takes time. And so what I want to encourage is that those who give, like the business community and philanthropic community, to give and to dig deep. And if you're supporting our efforts, know that a one year or two year grant is just allowing us to get started—we really need five years in order to get our footing, and to really start to see the impacts that we're hoping to realize takes about 10 years. And so, the work is there. And all of these issues are economic issues at the base. And it takes resources. We are talking about reclamation of our being the masters of our own destiny. And that takes resources. Some people may call it reparations, some people may call it a restorative practice. But ultimately it's for our children, is what I want to echo. My people have always been a futuristic people, and I stand on the shoulders of giants—they were planning for me, they were paving a way and trailblazing for me to be able to do the work that I'm doing. And so if people are so inclined, you can go to www.appetiteforchangemn.org. and there's a little pretty 'donate' button up there. And you can designate your giving to Northside, Fresh. We are an incubator program of Appetite for Change. And so that's why I'm directing folks there. And I would also echo what Elder Chaney said: meet us at the garden. It's hard to manage 15-30 gardens around the city, pulling weeds and building hoop houses, etc. And so there are lots of opportunities to put your hands in the dirt. And it's harvest time, you know, and you'll come home with a beautiful bounty for, for your efforts. So thank you for that.
Barbara Norblom 53:42
Thank you so much. I'm definitely going to seek you out. Now, I didn't realize that a person could just go and help with the harvest. Obviously, it is harvest time, so...
Michael Chaney 53:50
Well, we don't call them community gardens, we call them communal gardens. We plant them with the intention that if we want a healthy community, we have to grow healthy food, and we want to make sure that food is a right, and that everyone should be able to eat and eat healthy. And so yeah, join us.
Barbara Norblom 54:15
All right, will do. Well, I just want to say thank you again to both of you. Thank you so much again, Michael Chaney of Project Sweetie Pie for being here.
Michael Chaney 54:28
Well, thank you for having us. I Hindolo. and myself were also part of an organization called the Midwest Coalition of Farmers of Color. I'm part of the Green Zone Task Force. I'm part of the Minnesota Department of Ag Food Safety Committee. So again, there's much work to be done, and we need your listeners to get involved and make this the world that is green for all. United we stand, divided we fail..
Barbara Norblom 55:04
Okay. Very well said. And thank you DeVon Nolan of The Northside Fresh Coalition, among other things. Thank you so much for being here.
DeVon Nolan 55:15
Thank you so much for the invitation. And I just want to say Northside! there's a lot of pride in being a Northsider. I'm very, very proud to be a Northsider. So thank you for the opportunity.
Barbara Norblom 55:26
Thank you to all our listeners for joining us today with our guest DeVon Nolan, Michael Chaney, and Hindolo Pokawa who shared so much valuable, insightful and timely information with us. And they have reminded us that a regenerative food system isn't a new idea. As DeVon mentioned earlier, it's really just about finding ways to get back to our original ways of knowing and being in community. I'd also like to thank the folks of the KFAI Wave Project, as well as the amazing volunteers of the MN350 Podcast Team, and Food Systems teams, for their work on the series. "Nourish by MN350" is a production of MN350's Food Systems Team. We are changing the way people think about food production, distribution and consumption practices in the context of rapid climate change. This series was made possible by the hard work and passion of a group of dedicated volunteers. Our executive producer is Sarah Riedl. The producer for this episode is Suzanne De Palma. This episode was written by Barb Rose and Barb Norblom. The sound editor for this episode is Rory Coleman. Our logo was designed by Fizz Design Collective and our music is by Ecuador Manta. You can learn more at www.MN350action.org/podcasts. Thanks for listening