ECO SPEAKS CLE

Rid-All Green Partnership and Cleveland's Food Revolution

• Guest: Keymah Durden • Episode 73

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In this episode, we head to the Rid-All Farm to speak with Keymah Durden, a co-founder of Rid-All Green Partnership. What was once a notorious dumping ground in Cleveland's "Forgotten Triangle", the farm is now one of the largest minority-owned urban farms and a nationally recognized model for urban agriculture, environmental stewardship, and resilience. In this episode, Keymah talks about how Rid-All is growing communities and changing Lives. 

Rid-All was originally a pest control company started by farm co-founder Damien Forsche. As he worked in public housing projects, Damien observed some things, including what people were eating - unhealthy, processed food due to a lack of access to fresh food and nutrition education. This sparked a dream of bringing a farm to Cleveland's Kinsman neighborhood that would fill that void. That was in 2010. That dream is now a 26-acre campus in Cleveland's Urban Agriculture Innovation Zone. 

The name Rid-All stands for Redeem, Integrity, and Determination for All Mankind. Tragically, Damien passed away in 2018, but his partners continue to expand the Rid-All mission to honor his legacy and train the next generation of farmers. Carrying on the farming traditions of their African ancestors is central to Rid-All's mission. And that is what makes it truly special. They are not just growing food; they are rebuilding community connections, honoring cultural traditions, and creating pathways to health, prosperity, and circularity. 

Join us for a meaningful conversation about farming, soil, raising fish, sequestering carbon, celebration, music, learning, health, and the intersection of all these topics. Then go to the farm for Taco Tuesday or Fish Friday in the Rid-All Community Kitchen to experience this special place for yourself.  

Guest: 

Keymah Durden, Farmer and Co-Founder of Rid-All Green Partnership

Learn More:

Meet the Rid-All Partners

Training programs

Youth programs

Videos



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Diane Bickett:

You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for the eco-curious in Northeast Ohio. My name is Diane Bickett and my producer is Greg Rotuno. Together we speak with local sustainability leaders and invite you to connect, learn and live with our community and planet in mind. Hello friends, Greg and I are excited to be coming to you from the Ridolph Urban Farm this morning. Perhaps you've heard of it. Located on about 26 acres off Kinsman Avenue, between East 79th Street and East 84th Street, this farm is a center of urban agriculture, environmental stewardship and resilience in a Cleveland neighborhood once called the Forgotten Triangle. Well, this part of Cleveland is forgotten no more. A labor of love has transformed this land into an urban oasis of health and opportunity, thanks to our guest today, Keymah Durden and his Black brothers, the co-founders of Rid All Green Partnership. Thank you for joining us as we hear about all the various ways that Rid- All is growing communities and changing lives. Welcome Keymah.

Keymah Durden:

Welcome, thank you. Thank you for having me, and good morning.

Diane Bickett:

This is our earliest podcast ever. It's like 7.30 in the morning.

Keymah Durden:

Wow, I feel honored.

Diane Bickett:

Well, I think it'll be good. It's a beautiful day on the farm.

Keymah Durden:

Yes.

Diane Bickett:

And thank you so much for joining us.

Keymah Durden:

Looking forward to the interview.

Diane Bickett:

I remember first meeting you is probably 10 years ago or more. I was working with the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District and we were trying to help you clean up some abandoned tires. Yep, that's right there was a lot of dumping in this neighborhood and there was probably hundreds and hundreds of illegally dumped tires and you gave me a tour of the property at the time was maybe a greenhouse and there was a teepee and it looked like a campsite for kids by the railroad tracks there and it was really cool.

Diane Bickett:

It's still there, Awesome. Well, tell us, that was then, and you've grown so much over the years. Last year I had the honor of seeing a documentary produced about your farm and I had lunch here last week because you have a community kitchen, that's correct. So how about you give us like a visual tour of the property? So walk us through the farm, wow, okay.

Keymah Durden:

No problem, Thank you. And again, thank you for having me on your podcast this morning. I'm always excited to talk about the things that we're doing here at Rid-All. It's certainly been a labor of love and a commitment to the community, to health, to wellness, to diet, and it's been very rewarding, because it's so rare you get to live out your dream, you know, and we're getting a chance to do that on a daily basis and we feel that we're really making an impact in communities of need and beyond. So, Red All again. My name is Keymah Durden. I am one of the co-founders of the Red All Green Partnership, along with Randy McShepherd and Damien Forshe. Rest in peace.

Diane Bickett:

Rest in peace.

Keymah Durden:

Yes yes, yes, and we started here roughly. I guess it had to be 2010,. Thereabout 09, 10, as things started to come together. We started out on 1.3 acres right off of Kinsman in a very notorious area in Lower Garden Valley called Forgotten Triangle in Lower Garden Valley called Forgotten Triangle and when we came on site it was a very notorious dump ground for illegal dumping. A lot of like you mentioned the tires, the construction debris, Sparsely populated, so people thought they could just come no one's looking, they could just go dump their garbage and tires here.

Keymah Durden:

Exactly One of the residents and if not many left in the neighborhood was quoted as saying that at night, the population of the neighborhood went up because we started getting all this activity. Wow, nefarious activity if you will.

Greg Rotuno:

Mm-hmm.

Keymah Durden:

And so that's the landscape we found ourselves in. 1.3 acres is what we started on. 1.3 acres is what we started on and today we've grown to like. You mentioned over 20 acres that we manage to occupy and own here in the Triangle, which officially unofficial makes us one of the top five largest urban farms in the United States, particularly owned by African-Americans or minorities. So that's a real good plus for our team. It's a real good plus for the city of Cleveland. You know who, in times past, took a real bad rap around environment. You know the Cuyahoga River burning on fire, which led to the creation of the EPA, you know. So Cleveland has really been a vanguard in terms of environment and environmental stewardship, and when we launched the project, we fit right into that model.

Diane Bickett:

Love it, love it. So you farm here, you raise fish, you create soil, you grow trees, you educate youth, you teach people how to do what you do, which is farm. Tell us how many greenhouses do you have. Tell us about the whole operation.

Keymah Durden:

Yes, yes. So what we did when we first got started? We partnered up with a group out of Milwaukee called Growing Power and that was run at that time by Will Allen. Will Allen.

Keymah Durden:

Yeah very, very. He was like the forerunner of urban ag during this generation of time and so when we met up with him, we decided to go take his training course. We knew we wanted to do something important in the community, but in order to do it, we wanted to do it the right way. So we wanted to go get training. So we took Will Allen's five-month training program, which led to us becoming authorized to become a regional training center for growing power at that time, and we used that model and we started with the things that we learned at Growing Power, which were the basics, were urban agriculture, growing local foods. Compost was number one. I should have said that first.

Diane Bickett:

That's right.

Keymah Durden:

Nothing happens without the soil.

Diane Bickett:

That was one of the first things you were doing here.

Keymah Durden:

Yeah, nothing happens without that soil so compost, which we are a Class II EPA-certified compost facility Again one of the very few minority-owned compost facilities in Ohio and in the, I guess, the Midwest region, if you will. So that speaks to the value that we put on our soil so soil. Then we also do aquaponics. You mentioned that we raise tilapia fish here on site. We have about 850,000 tilapia fish breeding that we make available.

Diane Bickett:

Really yes.

Keymah Durden:

That we make available to local restaurants and we also make available to many of the local grocery stores We've just recently gotten into the Meyers. Meyers just built a new grocery store here in Cleveland, right at the Cleveland Clinic area, so we have our products in that particular market, which is very good because it gets exposure to the community and gets our product out there From there. We've got a tree nursery. We're part of the Cleveland Tree Coalition to help repopulate and reforest this beautiful forest city of ours. We've launched a community kitchen where we serve fresh food two times a week to the community on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Diane Bickett:

Taco Tuesday and fish fry Friday. Taco Tuesday is highly recommended Very good, it's a winner.

Keymah Durden:

And the other days we rent out the facility for meetings, small gatherings and things like that. So that particular institution has worked out really well because it becomes a revenue generator for the organization.

Diane Bickett:

Very good.

Keymah Durden:

We have a very robust veterans program where we're working with local veterans First around post-traumatic stress disorder. Many studies have shown that for veterans that can get into a green space it helps alleviate some of the symptoms. You know, if you're having a bad day mentally they can come down to the farm right here off of Kinsman and just touch the earth and be at peace are being applied with horse therapy gardening for military veterans, even for some inmates that are incarcerated, and it's shown great benefits. So our veterans program is very robust.

Diane Bickett:

Are you a veteran or were any of your founders veterans?

Keymah Durden:

No, but most of our parents were David, Dr Greenhand. He's a Marine, Uncle, Walt Walter Collins is Army. We have several veterans on our staff, but the actual co-founders were not Okay, Except for, of course, Dave Hester, Dr Greenhand and we're also glad to announce that sometime later this year we will be breaking ground on the Walter Collins Veteran Housing Complex where we'll be building out 12 units to house homeless veterans, with a focus on social services, suicide prevention and things of that nature, to really, really offer veterans that have really put their life on the line a handout and say hey, if you're having a tough time, we want to find a way to help.

Diane Bickett:

And that will be in this neighborhood as well.

Keymah Durden:

It will be in this neighborhood. The ground has already been selected, the drawings are done, we're ready to go. We're just finishing up a few loose ends with the city of Cleveland around permitting loose ends with the city of Cleveland around permitting. The complex is going to be erected at 93rd, between 93rd and 116th and Harvard.

Diane Bickett:

Okay.

Keymah Durden:

So not even 10 minutes from here.

Diane Bickett:

You guys don't slow down, do you?

Keymah Durden:

Well, the need is so great, you know, and when the need is great, it requires those that have the fortitude, the vision, the tenacity to step up and respond to the need.

Keymah Durden:

I think you know.

Keymah Durden:

Just to take a step back, to really understand what motivates us is this whole idea of transforming communities and all of the things that we mentioned so far that we've sort of talked about.

Keymah Durden:

None of it works if people are not involved. So at the core of all of this work is people, and if we could find ways to reach the people and offer healthy lifestyle options, then we've done our job for today, today. So how do we take an area like the Forgotten Triangle and, over a seven, eight year period of time which is actually 15 years now transform it to the urban agriculture innovation zone? You know, that's a big leap from that reality to this reality, and so that's worked out really well for us, and we believe that people are the major component to the work that we do. Everything that we talked about, kind of some of the highlights of the farm, they don't matter if people are not included in it and we're not affecting the lives of people. So I just wanted to add that in because I think that sets the context of everything else that we do last friday I attended uh the opening of food strong's farm, the superior farm, yes, and sarah continenza was on an earlier show.

Diane Bickett:

That's our favorite, one of our favorite friends and partners yeah, she calls you her brothers yeah, absolutely um, she in her remarks at the event she said there's no I in this, it's all we. That's right, and there were probably 100 people there. You know that had worked to kind of get it to where it is now. She's got her five-year plan so it's going to take a while to transform that whole property. But how are you like working with other urban farmers in Cleveland to support each other? There's a lot of you know Food Strong and your farm and other others you want to mention and how you kind of help each other.

Keymah Durden:

Yeah, I'll go back to the comment that I made earlier that the need is so great you know, one urban farm in any given city will not meet the needs of that community. So we need as many urban farms as we possibly can, growing, putting out good food, offering educational opportunities, offering job opportunities to students. So I mean, you name it, we've touched just about every urban farm in some aspect or another. Where we share information, we host community events collectively. One of the big events that we have every year is the, sponsored by Environmental Health Watch, the Fresh Fest.

Diane Bickett:

Oh, when is that?

Keymah Durden:

It's the second September of second weekend of September every year when will it be this year? It's always held here on the Rid-All campus.

Diane Bickett:

Okay.

Keymah Durden:

And that's a play on words, because we like to use the word campus. It just sounds so ritzy. It is a campus. It is a campus. It is a campus. It started out as a farm and now it really is a campus, and maybe we'll touch on that a little bit before we wrap up. It really is a campus, and maybe we'll touch on that a little bit before we wrap up, so we bring our partners in from all over the country to participate. Last year we had over 85,000 attendance in one day.

Keymah Durden:

And that was down from 60 or 65 the previous year, and even during COVID we brought in 50.

Diane Bickett:

Wow, what a celebration. Yeah, and it's a brought in 50, you know, wow, what a celebration.

Keymah Durden:

Yeah, and it's a celebration of arts, community, friend, family, and then we always highlight it with a concert by bringing in some form of entertainer, like an old school entertainer. Some of the examples we had Biz Marquis come Last year, we had Big Daddy Kane. This year we're going to have MC Lyte and Roxanne Shante, we've had Kid Capri, spinderella, so we've had these kind of old school rap artists, hip hop artists come and just fellowship with us and connect with the community and it's like a um, you can imagine, almost like a big block party. So, um, we work hard but we play hard too.

Greg Rotuno:

I love it. I love it Um can you talk about the name.

Keymah Durden:

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Uh, the name is is really the backstory of of the whole riddle operation. The name is really the backstory of the whole Rid-All operation. The Rid-All Corporation as an entity was established by Randy McShepard and Damien Forshe as an exterminating company. Did the light bulb go off?

Keymah Durden:

Yeah right and Damien's motto was get rid of all of your woes for real love. And he was one of the very few minority contractors that was exterminating in public housing. And, as you can imagine, public housing probably has some of the most challenging pest situations, from bed bugs to roaches to mice, to you name it. And he and his team would go in and have to deal with those type of issues on a daily basis, would go in and have to deal with those type of issues on a daily basis. And that really became the motivation for the one of the motivations for the formation of Rid-All. Because Damien was so moved by what he saw. Because even for many of us, when you drive through an urban core community and you see the government project housing, it leaves you feeling you know you get a reaction. But imagine going leaves you feeling you know you get a reaction. But imagine going in the unit you know.

Keymah Durden:

And then the exterminator was the one that was going in the unit. So Damien was really moved when he saw the diet that the children had If they were eating at all, they might have been eating leftover hot flame and Fritos from the night before or something ridiculous and it just really affected him in such a way that he said we had to do something. I had come from a background of still a background of being a vegan for over 30 plus years and had ran and operated a series of restaurants called Soul Vegetarian here in Cleveland, mostly anchored in Cleveland Heights. Vegetarian here in Cleveland, mostly anchored in Cleveland Heights and so I brought healthy food and healthy education to the mix. And Randy, well known throughout Cleveland he's part of a Fortune 500 company does a lot of great things around Cleveland. He's actually now the sitting Cleveland Foundation board director.

Keymah Durden:

Oh good, yeah, just recently started his tenure there as a board director. Longstanding board member, he brought philanthropy. He knew how to get grand dollars. He knew how to raise money. So it was like the perfect storm when we all came together and Damien's only request was he just wanted to keep the name Riddle.

Diane Bickett:

Okay.

Keymah Durden:

We're like all right, we're going to make it work. So you went from exterminating things to growing things. Yeah, we're going to make it work, because all of us like so it is a green partnership. It is, it is. And then we took the term Rid-All and made an acronym for it and we said it would be called Redeem, Integrity and Determination for All Mankind. So we called redeem, integrity and determination for all mankind. So we took a spin on it, but we kept it.

Diane Bickett:

We kept to our word and kept the name that's beautiful, yeah, and, and.

Keymah Durden:

And it has so much meaning now that it always did, because Damien's vision was to create generational wealth and he knew that in order to do that, he had to establish an institution and Rid-All All. Now is an institution known worldwide for doing quality work in communities and neighborhoods.

Diane Bickett:

Well, damien passed away, I think seven years ago or so it was a great loss to your community, but you honor him through your work every day. It seems like Absolutely.

Keymah Durden:

And even the city took notice and they named East 82nd Damien Forshe Way. So every stop sign, every street pole along the street has his picture on it and his name. So we always like to say Dame's watching down from heaven, keeping an eye on things.

Diane Bickett:

He is. Let's talk about your youth education programs, which you're doing some really cool stuff. One of your programs is Green in the Ghetto, right yeah, are you teaching what do you want kids to get out of and what are you teaching them and what do you want them to gain?

Keymah Durden:

Well, the most important thing is to establish good habits early in life Because typically, particularly for children, if they can start good habits early on, they'll carry them throughout the rest of their life and they'll have an impact on their community, on their immediate family, their personal family, their friends and particularly around diet choices. We live in a society now where we hear of certain ailments that we never heard of 20, 30 years ago Childhood obesity.

Diane Bickett:

Diet eating and children.

Keymah Durden:

Childhood diet, yeah, and it's like unheard of, and all of these are preventable. So our whole goal is if we can get a message into our youth at an early age, if it's just one thing that they build on into our youth at an early age, if it's just one thing that they build on. We had done some youth leadership programming and a few of the participants, you know younger students, were a little, you know, on the heavy side in terms of weight and many of them will come back a year later, you know, fit and happy, and say you know, you guys changed my life.

Diane Bickett:

Really.

Keymah Durden:

Changed my life and what we also found, diane, is that when children make decisions about their health and their diet, it affects the household they live in, because now their parents have to make an adjustment. You know, they can say you're going to eat that pork chop and they say I don't want no more pork chop. So somebody's going to have to give that's called pester power.

Diane Bickett:

That's called pester power.

Keymah Durden:

Yeah, that's what it is. That's what it is and it helps because it's a trickle-down benefit to everybody in the community. Okay, but I should mention, since we're talking, our youth program. We do have a young adult program, so we serve all ages, from kindergarten priest K all the way to senior citizens, from kindergarten priest K all the way to senior citizens, and we thought that it's very important that we capture that age group from, say, 18 to 30. We didn't want to leave because they're young adults, they're making decisions, they're starting life, they're laying the foundation for the rest of their life and career.

Keymah Durden:

So my son and some of his friends and family, who started out down here volunteering, really got a hold of this thing. They got bit by the green bug and decided to stay and have created a youth farm right here on campus with a geodesic dome, oxygen dome, several other features. That's very exciting to the community. That's kind of out of the box, you will, things that haven't been seen before, where we offer not just health and nutrition but we also offer yoga, sound therapy. You know things of that nature because, even as young adults, stress is a major killer, and if particularly in urban core communities where you have so many challenges we think about. You know we always think about stress and depression that individuals that are older, but that's not the case.

Keymah Durden:

You know, some of these children have witnessed some extreme violence, their friends getting killed. I mean just you couldn't imagine some of the things that the children shared and some of the things that the children shared and some of the things in their own household. So we figured we had to figure a way to address that. We had to look at topics like gun violence. You know, when the whole Tamir Rice thing took place, we launched a series of comic books called Shoot Hoops, Not Guns. That went very, very well. So we've been really, really engaged. And lastly, on our youth programming is, what we found is that peer-to-peer communication seemed to work a lot better. And what I mean by that is you know, I'm blessed and happy. I'll be 60 years old this year. I'm very, very happy about that. But you know, a message from me may generate a little different to a group of 20-year-olds than another 20-year-old talking to a group of 20-year-olds.

Diane Bickett:

And how old is your son?

Keymah Durden:

My son. He'll be 30.

Diane Bickett:

Okay, what's his name?

Keymah Durden:

His name is Aharon.

Diane Bickett:

Okay.

Keymah Durden:

And he's also named Keymah after me.

Diane Bickett:

You know so. So he's leading some of these initiatives. Yes, yes, Wow, that must feel really good.

Keymah Durden:

Oh, it feels great it feels, great because you know the other side of that is that you get a chance to see that there is another generation to carry this work on.

Diane Bickett:

Yes.

Keymah Durden:

You know we've made quite a financial investment in this project. We made personal investments, both physical, spiritual. I mean we put our heart and soul here and for us to move on and do something else and then this just rot and fall away would be a travesty. So we want to be able to pass that on to the next generation so that the Red All banner will wave high and long forever, because people need to eat forever. People want good food forever. So having a facility here, right where it's located, I think is very important for the future.

Diane Bickett:

So you talk about the value of community health and wellness, gardening You're providing for the whole person, Mm-hmm, and all those things. It sounds like they all intersect here on your campus.

Greg Rotuno:

They do.

Diane Bickett:

And so you're much more than a farm.

Keymah Durden:

We are, we are, we are yeah.

Diane Bickett:

What's the prolific oxygen dome? Is that the? What is that?

Greg Rotuno:

well, I don't know if you look on a map.

Diane Bickett:

You see this. Yeah, prolific oxygen dome, this name, what is that?

Keymah Durden:

well, is that where?

Diane Bickett:

you're doing your yoga and stuff yes, yes it.

Keymah Durden:

if you heard of a gentleman going way back called Buck, Mr Fuller.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, the geodesic dome guy.

Keymah Durden:

He's the guy that created the concept. So it's a smaller version of that. It's designed to circulate air inside to keep, you know, fresh oxygen going. So if you're doing yoga, if you're doing exercise, you get the full benefit of it, of it it's solar heated exercise, you get the full benefit of it.

Keymah Durden:

Of it, it's solar, heated, it's off the grid, it's almost like a big yerk, if you will, but it serves so many purposes in terms of being sustainable. There's no outdoor power, it's all solar. You know, and it's just an example of what's possible. You know, a picture's worth a thousand words, right, but when you can see something and touch it, that's worth a million words now, because you impregnate people with an idea that I can do this also. So the geodesic dome is another way of demonstrating what's possible, because prior to this, we never really got a chance to think outside of the box. You know, everything was sort of scripted. You know, at least in my generation. You went to high school, you went to college, you got a good job, you worked 40 years and you retired, you know, and then went to a nursing home or something. I don't know what was expected, but God forbid yeah.

Keymah Durden:

God forbid, right and um. It's a little different now. And and um. The world is changing. You got AI, you got technology out here, and how do you integrate the two? And we know that our youth component is needed to help us cross that bridge, because right now in the world, you can't exist without the other. There is a place where you want to stay. You don't want to go too tech crazy. You want to stay, touch the earth. I mean, we're earth people. We want to stay grounded there, but we know there are a whole other system that we got to communicate through, and that's technology. So we got to learn both. We're talking with some local folks about getting some garden bots here robots.

Diane Bickett:

Get out.

Keymah Durden:

That can do weeding and watering. Send one my way, we think that'll work really good at our tree nursery too, because that's the most labor intensive activity is watering the trees every day.

Diane Bickett:

Well, you make such a good point because all the stuff, the technology, the AI stuff is really intimidating for my generation, especially the AI stuff. I mean, no one really knows where it's going. But when you talk about the youth being that bridge, I think that's what it is. That's where it is. It's important. It's important. How do you speaking here's a transition for you how do you bridge your work with the community?

Diane Bickett:

I understand you took over farmer jones market so you're bringing fresh produce to Maple Heights, another inner entering city, yes, and then you have an event center here at your community kitchen. Tell us about the community kitchen and what's available there.

Keymah Durden:

Yes, the community kitchen was born out of the idea around health and wellness that we believed and learned that most individuals want the best. It's just a matter of can they afford the best. So we wanted to make the best affordable. We wanted to also use it as a teaching platform, because many folks, like I mentioned, I've been a vegan for over 30 plus years and many folks want to try certain things, but they're a little intimidated because they never tried it. They don't know how it works, you know they don't know what tofu is. Or you know they don't know. You know they couldn't imagine cooking collard greens without putting the neck bone in it or a turkey foot or something. And we bring that type of education.

Diane Bickett:

You saw my face.

Keymah Durden:

We bring that kind of education to the community. Okay, and education is big. And I think one thing that's worth mentioning here as we talk about the event center and the other aspects of Riddle we tried to structure it in a way you know there's a movement called circularity that you may hear about now more, and we wanted to create a model where each aspect of our work touches and supports the other aspect of our work. So there's no aspect of what we do at Riddle that stands alone. It either feeds, supports or draws from another area of Riddle. So because we grow local produce, we make soil, so the soil feeds the growth of the produce, the produce that we produce. We could take that to our farmer's market in Maple Heights to sell, and then anything that goes bad we could bring it back to our farm and compost it.

Keymah Durden:

So what we've done is closed the loop you know in terms of how, in terms of a business model loop, in terms of a business model and we're really beginning to take a deep dive in that, as some of our staff members are really beginning to embrace this idea of circularity to see ways that communities, cities, how can we work together in such a way that our work builds and complements on each other, as opposed to working and operating in silos. So we've been toying with the term regenerative agriculture as different than sustainable. They have two different meanings and connotations. Regenerative well, no, sustainable means not making the situation any worse than it already is. So you want?

Greg Rotuno:

to sustain.

Keymah Durden:

You don't want it to get any. You know you may not be able to improve it, but you don't want it to get any worse, so you want to sustain it. Regenerative speaks about being able to restore or make a situation better than you found it. You know, to bring something back.

Diane Bickett:

So you are practicing regenerative farming here You're creating your black gold, which is your compost, that's right. So that supports the growing of the food. Do you sell that material too?

Keymah Durden:

We do. We do this is a busy time of year for us we do. We've added in another component to our compost. It's called biochar. It's produced from a wood product through paralysis and we burn down the woodchar and mix it in with our soil and it's like activated carbon. It activates the soil and becomes a carbon sink. So it has an environmental impact, because we know about carbon emission, carbon gases that are trapped, you know, in the atmosphere, and there's really no, there really hadn't been any very successful way to bring that carbon down. And that almost goes back to the term sustainable, because it said, all right, well, let's not put any more carbon out there, let's not put any more carbon gases out there, but how do you bring down what's there?

Diane Bickett:

So you're sequestering it and that's right.

Keymah Durden:

Okay, that's not putting more carbon gases out there, but how do you bring down what's there? So you're sequestering it. That's right. Okay, that's right Interesting, that's right.

Diane Bickett:

Can you talk about the aquaponics for a minute? You're growing tilapia here. It sounds like it's a big part of your operation. Is there some things that need to be debunked about fish farming that you would like to talk about?

Keymah Durden:

There is. There's a disclaimer I should make first.

Diane Bickett:

Okay.

Keymah Durden:

Before I answer that question and again I keep mentioning I'm vegan, right. So when people ask about the fish, I always say one thing I haven't tasted it. I say it's the best fish I've never tasted.

Greg Rotuno:

Yeah, I know that's so corny but I say it all the time People are tired of hearing it, but no, it's true.

Keymah Durden:

So the aquaponics? Because, first of all, my background is in engineering. That's what I worked in the engineering aviation space for over 25 years and just recently retired to come on, you know, to take on the radar responsibility full time. And so I'm intrigued by aquaponics because of the technology involved. And it's such a simple system. It's just water that's filtered through plants and the plants take the water as fertilizer and return clean water back to the system.

Diane Bickett:

Circularity.

Keymah Durden:

Circularity there it is again at work.

Keymah Durden:

It's all around us and we just never really paid attention to it. It's all throughout nature and so, um, there are. You hear a lot of things about farm-raised fish. Um, you hear a lot of things about tilapia. You know that's a man-made fish and you know all of these things that we've had to debunk and, um, the one harsh reality, um, about all of that is that right now, in 2025, the oceans have been overfished. In another 10 years, there'll be little aquaculture left in the oceans to supply the human family, so we're going to have to think about alternative ways to eat to live, about alternative ways to eat to live.

Keymah Durden:

The aquaponics method is also a very good system for villages and rural areas, rural communities around the world, because you could use solar, run a solar pump and you could feed an entire village of fish on a 2,000-gallon tank. That's very easy to construct, so there is a regenerative component to it. In terms of the fish quality again, best fish I never tasted but because the environment is controlled, the water is checked daily. We control our own feed. You know we process our own fish. You know everything that we do with our fish. We control and much of the bad rap that the fish gets.

Keymah Durden:

Tilapia in particular, is around the idea that it's a dirty fish too, and that's because of that most of the areas where the fish is being harvested from you know you're talking, you know some of the most polluted waters in the world India, africa, asia and so you get you know you're going to get from the environment the fish. You know what the fish bring to the environment. So because we have such a controlled environment, we're able to really raise a healthy, quality fish that doesn't have the chemicals, that doesn't have the pollutants. And just one last note about tilapia, for those that really want to do a deep dive tilapia is just one species of a fish in the cichlid family Cichlid family Cichlid, yeah cichlid, and for those that ever had an aquarium, you might know what a cichlid is.

Keymah Durden:

They got convicts, jack Dempsey's, and there's a whole variety of cichlids out there, and cichlids are a fresh water, warm fresh water fish. It's not salt water. So that worked out well for us too. And the most pristine areas where they're raised at is in the Sea of Galilee and in the region of what's referred to as the Holy Land. That area and some rumors say it's not official I wasn't there to verify but some say that that's the fish that Jesus fed the multitudes with the tilapia, because it's very indigenous to that particular area.

Diane Bickett:

Wow, yes, wow, yes, wow. Well, I think fish farming has sometimes, you know it gets a bad rap because you know just like it might be an industrial type operation, just like a chicken farm could be an industrial operation, Right right. But you're more small scale and clean and it is delicious. I actually have tasted it it was.

Keymah Durden:

It was a testimony.

Diane Bickett:

Your community kitchen is open on Tuesdays and Fridays from what time?

Keymah Durden:

On Tuesdays, from 12 to 2.

Diane Bickett:

12 to 2.

Keymah Durden:

And on Fridays from 12 to 3.30.

Diane Bickett:

Okay, and folks can come down for Taco Tuesday and then Fish Friday.

Keymah Durden:

Yep, no reservations required, just come on down, yeah, just show up, I mean for $10,.

Diane Bickett:

you get a big healthy portion.

Greg Rotuno:

Yes, you do.

Diane Bickett:

It's delicious, and come check out the farm. Do you offer tours?

Keymah Durden:

We do. We do tours on an ongoing basis. Folks contact us through our website or via phone. We schedule tours for school groups, community groups. We've been working with the Cleveland Council of World Affairs for years Our good friend Andrew Kovach over there. We've brought exchange students in groups everywhere, from China, russia, all throughout Central America.

Diane Bickett:

Wow, show them how it's done.

Keymah Durden:

That's great we got a group that just came from China last week and had a session with Dave and talked about life and farming. We got a group from Uzbekistan coming soon and because of that work this is great Because of that work, a year and a half ago we won the Global Citizenship Award. Congratulations and we're invited to Washington DC to this big swanky affair, and we received our award.

Diane Bickett:

I hope that comes with lots of money.

Keymah Durden:

Oh well, we got to turn it into that. But it does give you the kind of recognition, international recognition, that's needed to get exposure. So we're really really happy about that, okay.

Diane Bickett:

And you have an um. Do you want to just touch on your urban agriculture training program?

Keymah Durden:

Yes, yes, our standing um bread and butter has been our five month training program. It starts uh January of every year, runs from January through May and we meet one weekend a month for five months and each month is a different topic. We range from urban farming, we talk about agribusiness. It's one of the modules. We talk about the community aspects of food because that's important. Sometimes people don't think about that as much, but there's a very important community aspect to food. We talk about compost and we talk about aquaponics. So each month we teach a different module dedicated to those five topics and

Keymah Durden:

then the students graduate. We just had a class graduate last month, about 15 students, and that's about the range we normally graduate every year about 15, 20 students. Some years the need has been so great we've done two cohorts, so this year we're just going to do one, because we got a lot of training going on throughout from now to the end of the year. But it's been very, very successful. And again, we really hang our hat on the idea that. You know, there's a saying that when people know better, they do better, and sometimes the challenge is not, you know, having access, it's just having access to the proper knowledge, because then it helps allow you to make the proper decisions. See something?

Diane Bickett:

they've never seen before. Do something they've never done before.

Keymah Durden:

Exactly, Exactly. And because the other thing is, people are making decisions with their wallet, you know, and not necessarily with their stomach or their or their or what they want. So there's a thought that there's an educational process involved in that, where you have to teach or share information with people on why and Apple is not an Apple phone- but a real Apple, delicious Apple Um. Why that's? You know $2.59 a pound. And then I could go to McDonald's and get two-off beef patties. You know how they go two-off beef patties.

Greg Rotuno:

Special sauce lettuce cheese pickles I use a special received bun for 99 cents.

Keymah Durden:

So if I got a dollar in my pocket, I'm going to go for the Big Mac, I'm not going to go for the apple. In my pocket, I'm going to go for the Big Mac, I'm not going to go for the Apple. But when you understand why you need to make that decision and the long-term effects of that decision, then you pause and you think for a minute. We got a ton of sayings around here. Here's another one I'll share with you. It says you're going to either pay the farmer or the doctor.

Diane Bickett:

True.

Keymah Durden:

You choose, but you're going to pay one of them. You're going to pay the farmer or the doctor, so we like to keep that in front of people as well.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, and you're giving them the tools to grow their own food.

Keymah Durden:

Absolutely.

Diane Bickett:

That's key. Teach a man to fish right.

Keymah Durden:

That's right, that's right, that's the model.

Diane Bickett:

Is there anything else you want to share before we wrap up about, um, just anything we might have missed? I know I feel like I've been jumping around in this conversation because you have so much going on here yes you have an international uh presence uh program that I mean we may not have time to get into, but um, like I said, just so much going on and not enough time to get to it, so maybe we'll have to get back. But what did we miss that you want?

Keymah Durden:

to leave us with. I think there's one thing that folks miss sometimes and that we don't even realize as much until you think about it on a deeper level and even think about the history of people and communities, and what we've discovered is that we really have a. We have what we call a cultural responsibility, and what do I mean by that is that when you look at the history, particularly of African Americans that came to America land-based in terms of farming, living on the land, eating on the land, staying on the land and then the transition that took place from the great migration from the South to the North and we came into cities, then the whole dynamic changed and the idea of farming became something like a country or old I ain't doing that, that's too much like slavery and so what happened is we began to lose, as a community, an essential survival skill, because every community should know how to feed themselves. And when we think back most of us, like I mentioned, I'll be 60, so I think to my parents and grandparents. They all had gardens in their yard and I think most of us have that same type of testimony. So in some ways, we're paying homage to our ancestors by continuing that legacy and continuing to learn how to grow and continue to put our hands in the soil. So there's a cultural responsibility that we have to pass this information on to the next generation, because my grandfather certainly took me out and showed me how to farm. My dad I went out and learned.

Keymah Durden:

And Dave, one of our major players here at Riddle, he talks about how his grandmother taught him how to grow and farm. So, wherever they may be, in whatever form they may be in, they're smiling because they say they're keeping it going. Because, you know, we talked briefly about technology and it's moving us away from the land. It's moving us away from those things that are real into a more virtual reality. And you know, I'll never get the same experience of touching an apple, a golden, delicious apple, versus holding an iPhone apple. I'll never get the same experience Because, as a human, family.

Diane Bickett:

It's not alive.

Keymah Durden:

No, it's not.

Keymah Durden:

And as a human family and as a human species, we need to interact with nature, the source of our creation, in order to complete the loop, to close the loop, to feel completed, because we can't exist without nature, nature can't exist.

Keymah Durden:

Well, nature can't exist without us, we can't exist without nature, and so I just thought that was worth mentioning, in that, at a very, very deep but yet subtle level, there is this cultural responsibility that we have to our ancestors to say thank you for surviving, thank you for bringing okra seeds from Africa and black-eyed pea seeds so we can continue to maintain at least a diet that we were used to from the land that we came from, and thanks to all of our folks in the community that still grow and cook those type of foods, and though we struggle to find out ways to make them healthier, about maybe eliminating some of the oils and different things in the deep frying, and we know the effects of that, but the cultural idea of it is just so important to to to to us at Riddle that we felt that that was worth mentioning.

Diane Bickett:

Thank you, Keymah Durden, for sharing that.

Keymah Durden:

Thank you.

Diane Bickett:

And for honoring your legacy and for your creating a legacy of your own and for all you're doing for the community.

Keymah Durden:

Well, I'll throw it right back at you and say thank you and your team for coming out and doing this. I mean, you've been a trailblazer yourself. You know, shook a few cages, rattled a few doors, but if you called Diane she was going to get it done. Thank, you and um. It means a lot, you know, in the capacities that you've touched around, cleveland has been well felt. Oh, thank you you're, you're, you'll go get her thank you.

Diane Bickett:

Well, I'm glad we were able to reconnect.

Keymah Durden:

Yes.

Diane Bickett:

And I would love to bring a team of EcoSpeaks listeners down here to volunteer someday, please do so we will figure a way to organize that.

Keymah Durden:

Let's plan that. Okay, all right, all right?

Diane Bickett:

Well, you have a great day.

Greg Rotuno:

Thank you.

Diane Bickett:

Thank you yeah.

Greg Rotuno:

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak CLE. You can find our full catalog of episodes on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available the first and third Tuesday of each month. Please follow EcoSpeak CLE on Facebook and Instagram and become part of the conversation. If you would like to send us feedback and suggestions, or if you'd like to become a sponsor of EcoSpeak CLE, you can email us at hello at ecospeakclecom. Stay tuned for more important and inspiring stories to come.

People on this episode

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Diane Bickett

Host
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Greg Rotuno

Co-host