Land Food Life
Calling all farmers, ranchers, and conscious eaters! Welcome to the LAND, FOOD, LIFE Podcast, where host Kara Kroeger takes you on a transformative journey designed to enhance the quality of life for all beings, YES, THAT INCLUDES YOU! Immerse yourself in the world of regenerative agriculture, nutrition, holistic healthcare, and advocacy for food and healthcare justice. Discover invaluable insights on how together we can heal the land, our ecosystems, and uplift our physical, mental, financial, creative, and spiritual health and well-being. Connect with the life giving soil beneath your feet, understand the origins and medicinal value (or lack thereof) of your food, and embrace the interconnectedness of all that surrounds you. Get ready, because this podcast is specifically crafted to change your outlook and sow the seeds of positive transformation within you and beyond. So listen up and together we will co-create a thriving planet!
Land Food Life
We Are Each Other's Harvest: The Hidden Legacy of Black American Farming with Author Natalie Baszile
Dive into the hidden legacy of Black American farming with author Natalie Baszile as she unpacks the complex relationship between African Americans and the land that has shaped our nation. This eye-opening conversation takes us through her journey creating "Queen Sugar" – the acclaimed novel adapted by Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey – and her anthology "We Are Each Other's Harvest," which brings to life the true stories of Black farmers across American history.
Baszile reveals how her ancestral connections to farming (her great-great-grandfather acquired 600 acres in Alabama after the Civil War) subtly influenced her writing path, creating a personal connection to stories that needed telling. With remarkable insight, she illuminates the systematic discrimination that led to Black farmers losing approximately 90% of their land throughout the 20th century, while simultaneously celebrating the resilience, innovation, and determination that have characterized the Black farming experience.
Basile's nuanced approach to a painful history makes this conversation particularly valuable. Rather than focusing primarily on injustice, she articulates how modern BIPOC farmers are recalibrating relationships with land, transforming narratives from "get away from the land" to understanding land as a valuable community asset. Through the Black Harvest Fund she established, Basile puts action behind her words, supporting organizations doing vital work for BIPOC people in agriculture.
This episode challenges us to broaden our understanding of American agricultural history beyond the stereotypical image of the white male farmer. As Basile powerfully states, "We have to broaden our understanding of who participated in this American experiment." Want to better understand the whole history of American farming and support a more equitable agricultural future? Start by exploring Natalie Basile's powerful books and consider contributing to initiatives that support Black farmers reclaiming their agrarian heritage.
Learn More About Natalie:
https://nataliebaszile.com/black-harvest-fund
Kara's Offerings & Services:
Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Land Food Life podcast. In this space, we discuss holistic concepts inspiring you to steward your awareness and actions in collaboration with all of nature to regenerate ourselves and our remarkable planet. I'm your host, cara Kroger, a certified nutritionist, chef and agroecology educator. In each episode, it is my desire to empower you with knowledge about food, health and agriculture that will help raise the quality of life for all beings. Please visit landfoodlifecom to learn more about my offerings. Thank you for listening. Let's dive in. Hello listeners, it has been a minute since the last episode. Welcome back.
Speaker 1:Today's episode with author Natalie Basile, which we recorded back in September of 2024, is timely now more than ever. A lot has happened since then, including the transition to the new Trump administration, and we have all been experiencing a great deal of change with this transition. So, as you all know, these changes have included dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the government and in many of the systems that receive money from the government, such as agricultural support organizations that are really focusing on supporting underserved populations who experience disproportionate inequity as outstanding community members who grow our food. So today's episode highlights two books by Natalie Basile on farming experiences. As a Black American from this country's inception to the current day. Her work is super inspiring and an important reminder that there is still so much work to be done to create safety and success for BIPOC farmers, to contribute their tried and true unique perspectives and innovations that, in my opinion, are invaluable to creating thriving food systems and food security for all.
Speaker 1:This February, I was lucky enough to attend the South Conference in Atlanta, georgia, and this is one of the few agricultural conferences in the US that really truly celebrates Black farmers. And, after having attended many farming conferences nationwide, I'm consistently struck by the inspiring community impact and case studies that are presented. When most speakers and attendees are people of color, many focus on providing local, nutrient-dense foods in food apartheid areas or where food access disparities exist, and while most farmers are community-oriented, the difference seems to lie in the depth to which many BIPOC farmers make critical decisions with their community, and I believe this stems from both tradition and the need to create safety in an environment that has historically been unsupportive and hostile, particularly towards Black farmers and Black landowners. So in this episode, natalie and I are going to explore her two books Queen Sugar, a novel adapted into a television series by Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey and her anthology we Are Each Other's Harvest, celebrating African American farmers' land and legacy.
Speaker 1:This topic is worth discussing, especially now, and Natalie's books break this topic down really well. It's challenging, but so important. I hope you find the episode enlightening and I really encourage you to read her books. Regardless of your current knowledge, which is often minimal for many people, you'll discover the beauty and shadows of the black farming experience. Thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Natalie, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here on the Land Food Life podcast today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so we're going to be talking about her first book, queen Sugar, which is a fictional book that was published in 2014. And then we will be also talking about her newer book, called we Are Each Other's Harvest, which was published in 2021. Focuses a lot on agriculture, and so I just was super excited to have Natalie come on and share about this very, very important work writing about the experience of farming as an African American in the US. So, natalie, can you start by giving us just a brief synopsis of both of your books and a little bit about why you chose to write about agriculture, since you weren't really raised in a rural environment or in a farming family?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 2:So my first book, like you said, was a novel, queen Sugar, and that tells the story of a young African-American woman, Charlie Bourdlon, who when the book opens, has just learned that she has inherited 800 acres of sugarcane land in South Louisiana.
Speaker 2:So the story is really a story of her moving from Los Angeles back to, or actually to for the first time, this small Southern town in South Louisiana and she has to learn how to, you know, really adjust to small town, rural life and she has to figure out how to become a sugarcane farmer when she has no experience of that.
Speaker 2:But her father was from this small town and so she has that Southern connection we Are Each Other's Harvest is really kind of the real life version of that story. And really the way I came to write the second book was because, in the wake of Queen Sugar, seeing the impact that that piece that was adapted from the book, watching the impact that that had on the culture, seeing the questions that it raised, the conversations that it started, I wanted to remind readers and audiences, viewers and readers that this was not just fiction, that there were real people out there doing that work today, and I felt that that was an important issue to remind readers and viewers of, so that people wouldn't just think that this was a made-up story, right this?
Speaker 2:was something that the whole question about African Americans and land, african Americans in farming and agriculture was something that I knew, but I wanted to make sure that people understood that this was just not a made-up story, and so we Are. Each Other's Harvest is a collection of essays and interviews and first-person narratives and articles that I commissioned or acquired the rights to, that really try to grapple with this larger question of African-American history on American soil and the relationship that Black people have had with land in this country from before emancipation to the present, to really, you know, offer viewers a concrete and specific history, but in a way that I felt would be more accessible and interesting than just writing a big, you know history book. So I wanted to have something that was more dynamic, that was more of a kaleidoscope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you really did an amazing, beautiful job of really wrapping your arms around this ginormous subject and giving these farmers the chance to tell their own stories about. You know reclamations of foodways and farming practices and you know itlamations of foodways and farming practices and you know it is. It's a journey. It's a journey from Africa to enslavement, emancipation, sharecropping, the great migration and then, of course, this returning generation of Black farmers, many young farmers coming into, coming back to the land and you know, and really honing in on the importance of legacy and community. And it is a beautiful celebration and I'm so thankful that you have written this book and put it together. It's really quite an extraordinary accomplishment. So congratulations to you and everybody who who contributes.
Speaker 1:I mean there is how many 40, 45 chapters in this book. It also has beautiful pictures in it for readers to understand that. You know it's it's it's really something you just want to have on your bookshelf and go back to. There's poetry in it and a lot of beautiful stories many, many heartbreaking and hard to read stories and many awesome, beautiful stories celebrating so much of what Black farmers have contributed and will continue to contribute, and so yeah, to that point, kara, I wanted we Are Each Other's Harvest to really be a celebration.
Speaker 2:You know, I wanted to, of course, grapple with the difficult past and the difficult present, but I wanted the book to be uplifting and I wanted it to be celebratory. And I wanted look forward, not just to the past, which is important, but I wanted the cover to signal the future right, and I wanted that to be celebratory and uplifting and I wanted it to be beautiful, you know, because so much of African-American history when it comes to land and agriculture is painful to deal with that. But I also wanted to give the readers hope, you know, and I wanted it to be optimistic. So thank you for recognizing my attempt to really make something that was beautiful, that was artistic and uplifting.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes and it is. It's a really great mix of things. I know that writing a book is always a journey and as I'm reading this book, I'm like, wow, what a lucky person you are, natalie, to have traveled across the United States and gone to so many of these people's farms and sat at so many of these people's tables and gotten to know all these beautiful, beautiful people. I can only imagine how much it has enriched your life. And so when we're starting books right, we have something in mind when we start, and then it changes. So I'm curious if you can tell us you know what you imagine this book was going to be like and then you know changed and how it turned out in the end in comparison to what you thought it might be like in the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, actually I should ask that question. I can answer for both. Queen Sugar and we Are Each Other's Harvest, because the journey was similar With Queen Sugar. I really just started out with an inkling of a story that I wanted to tell. In that case, queen Sugar started out as a short story really it wasn't even really about Charlie, the main character.
Speaker 2:When I started, it started with kind of an image I had about a father and son kind of circling around Los Angeles in their car, to be honest. And so the short story that I wrote first was about this father and son and really trying to answer the question of who were they and why were they in LA and where were they from. And that was really the question in mind for that short story. And so I wrote the short story and I kind of put it away in a drawer. And it wasn't until a couple of years later, when I went to my grandmother's funeral in this little town in South Louisiana, that I realized that that's where that father and son were from and they were trying to get back there to this little town, right. And that led to and as I'm sitting there at my grandmother's funeral and I'm watching these people from her town stream in to kind of come and pay their respects, and I thought, oh, that short story that's way back home in the drawer is actually maybe a novel, right, and Queen Sugar kind of grew out from there. A similar thing happened with we Are Each Other's Harvest, and I should go back to say that, with Queen Sugar, the story of land and sugarcane farming and all of that kind of grew.
Speaker 2:As I was in pursuit of answering that question about where are these people from and what is that family story and how are they connected to land and farming, and once I kind of had the characters in place Ralph, Angel Blue, Charlie, the main character and her daughter I got. I actually went to my husband one day and I said you know, why would somebody leave Los Angeles and go back to a small town in Louisiana? Why would they do that? And I had observed at the time this phenomenon of reverse migration. Right, I was talking to people and meeting people who were leaving cities like LA or New York or Philadelphia or Detroit and they were going back to the South, and so that was a trend that I was noticing and that was kind of the impetus for Charlie and Micah's journey. And my husband actually was the person who said, well, maybe they've inherited some land and I thought, oh my God, that would be so interesting, this whole idea of inheritance and land, and that just kind of opened up the book for me, opened up the possibilities for the novel, and when I started writing. We Are Each Other's Harvest.
Speaker 2:As I said, I I'm not a historian and I had this kind of compulsion to try to figure out how to tackle this huge constellation of questions around agriculture and land and what land means to Black people.
Speaker 2:And the only way I could figure out how to do that was to really position myself as a curator.
Speaker 2:And because I love art and poetry and all of these artistic disciplines and I knew that I wanted the book to be interdisciplinary and I felt that if I could figure out a way for poetry and photography and essays to talk to each other in the book, that maybe I could tackle this question in a way that would allow readers to come to this topic and not feel overwhelmed, not feel daunted, but to feel welcomed and invited into this kind of stew of issues and questions.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest, I would hear myself describe the book to people saying you know, I think it needs to have poetry and I think it needs to have photography, and I would watch people's faces and they were actually a little confused and I would think to myself oh my God, this is, this is not right, this is, this is sounds like a shit show, you know, but I had to keep going because I just had this feeling that if I could pull all of these elements together I could have something that would be inviting, even if I didn't know exactly how I was going to pull it off. And that was a great lesson to me to just kind of follow my gut and go down this rabbit hole, not really feeling certain that I knew what the book would look like. But I knew what I wanted the reader to come away with and I knew very much like Queen Sugar, I knew what I wanted the reader to feel at the end of the book.
Speaker 2:And that was the thing that kind of led me forward was how I want the reader to feel. What experience do I want them to have? Then it was just a matter of okay, well, let me put all these pieces together and see what I come up with. Yeah, that's a very long answer to your question, but that's what really drove me forward.
Speaker 1:So two questions from what you just said. One is I feel like I read somewhere that your publisher asked you to write a nonfiction book. So were you already kind of just given the opportunity to do what you wanted with it, and so you weren't even thinking about having to necessarily find a publisher for the book? Is that right?
Speaker 2:The publisher, for we Are Each Other's Harvest, is a totally different publisher than Queen Sugar.
Speaker 1:Okay. She's separate publishing houses Anne Norman is my editor was my editor for Queen.
Speaker 2:Sugar. She's separate publishing houses. Ann Norman was my editor for Queen Sugar. She publishes novels.
Speaker 2:Tracy Sherrod approached me about doing some kind of nonfiction project and she's at HarperCollins totally different publisher and Tracy and I met and kind of tossed around some ideas. And I have a lot of ideas. And when I spoke to my agent about what kind of nonfiction project I would do, she said, well, if you could do anything, what would you do? And when I thought about it I thought, you know, I really I didn't feel like I was finished with the subject matter, the themes of Queen Sugar, land, family history, agriculture. I didn't feel like I was finished with that.
Speaker 2:When I thought about it I thought, well, I would really love to go back and talk to people who are still engaged in that work and talk to the real farmers. Right, because when I was working on Queen Sugar I only met a couple of sugarcane farmers black farmers period in Louisiana, farmers, black farmers period in Louisiana. And I met Cleveland Provost who was an older gentleman who ended up being the inspiration for Prosper Denton in Queen Sugar. And I heard about another Black farmer, black sugarcane farmer, by the name of Charles Guidry who I never actually met.
Speaker 2:And so I wanted to figure out who was doing that work beyond the world of sugarcane farming. I wanted to find those other farmers who were engaged in agriculture in different parts of the country, and I just went down that rabbit hole and yeah, these amazing people.
Speaker 1:So you answered the question in that you knew what you wanted the reader to feel, and I'm curious if you had ideas about what you wanted a black reader to get out of it versus a white reader. Was there differences and, if so, what were some of those?
Speaker 2:well, you know, I think, because it was so apparent to me that very few people, black or white, really knew the history, I would say.
Speaker 2:And for Black people, for Black readers, you know there was a lot of shame and embarrassment around land loss, particularly right.
Speaker 2:This was something that kept coming up when I would interview older Black farmers and they would share and some of this is in we Are Each Other's Harvest and they would tell these stories about, you know, land that had been in their families for generations and in so many cases that land had been lost, largely due to the USDA and you know the dastardly discriminatory practices that were deployed against Black farmers for generations.
Speaker 2:And in a lot of cases the older Black farmers I spoke to felt responsible for having lost land that had been in their family for generations by no fault of their own right, because in a lot of cases with the USDA, they had been forced to over-collateralize and they were in debt and then their land was seized. This was a common story, but there was a lot of shame around that and there was a lot of embarrassment when I spoke to people who had land in their families, who were coming up to me in the wake of Queen Sugar being out in the world, they would tell me you know, my family has land still, but we don't know what to do with it, or we lost it because we, you know, couldn't pay the taxes. There were just all of these stories, and so part of what I wanted to do with we Are Each Other's Harvest is to remind Black people, black readers, that land in their families was valuable and that they should hold on to that land if they could right.
Speaker 2:That this was an asset that they could use and it was something that I wanted Black people to remember, to hold on to, because it was important For white readers.
Speaker 2:You know, it was really more about educating them, not in a hand-fisted, finger-wagging kind of way, but to just say to white people you know, black people have been part of the story of agriculture in this country for generations and it's not a story just of slavery, it really is a story of agency and empowerment.
Speaker 2:And here's the history and here are all the ways that Black people have understood the importance of land. But we have not always had the same opportunities to hold on to land and here is why, right, that goes to, for example, clyde's article about freedom dues and his essay that kind of marches you through the history of Black land ownership and he talks about all of the ways that Black people have not had access to land, the same opportunities that white farmers have had. Pete Daniels' brilliant scholarly essay about the history of the USDA, right. In other words, I wanted to say to readers it's not a matter of bad farming practices, this isn't about Black people not understanding what land means. This is about the systems and the structures that have been deployed against Black people that have prevented them from being able to take advantage of the same opportunities that white farmers have had for generations, for generations.
Speaker 2:Right yeah 100 years right. That's how we got here, and so it's not about blaming Black people for being ignorant or lazy or whatever. It's about the headwinds that Black farmers have faced for generations that have been deployed against them by our own government. That's why Black people don't have the same opportunities that white people white farmers have had. So, you know it was kind of a dual message.
Speaker 1:Well, and those two chapters that you referenced, the chapter by Clyde Ford, america at the Crossroads A History of Enslavement and Land, and then the other chapter by Pete Daniels, the more academic chapter titled the USDA's Racist Operating System. Those two chapters will blow your mind, even if you know a little bit about the discrimination that has occurred in US agriculture. The absolute weight of those two chapters, just in US agriculture, the absolute weight of those two chapters, just you know it should be required reading in every agrarian program. You know people think how bad can it be? It's been terrible, it has been absolutely unforgivable.
Speaker 1:And ultimately, you know, here last month, the Biden administration has recently revisited this discrimination and looked at creating the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program which basically has put $2 billion to pay people who've been discriminated against. And you know this isn't the first time these type of payments have gone out. But even the first time when the payments went, they were promised and then often not given, you know. So now we're in this place where you know, people are getting some of these payments. I mean, I think it's very interesting as well that they that they call it the discrimination financial assistance program. I think that that's terrible. You know it's not financial assistance, it's not and it shouldn't be titled that. So I'm just going to say that right now. But ultimately, you know, there are things that are happening, there is some movement and there is recognition of this, but you know, the reality is is that more people need to know about it, more people need to be aware.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And when you think about all of the, the thousands of of Black farmers who have died right and who it's too late for them, you know, to receive these payments, when you also think about the, the obstacles that have been put in place right, the Biden administration has been trying to acknowledge, along with the Secretary of the USAC at the USDA. They have been trying to acknowledge and repair the wrong since the beginning of this administration, but at every turn they have been blocked right by individuals and organizations that are determined to make sure that Black and brown farmers never receive any kind of compensation for the damages that they have had to endure for generations.
Speaker 2:And so, while I'm very happy that farmers are finally starting to receive some acknowledgement. It's been a long time coming and you know a lot of farmers have not been able to. Like I said, it's too late for them you know, and that's really criminal, I think.
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Speaker 1:We've got this common thread of how ancestral guidance has been such a force, for I mean, it's a force for everybody, but I think in particular, you know, there's a couple of chapters in the book. One is Ancestral Vibrations Guide Our Connection to the Land by Jim Embry, and then also in chapter 17, louisiana Daughters, a conversation with Alita Ademi and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. Y'all talk about, as Black writers, being led by unseen forces and the ancestral makeups that we experience genetically, but also, you know, spiritually, and so I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to what you learned about that as you were writing this, your own experiences with ancestral guidance and some things about how you've seen it shape black farming.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I'll say that in terms of, in terms of my own personal experience, when I started writing about these things, I was just interested in them. You know, I didn't aside from my dad being raised in Louisiana and him having that visceral connection with the earth, I mean literally. It reminded him of his childhood, you know. He had fond memories of being, you know, a young boy hunting, fishing, doing all these kinds of things. Beyond that, I could never explain why I was interested in this subject. It just was kind of in my bones, you know, and it was something that always fascinated me.
Speaker 2:And my mother is a big gardener and you know. But I didn't really have any explanation. And then I learned that my great great grandfather, mack Hall, was a farmer. After the Civil War he acquired you know they say it was about 600 acres of land in Georgiana, alabama, and he was a farmer and a beekeeper and a merchant. And I remember when I learned that for the first time it was like, oh well, no wonder I have this connection, no wonder I have this connection, no wonder I have this interest. And I also think that for me, you know, this idea of land and land ownership and land stewardship, when I think of myself just as an American, you know, and I think about how that narrative around land is part of what I grew up with and I think a lot of us grew up with this idea that farming, agriculture, land ownership, this is part of the American story, right?
Speaker 2:Whether you're Black, white anything that is somehow part of the air that we breathe, right, this is kind of our legacy, for better and for worse, and so when I think about that, I think, well, of course I would be interested in this subject. Then I think about, you know, my own personal familial connection to this story. It's really not surprising to me that this would be something that I'm interested in.
Speaker 2:I just think it's such a rich topic at the end of the day, you know, and I think about the pride that I take in knowing that I am the descendant of enslaved people who came to this country, who built this country, who brought so much wisdom and expertise and a sense of resilience and determination. That is a tremendous source of pride for me.
Speaker 2:I know some of my enslaved ancestors and I have their names and as a matter of fact I wasn't able to go, but my mother just went to our big family reunion just over Labor Day weekend in Georgiana, alabama, and she was on the land that Mack Hall farmed. Some of that land still exists in my family and so to me it is a real source of strength to be able to know that I am continuing the legacy that my ancestors left for me and I, in my own way, am telling that story. And now it is even broader as my work is reaching all of these people. That's tremendously gratifying to me.
Speaker 2:And when I think about you know, the conversation that I had with Lolita and Margaret in the book. You know that Louisiana Daughters chapter. We are three Black women writers coming out of that Louisiana tradition. In our own ways we're all grappling with issues of race and land and inheritance and ancestry and very different kinds of books all novels but very different novels. But you know we all are continuing to really wrestle with the legacy that we've inherited, again for better and for worse. You know we talked a lot when we sat down for that conversation. We talked about, you know, the impact of race and racism and how we carry that with us right, how we have to manage that. I know, margaret. You know she's younger than I am and she talked about how race is always on her mind for better and for worse.
Speaker 2:Lolita's older than I am, and she talks about how, how she carries that, not burden, but how she, how race informs her work and the research that she does, and the family story you know that she tells, and so I just feel tremendously grateful to have that legacy, to be able to know that I am part of a of an ongoing tradition. I happen to deal with it creatively, but to me it's a real source of strength and pride to know that I'm just continuing the work you know that's really beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'd like to talk a little bit more terms of race, and not because race is not a predominant factor in our world, but because carrying the fear of potential racism, the anger at the racism that has already taken place, weighs me down in a way that's not productive or healthy. It hinders relationships with people. I'm very guarded with white people, some of whom don't deserve it. I'm never going to stop writing about race and advocating for Black people, but it's my goal to mitigate the emotional impact it has on me personally, because it's not helping anybody. It's certainly not helping me. You have people who think you need to be angry to make changes in the world, but I don't believe that. I think I would be more powerful if I could let some of this go, but it's a constant and I know it's out of a fear, of a threat, and this really hit me.
Speaker 1:I really wanted to talk about this because, as I've become more focused on educating myself about becoming anti-racist, it's always on my mind. It's always on my mind and it's not just when I'm with bipoc community. I'm constantly thinking about race and privilege for myself, for everything you know, and I think that it's like we. We're in this place where it's challenging because we do want to learn about it, but then you get a little nervous. You get a little nervous and it hinders authenticity in some ways. You know, it's just something that we have to kind of move through and be with. But I'm wondering if you have any reflections on how you've dealt with that since you've written this book and developed this work that focuses so intently on so many things that bring questions up for people.
Speaker 2:You know, I think I think I understand where margaret is coming from, absolutely, and the challenge is I mean, here's the thing. I don't say this in a in a pollyanna kind of you know goody, two-shoes way, but I think that for, as a black person, you have to find a way to hold this difficult history and your response to it, which is rage.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's also pride right.
Speaker 2:You have to find a way to hold this so that it doesn't destroy you, and I think that's what Margaret is talking about and that's what she struggles with. And I think the way I have found is not everybody's a villain right. There are people out there who want to engage and I think it comes down to recognizing those people when they cross your path and being open and being trusting and offering grace. Right, Because I know that the conversations that people want to have across the racial divide are not easy. But I feel like often people experience race with a capital R, meaning they see race as it unfolds on their computer screen or on their phone right or on television, meaning it's not directly impacting their lives, it's not intimate. You see the news, you see something, it's real, but it's abstract Because Black people and white people don't know each other right.
Speaker 2:Too often we're not in the same space, we might be working together but we don't know each other intimately. And I think that is what most people, a lot of people suffer from is they don't have the intimate connections right when you can talk and be vulnerable and ask questions and not feel judged, not feel you know, put upon. And I think that if you do, if you are a person who wants to have those conversations, you're always looking for an opportunity for more intimacy, right when race is what the small are and it's personal right, because you know somebody and you have that trust. That's what I feel fortunate to have in my life. But I'll be honest with you my husband and I my husband's Black and we were at a gathering, a cider press party, in Smasable this past weekend. We were the only Black people there.
Speaker 2:Everybody else, and there must have been 50, 60 people there and my husband and I were saying to each other you know, this is terrible, I mean, and it was so clear to us that and everybody else was white, yeah, and it was, it was unfortunate.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm, mm hmm.
Speaker 2:That, with the exception of us, those white people there, they didn't even have to think about the fact that they were in an entirely white space and I'll be honest, I think most of them didn't even give it a second thought.
Speaker 1:Right, mm-hmm, mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 2:And how unfortunate that they don't have the opportunity to interact with people who aren't white.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's something I'm struggling with at this moment. You know, moving to Asheville, north Carolina, which has a very small population of you know people of color and and I'm from San Antonio you know which is incredibly diverse, and you know it was one of the things about moving here that was scary for me. I just see the value. There's so much that can come from having so many voices, so many diverse voices, at the table, and you know, one of the questions that I wanted to ask as well is how do you think our nation has been hindered by limiting brown and black people's participation in agriculture, by limiting brown and black people's participation in agriculture? I think the question that I really want to ask is what can happen if we bring more black and brown voices to the table, like the knowledge and the potential. I think it would be so powerful and I just am curious if you have any thoughts about either of those questions.
Speaker 2:I think a couple of things have to happen, and they are happening. I think, first of all, Black and brown people have to change the way we think about agriculture. Right, and I've said this before, I understand the narrative around farming, agriculture for Black and brown people. Right, it's not the same as it is for white people.
Speaker 2:In many cases, because of the difficult history that Black people have had in this country with land agriculture, the narrative has become get as far away from the land as you can. Right, Go to a city, get your education, get a, a professional job. Get as far away from the land as possible because land represents enslavement, struggle, all the rest for white people while that you know it might be struggle, the narrative of all it has has often been land is an asset, Land is economically beneficial. Right, Land is something to be acquired, held, passed down, and so part of what I've tried to do in my books is to say to Black and Brown people and I'm repeating myself wait a minute, we're thinking about this incorrectly. Right, we have to. We have to shift the way we think about land. And I also want to acknowledge that all of this is problematic when you think about Native Americans, indigenous people who have a totally different understanding of what land is right Absolutely and ownership versus stewardship, stewardship, all of that.
Speaker 2:So we have to there are, we have to recalibrate right, and I think the benefit is if we can come together, there are tremendous, tremendous benefits for all of us because, at the end of the day, we're all going to need to be on this planet together. We're all going to have to work together, right, it's going to take all of us in future generations, otherwise, we're going to have to work together, otherwise we're going to yeah, yeah, well, we're going to have to be here, right, right, right.
Speaker 1:And ingenuity definitely is not the same across the board, right, and ingenuity is so powerful in agriculture, right? I mean, we've seen just unbelievable ingen as a foundation that agriculture is based on is for us to thrive as communities.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and that's and that's really what I see among this new generation of farmers, or specifically BIPOC farmers. They're thinking about this differently, right? They're thinking about land and agriculture and sustainability in terms of community right.
Speaker 1:And they are.
Speaker 2:They are approaching it in a different way, and that's what we're going to need, right? It's that kind of thinking that is going to propel us forward with the creativity, the ingenuity, all of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what makes me, gives me some hope, is the new generation of farmers, and white farmers too, are thinking about this differently. They have a different sense of land and community and connection and you know, what makes me feel optimistic, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I do want to ask. I know we're kind of coming up on time and we should probably wrap up soon, but I am a huge fan of Ava DuVernay, and so, for those listeners who don't know, ava is a producer and director, and the Queen Sugar book that Natalie wrote was adapted into a TV series in 2016. And Ava DuVernay both produced it and directed it. And well, she and Ava and Oprah Winfrey produced it. She is creating some of the most unbelievable documentaries and series, and so I'm just really curious you know how did it feel to have your book, you know, produced by these powerful women, powerful, influential Black women. What did you enjoy most about working with Ava and, you know, watching this story come to life on screen?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it was wonderful, it was deeply gratifying, first of all, to have someone recognize the potential in Queen Sugar and to appreciate the world that I created, appreciate the world that I created and to then take that and make it something that would reach, you know, an even broader audience. So that was that was really rewarding and gratifying, because I spent a lot of years working on Queen Sugar.
Speaker 1:Well, you had 13 different options, right yeah?
Speaker 2:By the time I was finished. I worked on Clean Sugar for about 13 years and really just poured my heart and soul into telling that story and making it as rich and compelling as I felt in my heart. My work with Ava really was primarily at the beginning. You know when she was crafting the, the story, thinking about the characters, and you know what might be possible and my role at that point because I was not, you know aside from going to the set and checking in and saying hello, I was not intimately involved with the production.
Speaker 2:But what I wanted to do for Ava at the very beginning was to extend to her the same grace and generosity that had been extended to me in the writing of the book.
Speaker 2:In the writing of the book, because the truth is, I could not have written Queen Sugar if people in Louisiana had not welcomed me into their homes to sit around their dinner tables, to spend time on their farms learning about sugar cane, learning about South Louisiana culture.
Speaker 2:I had experienced a tremendous amount of generosity and I felt that in order for Ava to really be able to bring that world to life in a way that rang true and was accurate, she would have to experience it the way I've experienced it.
Speaker 2:So we didn't have a lot of time together, we really only had, you know, a day, but I was able to invite her down to Louisiana. We spent time with my dear friend, renee Simone, who taught me everything I know, who was a sugar cane farmer when I first started writing the book. And you know, we really, just in the spirit of generosity and openness and just kind of a love for South Louisiana. We were able to show Ava that world and I think it made a big difference in the show. I think my favorite scenes throughout all seven seasons were the scenes where they're out on the land, out in the country, you know, um because that's what I remember and I my, my, my only request of ava and oprah was that they would maintain the heart and the spirit of the book yeah, yeah, and there was a lot of adaptions.
Speaker 1:It's, it's not the same, right? So just so people know that it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely I had to do that and I understood that it was fine. Yeah, I wanted them to preserve the soul of the book.
Speaker 1:You know the spirit of the in 2016, I think, and I just absolutely loved it. And then I just checked out the book, so I'll be reading it. Aunt was lives in Petaluma, california, and my aunt went to a talk that Natalie did and she said, oh, I met this woman today. She's so amazing. She created this series called Queen Sugar and I was like what? Like wait a second, wait a second. Okay, let's talk about this. I was like, do you think you could ask her if she would like to be interviewed? So I'm very thankful that this opportunity arose and that we've had the opportunity to have this, this conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 1:So I know that you have a few things in the quiver. Do you want to share about any of your upcoming projects that we can keep an eye out for and how people can stay up to date with you and what you're doing?
Speaker 2:Sure, so I'm working on I've kind of waded into the film waters and I'm working on a documentary project about farming, about a black farming family. I can't, you know, we're still in production, we're still shooting, so I have no idea when this will be out in the world. You know, the documentary film world is its own run. You know I'm finding but we love that project and you know, have a new novel that's on my desk that I'm hopefully, you know, revising for the last time.
Speaker 2:You know revising for the last time um, that is not related to, uh, the topic of farming at all, but you know, is is, in its own way, about race and class and privilege and all that. So, uh, I'm hoping that that book uh it's called good people I'm hoping that that book will be out of the world sometime in 2026.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:A long way from now, but you know, publishing years, I guess it's not so long.
Speaker 1:So those are kind of the two things that are keeping me busy, and is there anywhere that people can keep track of what you're up to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm on social media a little bit, mostly on Instagram at Natalie Bazil simple and straightforward. And then I have a website where you can learn more about. You know the previous books, but I'm sure you know, as I continue to generate work, I'll update that and that's nataliebazilcom. Yeah, and there's also the black harvest fund. That's on that site that you can learn about, and the black harvest fund is a uh, donor advised fund that I created when I was working on. We are each other's harvest and people can donate to the black Fund and any money that is raised is given directly to nonprofits that are supporting and doing the work for BIPOC people in agriculture.
Speaker 2:So, it was a way for me to kind of put my money where my mouth is and to not be extractive in my storytelling but actually donate money that will support the important work that you know, the BIPOC farming community is doing. And so there are a number of organizations that we've given to, everything from Urban Tilt, which is an organization here in the Bay Area, to Soul Fire Farm, to the Black Harvest Fund. We've given money to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, which is helping with heirs property issues. So, you know, it's a way for me to contribute and for anybody who is interested in donating. They can, you know, go to my website and there's a tab for the Black Harvest Fund, and if they want to donate, then I'll make sure that the money goes to a worthy cause.
Speaker 1:That's fabulous. Yeah, very, very good. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, and I will put that link in the show notes so make it easy for y'all to visit that website. We did discuss you reading something. Do you want to do that still?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'll read just an excerpt from the introduction to we Are Each Other's Harvest, and this will give you a sense of kind of what inspired me to write the book. It's the foreword, and yeah let me just find this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So this is the foreword written by me, and it begins. Drive east along Interstate 80, from San Francisco towards Sacramento, past vast acres of alfalfa, watermelon and rice, and you'll eventually come upon a two-story mural of a solitary figure squinting out across the land, dressed in a plaid shirt, jeans and work boots, a tuft of gray hair peeking out beneath a baseball cap. The figure kneels in a patch of sunflowers. With one hand the figure cradles a husky yellow Labrador. The other hand points out to the horizon. The figure is a farmer, he is a middle-aged man and he's white. The artist who painted the 20 by 20 foot mural titled Stewards of the Soil says that she meant to pay tribute to the farmers in her community. I don't fault her for wanting to honor them. Farming is difficult work and I acknowledge that her mural reflects the picture most people have in mind when they envision the American farmer.
Speaker 2:And yet every time I drive past it I can't help but think it only tells part of the story. Surely, somewhere across the thousands of acres there must be a handful of Black and Brown farmers. Who are they? What stories might they tell if given a chance? And this is a mural that is on the side of the highway between Sacramento as you're heading up to Lake Tahoe, and every time I'm on that strip of interstate I see that mural and I always think, ah, this only tells part of the story. You know, it goes back to what I was saying at the beginning.
Speaker 2:When most people imagine the American farmer, they think of an old white guy and while that's true, that's not the complete story, that's not the complete picture. And that was really one of the driving forces in me writing Queen Sugar me writing we Are Each Other's Harvest. It was to say to people. We have to broaden our understanding of who participated in this American experiment. Right, black and brown people were there. Yeah, we were part of this experiment, we had a state in this, and if we're going to have a truer understanding of who contributed to the making of this country, it has to include Black and brown people. So that kind of undergirds all of my work right Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I know, particularly in specialty crop production in California, when you're driving by fields and you see people standing out in those fields, it's not usually a white man standing in that field. So you know, maybe more in some of the, you know, commodity grain crop productions. That's the, that's the. That may be the vision, but you know a lot of it is not that vision. So, yeah, well, I am very thankful again, natalie, and I highly recommend this book and I hope that this podcast will inspire people to read it. I did it via Audible and then got the book from the library and it has been, you know, nice to be able to sit in the car and listen to it. But then I come home and I kind of reread because there's so much, it's so rich.
Speaker 2:So well, thanks, I really appreciate you know the invitation to be, you know on your podcast and it's been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it, thank you.
Speaker 1:Me too. Thank you Until the next time. We'll see y'all later. Well, folks, there you have it. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to follow the Land Food Life podcast to be notified of future episodes and check out previous episodes. We love hearing from our listeners, so please feel free to reach out with questions or comments at landfoodlifecom. We look forward to you joining us next time. Thanks again for listening today. Take care.
