Food Is Power: Health, Land & Liberation in Black America

In this episode of Sankofa Sessions with Kofi and Kofi, we sit down with urban agriculture advocate and food justice leader Duron Chavis for a powerful conversation about food, health, and survival in the Black community. From food deserts and chronic illness to urban farming and cultural healing, Duron breaks down how access to healthy food is tied to economics, race, history, and power. We also explore how communities can reclaim control through local food systems, education, and ownership. This is more than a conversation about diet—it’s a conversation about liberation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:16

All right, welcome back to another episode of Stink Open Sessions. I am your host, Kofi Anan, along with my man. Man, look, I'm I'm two.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

That's what I'm doing today. I'm two, man. You the one, I'm the two. He's Kofi A D. Don't listen to him. He forgot. Yeah, okay. That's what they say.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Um, yeah, so we we uh we're back again with another another episode here for y'all. Today, the the topic is uh food justice and you know health within the black community, and we can talk about the intersectionality of all of that, you know, the black power and liberation and how food plays a role into our independence and and freedoms and all of that. Um, yeah, and and to help us out with that topic today, we got uh Daron Chavis.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hey, what's going on? Thank y'all so much for having me here, man. I appreciate the opportunity to kick it with y'all today.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, thank you, thank you for coming, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

You know it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Hey, but before we get into the topic, though, we got to shout out two people, right? First and foremost, we got to shout out Resist booksellers here in Petersburg, Virginia. Yeah, the best bookstore is. So if you want to buy books, don't buy from Amazon, come and buy books either here or you hey, guess what? He got an online web page too, so you can buy it from, right? And then we got modern man photography, right? That is giving us this beautiful, beautiful cinematography. So if you want a movie shot, I'm talking all the big movie houses, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Tubi. Tubi good now, too. Man, I look at Tennessee. You look at Tubi. I look at Tubi, right? Tubi got some good movies.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

I still have yet to watch a single thing on Tubi. That's un-American. That's un-American. I'm I'm gonna tell some people on you.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

I ain't gonna say what people, I'm gonna tell on you. I'm gonna tell some people on you. Shout out to our boy Kyle or whatever. So wherever you want, shot, please, please, please, please come see him. You know, yes, sir, yes, sir. It's hot though, bro. Yeah, man, it's heating up, it's heating up. I got on show, and guess what? Guess what's heating up tonight, baby? That's why I got the Miami Heat gear on. You know, for anybody that knows I've always been a lifelong Miami Heat fan, even when they had some, you know, down days, and then we got LeBron. So tonight, Mark's episode, the Charlotte Hornets will lose, and I put $200 on. Okay, okay. My my fan duel should be going off in the middle of this podcast, maybe. It might be zero. I might lose everything.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

You might lose everything. I don't know, man. You think okay, see now we ain't talking about the wizards. We we we moved on, man. The regular season's over. I'm gonna just say bam. Everything just I don't even know, you know, honestly, besides bam, who who else y'all got? Don't talk to me.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Talk to me and let you make the playoffs, right? Right? If I'm in the castle and you in the fields working, don't talk to me. Okay. So okay, right.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

I ain't I ain't gonna do that to you, but hey, you know, um, so on a on a kind of a I don't know, sad note, I guess. Nah, we didn't talk about that crazy. Um bam, okay. Speaking of speaking of Bam, Africa Bamba passed away a couple days ago. Um, I don't know, man. How you feel about that? He had kind of he had kind of a mixed legacy. No comment.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Come on. No, I'm not touching that one.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

You're not gonna touch that one. It's wild. What you got, Duran? What you got? That's a pause. Not touching that one. Yeah, pause. Super pause. I'm not gonna Yeah, nah, man. Uh I I got the only comment I got is man, you know, F pedophiles. You know, we can't, we can't, you know, that's not that's not the energy we're trying to stand on. Yeah. Salute uh founding the hip hop and everything, but you know, when you become uh a pedophile, you negate your legacy. I mean, that's how I feel about it.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

I mean, so I I mean, look, I feel like it's an asterisk on his legacy. I mean, you is on the one hand, it's like, yeah, this dude kind of I mean, there would be no hip-hop without him. You know, he he was he was a founding father of of one of the greatest genres of music ever. So it's like uh yeah, but it's yeah, it's just you can't talk about his legacy without talking about his personal life, you know, which is which is a a tragedy.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

And the fact that he didn't get held accountable for it.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

So can yeah, so can you appreciate uh the work uh without the person?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

I mean we we we kind of we kind of do. Like we we we listen, we all we all fans of hip hop, you know. It's it's it's it's in it's in the culture, it's part of the culture. It you know, it's a it's a major part of of the contributions to to music. So it's like you you gotta talk about it. And so we can't not talk about him, but yeah, when you talk about him, you gotta also respect the victims that you know of of of what he did, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So I think I think what's what's what's um challenging is for people to like lay hip-hop at his feet as if he was the only one, right? So, you know, we can't we don't throw hip hop away because um bam was a pedophile, you know, there were other people involved with the creation of the picture, you know what I mean? Um but we definitely you know don't let nobody like dismiss the fact that he was a pedophile, like that's that's that's a that's a real thing. And it's also I think important to acknowledge that he was enabled, you know what I mean? Like there was people around that knew what the energy was, and you know, nobody did nothing. And hip hop is a highly masculine, you know, culture, right? It's oriented primarily around men, and it says a lot about you know men for us to know that somebody that you know that's been lifted up so much was a pedophile, and all these men stood around and didn't do nothing about it. That's crazy to me.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

I mean, it is crazy, but like shoot, I mean, I was listening to uh interview with um what's it Wanyye from um from what's the name from Western Men? Yeah, Wanye is one of the men. Yeah, and he was I mean, he was have he was openly talking about having a relationship with Brandy, and she was like 15, 16, you know, and it's like I know that stuff was prevalent, probably still is prevalent. Probably still, I'm sure, I'm sure it goes on a lot, even even today. It's just you know, but whether it's not, whether it's hip hop, well, we got to two congressmen just resigned today, you know, for for sexual assault and you know, allegations. So it's definitely something I think we need to deal with within a male culture. It's not something that needs to be spoken of within like a context of hip hop or black culture or whatever. Like, you know, we went through the Me Too movement, we saw these, you know, folks get got got held to account. So we just when we see it, we we just should still not be afraid to hold hold folks to account for what they did, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yeah. I I be feeling like, man, like I honestly, man, I think we um as a society, you know, we deal with patriarchy. Um but I think one of the challenges is that you know people don't want to hold folks accountable because they be doing BS. You know what I'm saying? So it's almost like they don't want to say too much because they got some skeletons in their c in their closet, you know what I'm saying? It's like the Epstein deal, you know what I mean? Bam, got away with this for all these years, and you know, the Epstein situation is still out there. All of these uh the folks are running rampant. I feel like, you know, this type of predation on young people is a part of it's a part of American culture. Like it's it's not you know an anomaly, right? But you know, when people get on the camera and get in front of their people, they like nah I'm against it. But you know, demands, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Be behind the closed doors with the city.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Do you think it's something that so I I also think about it on like accountability? I I wonder, at least, at least I'm I'm just asking questions out loud, like, do you think we as a black culture are less willing to hold our idols up for accountability? And I think about Kanye, right? Like, folks quick to forgive Kanye, you know? He he done apologize to every you know to to an entire Jewish, you know, population, but this dude was walking around with a clan robe and you know, KKK outfits and t-shirts and you know, all this other stuff, and we back listening to him like it's nothing. You know, I feel like sometimes I just like, yeah, like are we willing to, you know, sometimes I feel like we're just so happy to see other black people succeed that it's like we're not willing to hold them to account when they mess up.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

That gotta be a whole episode. That gotta be a whole episode, man. I I I look my mind just going a lot of places, but I I will uh digress, man. Deron, what you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Uh, you know, for real, for real, man. I don't even think cancel culture is a thing, bro. I honestly don't. I feel like, you know, when the Me Too movement jumped forward, you know, people was like, yeah, you know, you can get canceled, you say the wrong thing. Uh but reality is people's attention span is like a hot two seconds. So, you know, the next hot thing come up, you know, and people forget or they, you know, downgrade it in terms of what you know they're they're thinking about, you know. So we don't really we don't really hold anybody accountable unless it's like, you know, somebody going to jail or you know they even forget about them.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I mean, let's be honest with you, now we on Gucci Man and Pooh Shiste. Right. So I mean, we've already moved even African Bombado was like one second, one not even one second, half a second.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, so I don't even think, I mean, honestly, I mean, with Kanye, what have you? I mean, I I just don't think nobody even remembered. I mean, they until somebody brought it up, because the moment that Kanye jumped up, did the did the concert, everybody like, yo, that was amazing. He's back. Yeah, he's back. But you know, yeah, he was wilding. He's been wilding, and probably gonna be wilding in a few weeks, too. You're gonna say something else, and then people could be like, Yeah, I told you so. But I mean, nah, it's no such thing, really. I don't think so. I don't think it's any in it, I don't think it's a real thing. Because what I mean, what does it mean to be canceled? Like you go chill for a few minutes, go sit in the timeout corner, you know what I mean? Then you write back. Or in the attention economy, you could say some wild, crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

It gives you more attention.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And it gives you more attention, it gives you more money, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 10:58

So it's like it depends on how talented you are. Hey, talents are a lot of problems if you get away with it. It's kind of like it's kind of like the the diva wide receiver, you know, or the diva quarterback or whatever. It's like you could be you could be wilding out, but if you if you're in the top of your game, somebody's gonna sign you.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

That's what anything.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

You know, you might get cut from one team, but you you know what I'm saying? Like, so but if you the third string, oh you you cancel for you cancel for good. You know, I feel like it's the same same thing in in the rest of society, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

People couldn't even go stop, people couldn't even stop going to Target. You know what I'm saying? That was like a national thing. Like everybody's like, no, going to Target. And then as soon as somebody said, Oh no, we're going back to Target, people's like, oh, I'm back in Target. Like it was a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

I'm stretching right now. My wife went up and targeted a few times. I was like, hey, we supposed to be mad at Target. She's like, oh man, I ain't trying to go to Walmart.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

I just want to say um I am not a part of this. Uh I am not touching on um. She's told you how to target the love. I do not endorse this thing. I want to remain neutral. Black love. Black love once again. So I if if your missus sees this, just know I'm on her side. So she don't watch the show no way. Wow. Wow. On that note, on that note, right? Whatever I'm saying. Wow. Wow. Tell them how you really feel. That's crazy. On that note, Deron. On that note, yeah, you you go ahead and get a bitch because you're about to be in the cover. I don't want to get no call to my couch tonight. It's cold downstairs. So when I'm hearing things, I'll be like, watch this episode. I'm gonna say she didn't watch this episode.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Unless somebody forward this clip. No. Alright, DeRon. Man, I I normally don't go do the whole BIOS thing, man, but you have such an impressive vibe. I'm gonna go ahead and just just go ahead and read this thing off here for so I guess understand the the the gravity of who we got sitting on this couch here.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

You better be as good as Shannon Shop does his.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Chavis engages in coordinating innovative and dynamic initiatives around the topics of urban, agriculture, and local food systems. In 2009, he launched the Rich Manure uh Market, a Saturday farmers market targeting low-income communities located in what the USDA has designated as food deserts in Richmond, Virginia. 2012 marked the development of his of his community garden, which subsequently led to the development of urban farms, urban orchards, urban vineyards, and work in poverty might uh mitigation, workforce development, health, and racial equity. Chavis has received numeral accolades for his work. He served in 2011 as a clean air ambassador on behalf of Earth Justice and Hip Hop Caucus. He has launched a he is an alumni of Leadership Metro Richmond's class of 2011, received Style Weekly Top 40 Under 40 Award in 2010, and the Style Weekly Power List in 2014 and 15. I could have won, I could have kept going, man, but man, congratulations on all on all your accolades. Yeah, we got it. We got some crowd notes, we gotta come together back on this. We got some airborne or some appreciate y'all, man. Appreciate you for what you've been doing for the community and and congratulations on all your you know success and welcome to the show. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

You know, man, thank y'all, man. Appreciate the opportunity. Kick it with y'all.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

So, Daram, one of the things we want to really discuss with you, right, is that you have been really instrumental, especially in the Richmond metro area, when it comes to like urban agriculture, right? You know, for those who don't know, there's a lot of myths, there's a lot of misnomers, and there's also a lot of convenience of how we get our food, right? I think that when food shows up at the grocery store, people are like, hey, look, I don't even know where it's come from, as long as it tastes good, it tastes right, but it is so much that goes behind how we get our food, especially in our communities, right? So can you talk a little bit about I guess what drew you to like providing insight on food obtainment and you know just urban agric agriculture as a whole? Like what drew you to it?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, so um I got into this food justice work um in my early 20s. I started the Happily Natural Day Festival. Um it started in the black of the Black History Museum, um, you know, vendors, music, people, you know, coming to speak, workshops, etc. And um the subsequent years we would attract different types of vendors. And uh I think it was probably like 2004, the second year, uh black farmers started coming through for the um for the for the seller food. Um one farmer in particular, uh shout out to Renard Turner, uh Vanguard Ranch, he's based in Gordonsville, he would come and sell produce, but also like value-added products. He had like a food truck and you know, goats and stuff like that. So he was currying the goat on the spot. Um he started, you know, I guess engaging me kind of like on a mentee type mentor energy. Um, you know, he would call me and we chat, talk on the phone and stuff like that. And um I remember him asking me, like, what would I do if the grocery stores closed? You know? And um And that's something you don't think about, right? We've always shopped at a grocery store. Nah, you don't think about it until it happens. So um I was living in Southside when Hurricane Gaston, um, or Hurricane Florida, I can't remember. One of them came through and um it shut off the power. Sure it wasn't Isabel?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Um Isabel was oh three. I know that's the one everybody talk about.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Was it Isabel? No, it was it was after that one. Okay. It was after that one. Shout out to Isabel, she was a good lady. It was crazy. Yeah. But anyway, um hurricane came through, blew the power lines down, and the grocery stores were closed for like two, three weeks on South Side. And so after everything, you know, we after everything that we had frozen, you know, was cooked, you know, all the fish and all of the excess canned goods was gone, you know, I I I remember being like, yo, what the he what we gonna do? Like, this is crazy, you know. Um having to find, had to having to go way across town to other parts in order to get food was was insane. Um so after that, um we started doing pop-up farmers markets in um formerly Red Line neighborhoods. Um so what I what I decided to do is um play the middleman between the farmer and the hood. So I would go go aggregate produce from the farmers, and then we would uh pre-set shares of produce. So my tag was 20 pounds for $20, right? And then, you know, um every Saturday I did that from like 2008 uh to like 2014 or something like that. And that experience um is really like what rooted me in in this in this food justice work. I mean, I was basically the farmer was my plug, and I had to figure out how I could increase the amount of revenue that I was getting, you know, in terms of my profit. So I started growing stuff, right? And the goal was like, yo, it was double me trying to increase my revenue, but it's also the farmers that I was copping from, they were old enough to be my grandfather. These men were in a you know late 50s, 60s, you know what I'm saying? And I was like, yo, if something happened to him, then this is this is this is a wash. We ain't I ain't got no connect, you know what I mean? Um so it was really birthed out of like a a response to the trauma of being of going through the hurricane, and then the question of what we would do if the grocery store closed, and it evolved because of my relationship with those farmers, me doing business with them and trying to figure out how we address this whole food desert conversation. I mean, we started in Churchill, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Moved over, yeah, and moved over to um uh to Battery Park, Brooklyn Park Boulevard area. Um, we even did it out here in the burg. I used to work out here in um in Petersburg uh with the Heart Street uh Urban Ag Center, and we did it out here and all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

If I could, Devon, I think the thing a lot of people don't realize about Virginia as a whole, given its kind of agricultural roots or whatever, and everything that goes with that. We we know the history of the slavery, the plantations, everything like that, or whatever. There still is a lot of black farmers out here. I give a prime example of that. Um, I got a homegirl, shout out to her, uh Carmen um and her partner uh Tara out in uh LA. They got this thing called Prosperity Market. They are they are the only black um farmer's market in LA. Wow. Shout out to them over the market. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They they got uh Michael Straighthand, um Anthony Davis, they got all these people. But I brought her out here because she her parents still live out here, and I took her to the um VSU agricultural um center, right? The farm, Randolph Farm. Randolph Farm, yeah. And the reason why I bring this up is we're blessed based off of geography. Where with her out in LA, it was hard to find, yeah. Because you know, given that LA is kind of really industrial farming with all the you know the wineries and all the other, you know, crops they grow, you know, in the valleys and things like that. So we're really blessed. So I I think how did that lend to you? You mentioned that some of these people became mentor, mentee, but how did that access to the farmers like really lend to what you were trying to build?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Man, um, so I grew up in apartments. You know what I mean? I didn't never I don't have a grandparent that I could visit in the summertime and then like that, where you shucked. You didn't go to the country, yeah. I mean, I went to the country, but I ain't had nobody that was on it like that. Um so the farmers that uh are in Central Virginia, the African American ones really uh invested in in me. Once I showed that interest, you know, they were instrumental in giving me that oral wisdom, you know. Basically teaching me how to farm without them really teaching. You know what I mean? It wasn't like a class, but like if you sit with a farmer every Saturday um selling vegetables, they're gonna tell you about, you know, the difference between GMO and organic and you know why you should be growing food and how and all that stuff. Um, but it's been a network of African American farmers that have been like critical for my development as an urban farmer, um, but also as an organizer, you know, an activist. I mean, shout out to Virginia State University straight up because that space was really like a lightning rod. I worked there from 2014 to 2016, and I met so many farmers in that space. With Randolph Farm or Well, just through the College of Adam. You know, and the cooperative extension, that you know, Virginia State University has a cooperative extension. And um, when I worked there, you know, I connected with a lot of farmers, people like Cliff Slade, uh, people like Dennis Harvey, um, Dr. Marcus Comer, uh, William Crushfield, you know, all of the staff. They were they were they were dope. Um, and then even before that, when I was um uh just getting started, um, I was I was I was connected with uh Renard Turner. Bernard Turner was on the board of Virginia Agriculture uh the Virginia Biological Farming Association. So I met a lot of black farmers through that space as well. Um but I won't like pretend as if the numbers are super high and it's really challenging for uh farmers to exist, uh period, but it's extra extra challenging for African American farmers, um, especially in this moment, but historically it has been challenging. Um over the years, what are some of those challenges? Yeah, well, what are some of those challenges? Um some of those challenges are access to markets, um, some of those challenges are uh undercapitalization. Um uh but the reality is many of the farmers that are existent in Central Virginia um have been struggling to find the type of support that they need in order to really thrive. Um one lane, I remember uh brother Ahmed, Salim Ahmed, who was in Brunswick County. Um he was one of the first farmers that I would caught produce from. Um you know, he had been through it over the years, like discrimination from the USDA, you know, not being to access the loans and the different programs that they had in his earlier years. And, you know, when I met him, I'm like, yo, you know, I don't know nothing about that. I'm like, yo, we should try to do this, try to do that. And he looked at me and laugh because he's like, yo, man, we already have been down this these paths before. Um, but the the the the access to markets piece is something that we really would talk about. Um I I ask folks all the time, do they know the name of their farmer? Or they do it, do they know a farmer, period? And usually people don't, man. And it's the number one supporter of black farmers should be black people, right? Like you would think. But most of us don't even know where the farmer is located. Um, they don't buy consistently from them, you know what I'm saying? So the farmer has to try to figure out where to sell their their goods, and um, because of that, a lot of farmers don't really sell vegetables, they sell a lot of what is called commodity crops, so that's like corn, soybeans, you know what I'm saying? And that is not really like the best uh uh bang for their buck, you know what I mean? But that's what they gotta do because people are not buying the vegetables from them, and then they can't find like large bulk uh purchasers that are gonna pay them a fair price, you know what I mean? So isn't that crazy, though?

SPEAKER_01 26:03

The one thing we need to survive, right? Which is food. You can't get away from food and water. We are so kind of disconnected through it, disconnected from it through convenience. Yeah, it's crazy, right? Like you cannot live without food.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah, so this is the deal. Um, everybody's uh dependent on the corporate energy in order to feed themselves. We've gotten as a as a as a popist, as an American public, we've gotten disconnected from where food comes from. We don't even imagine that there are hands that are growing the food. We just go to a grocery store. I mean, you know, it was like, yo, I'm gonna pick up this pack of frozen broccoli. But we don't, even with the price of food, right? It was like, yo, we want the cheapest food possible. But in order for the food to be cheap, that means that somebody gotta get paid a low wage in order to do it. You know what I mean? Migrant workers and yeah, so it's crazy. You know, this is this is the this is the challenge of American agriculture in this moment. The American population wants cheap food and they want it fast, they want strawberries in December, right? And and in a in a region that doesn't grow strawberries in December. Um, they don't think about, you know, who's gotta be out in the heat, you know, picking the produce. They don't think about the fact that somebody's gotta pay the gas in order to get it from, you know, the farm to the uh warehouse or you know the grocery store where it's sold.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

That's why I say that thousand dollars is real.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Yeah, it's real. And it's I think it's uh I think it's two parts, you know. Um we are two generations removed from you know the South primarily in in the in the black community. I mean we think about the great migration in the 1950s, 1940s, you know, most of our most of the families before that were living in most in rural southern communities. But because of racial terrorism and um you know, paper terrorism, we dipped off into other places. You were talking about LA, like people you know migrated to other parts of the country. Um because of these systems, you know, agriculture has become uh unsexy, right? Um very hard for us to participate in. Um but I think now as we see things evolving with this country's politics, you know, not only the war, but the terrorists, all this stuff, it's making people like, oh yeah, I need to get back to local food, I need to get back to, you know, the land, and I need to start farming, I need to start gardening. Um but it's it's it's it's it's it's deep, man, because uh it's gonna take a lot of work. Yeah, uh, but you can lock in, you know. There's a lot of folks that are now uh that are operating and developing systems. Shout out to the National Black Food Justice Alliance. I'm a member of that organization. People from all over the country are working on this interregionally, you know what I mean, to try to get uh uh black farmers back on par to where we need to be. But it's a it's it's a journey, it's a work that needs to be done, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 29:22

So yeah, let's take a little break right now just to again thank our sponsors, modern man photography, resist booksellers for all, you know, appreciate you guys supporting us. We're not dealing with that. We're not dealing with that. I mean, you can't take a break. I mean I gotta I gotta make you uh admit to you, Daron, like everything you just described, that's probably me too to you. Like I'm I'm admitting it, like I don't think about where my food comes from. Honestly, I started doing like Walmart delivery, so I don't even go to the grocery store half the time. Like it just like shows up at my at my door, right? But tell me, like, so let I'm your average, I'm probably your average consumer, right? Like I'm I'm the person that just doesn't really think about food. I know that food is, you know, local is better. It's like subconsciously, I kind of everything that you say, if you ask me, I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's true. But then like I don't like put it into like my practical weekly schedule to think about it or to do anything about it. So tell me, and you know, all the average people out there, like, why should I move differently?

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Well, uh man, there's a couple reasons. Um, first, I say uh health-wise, you know, um, knowing your farmer and knowing who grew your food, you can develop a relationship with them to learn the practices that they're implementing to ensure that you don't have any pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides sprayed on your food. You also can lock in and learn about the methods that they're using to build soil fertility, and that soil fertility is gonna be the reason why your food is nutrient-dense, right? Um the second part um on a community level, um supporting your community-based farmers helps build the resiliency of your region or your area that you're in. Because God forbid something does happen uh with uh the food system. We live we're in a very fragile situation. If you remember COVID, you know what I mean? Stuff shutting down, um, with the with the price of gas going up, um, food is gonna get even more expensive. Uh but supporting the farmer now on a regular basis will ensure that even if there are shocks to the system, such as you know, the grocery store closing or you know, food getting too expensive because the rise of gas and the rise of rise of uh prices and fertilizer, then you'll have farmers in your community that you can purchase from. Um you know, because they don't just magically pop up. You know what I'm saying? Farmers are rooted, they have to been developing their systems for a while. Um and then uh another is uh for the environment's sake, right? We live in a uh situation where uh we want healthier waterways, we want healthier airways, um, and by supporting farmers in your local community, you know, there's uh there's there's practices that local regenerative farmers are putting in place that help keep pesticides and pollutants out of our waterways, that also the planting of trees can help increase the quality of the air. And then if you're in an urban environment, right, and those farms are proximate to your home or your neighborhood, those farms are also serving uh uh uh uh uh an environmental benefit, right? Because they also do stormwater management to put to prevent you know stormwater from going into our waterways. And I don't know about Petersburg, but I know Richmond um has uh a problem with uh stormwater management. Oh, we got one here too. So Petersburg has the issue where it's a combined sewer overflow. When it rains, the water that comes from off of your roof and the rain that comes uh the rain that goes on the street and the water that comes when out out of your uh plumbing, you know, your toilet and your uh sink or washing dishes or whatever, you take a bath or shower, all that water goes into the same waterways that then go to your wastewater treatment system. And when that rain hits and it overflows, all of those pollutants go into the river, right? And that's the reason why people can't fish in the Appomattox or fish inside of the James River. Now, when we develop green spaces in urban farms in the middle of the hood, then those spaces act like sponges to prevent, you know, that type of uh challenge from happening. So that's three off the top, you know. Not to mention those are very those are very, very, very good. Not to mention just this delicious. You know what I'm saying? You get a wider diversity of what you find in the grocery store because farmers are often growing a wider variety of uh the type of varieties of of the typical vegetables that we see. But uh, so for example, you know, I got uh an affinity for hot peppers, right? So I grow all types, man. Scotch bonnet, habanero, um I might even freak out and do like Carolina Reaper or some ghost peppers and stuff like that, because I like the spice. Um but when you go to the grocery store, you don't see that wide selection, you know what I'm saying? You see bell peppers and then maybe some cayens, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Or jalapeno, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

So the local farmer, he can give you that wider selection, you know, and especially if we're talking about culturally relevant food. I got homies that's growing Nigerian spinach, you know, people that's growing, you know, um just a wider array, like Boma eggplants, you know what I mean? Um I uh at our farm, uh, we're doing all types of stuff, man. We got semi-tropical fruit trees inside of our greenhouse. So it's like by you can also dabble into that culinary artistry, you know what I'm saying, uh fresh local diversity, biodiversity in terms of your diet by supporting your local farm as well.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

I'm with you. I'm with you. So I I guess and let me I maybe you guys are thinking about this, whatever, but I feel like for somebody like me who is in a routine, right? You you you go to the grocery store or you order online or whatever, like in order to penetrate that routine, yeah, like there has to be like some kind of uh yeah, there has to be effort on my part and desire on my part. But then also I think to help to help me out and people like me out, could there be like apps or so, you know, can I order online?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

So we so I d uh so some of the older farmers ain't really up to the speed on the tech. I'm just gonna keep it a bean, right? Um, I know our organization, we do uh uh what we call a Black Pharma CSA, which is uh a hybrid version of what is typically community-supported agriculture. Um, shout out to uh Booker T. Watley, African American farmer from Tuskegee University that came up with the concept, but it's essentially a membership program, right? You purchase food through a membership from the farmer, and then they give you a share of produce every week or bi-weekly, whatever the frequency. We do a delivery version of that subscription program. So you pop from us and gotta share that link. Yeah, I'll buzz it out, you know, blackpharmacysa.com. But essentially what we do is, you know, you can pick your frequency, right? And then we'll drop the produce off on your doorstep, right? Um and that's trying to and that's and that's a that's our way of trying to tackle the convenience issue for people and you know, kind of uh supplant the DoorDash and the you know uh whatever app GoPuff or say Instacart or what have you, you know, and do it ourselves, right? Um we're also really intentional about um aggregating from local farmers, so it's not just our stuff that we're growing. Uh so we kind of take that load off of folks who are trying to have the find the farmer, quote unquote. Right. You can cut from us, and then you're gonna get value-added products from them, whether that's honey or soaps or sauces and you know, uh spicing, seasoning, stuff like that. Um we can bring it right to you.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

You know, you know it's funny tying us into the diaspora, right? You know, um, shout out to my pops, man, because I'm gonna tell a real funny story. So, you know, everybody who's been watching the show know, you know, I'm I'm Ghanaian. My pops is from Ghana, so we eat a lot of goat. We love some goat. We love some goat. So my my pop, he would go up to DC uh back in the day and get the frozen goat from the farmer's market. Um, I think it was Obing International Wholesellers, I think was ran by a Nigerian guy. They used to go to the farmer's market, he had everything. They had it wasn't even DVDs back then, it was VCDs. Wow, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. VHS is a lot of Nigerian, Ghanaian movies and stuff. Because goat was hard to get. And then um, my cousin, shout out to Augusta, she owned um Ghana House on Harrison Street.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Oh, that's your people. That's my people. Shout out to her, she was there for many years, for many years, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Wow, so she used to go there too. So I think this is like early 90s, so this is kind of like my experience with like black farming. My pop was just like, man, I gotta stop running up to DC to get goat because I'm only getting a little bag. So he met this guy, Mr. Branch. God rest his soul, was a black farmer out of Matoka. So I remember my pop picked me up in the shout out to that gray Ford station wagon, uh, no air conditioned. We ride out to Matoka, and I remember my dad talking to Mr. Branch. He was like, Yeah, I want to buy one of your goats. And he was like, For what? Oh boy. Like, he didn't even know my dad was like two or two together. We're gonna eat this, and Mr. Branch is like, You wanna eat him? Yes, and my dad was like, he was like, We want to buy he's like, So you, you know, he grazed my land and keep everything clean, and you want to eat him, yes. And my pop was like, yeah, and that relationship went on for oh my god, I think Mr. Branch died when I was 18. I had to be about six or seven. That's crazy, and we got a chance to really learn about farming because once a month, yeah, we would go out there to Matoka, right? Yeah, and he would tell us about the crops. And I remember as a kid, I would see, you know, the soybean, everything he would grow and he would give us crops. So, because it was a couple hours affair, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

It wasn't like the goat was ready, he was like, he would come out, he would be like, Hey, how y'all doing? I gotta go get him first. That's it. So he would go out there, kill the goat, take him back. He had his own little slaughterhouse, and my dad started bringing his fans. So some of the people he knew that was working at Virginia State and some of the other local West Africans learned about Mr. Branch. So it's funny because like the diaspora and black people from every place were connected in that exchange because he's looking at us like, what do y'all want? Like, y'all want a goat, and we're telling him, yeah, and that became a source of revenue for him.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Nah, that's real.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

And and and on top of that, we also were able to buy crops from him as well. So, you know, people just think about farming as eating is also cultural exchange because he was so used to that goat just grazing his land and and doing what that goat did, but he learned that he was like, Oh, I didn't know y'all eat goat. Yeah, that's and I think he even tasted some of our our goats, uh hot pepper soup and things like that. So he was introduced to that. So, like when we talk about food and memory and culture, I always go back to that example of how like a local farmer right now in Matoka didn't know anything. Like, I'm talking about when he when we asked him about the goat, you should have saw how the way he looked at it.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

It was like, nah, that's real though, because I I mean I grow um eggplants and I grow um uh the extra hot peppers. I got a Liberian brother um that comes every summer and is like, yo, what you got? You know, culture has changed. He comes in and get the hot peppers. Um I also, you know, we do uh sweet potatoes, and so when we got the sweet potato leaves, you know, that's another that's another delicacy. Yeah, I'm saying people don't know that you can eat the leaves, but that's a West African dish.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

It's a cult, it's funny how the thing we need the most can also give us information we had no clue about. Right. You know, rest in peace, Ms. The Brand. That was one of my favorite childhood memories. Going to his farm and seeing, he ain't never let me shoot the goat, though. I wanted to shop, but I used to be out there, he was like, Yeah, he's like, Kofi, go go drag. I used to go out there and drag the goat, you know, get my hands dirty. He showed me how to chop it up.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

One of my farmers out in uh at the Petersburg away to keep goats. Really? Yeah, I'm gonna have to talk to him.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

You wanna eat you eating goats? Yeah, okay. You said you said look at some goat curry? Okay, I think that's the I thought I thought if it wasn't Door Dash, you didn't want it. I'm gonna think the Door Dash and goat.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

I'm gonna Door Dash. No, no, I'm saying I'll order my food to get it delivered. Not like the the groceries, not nothing.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Maybe maybe we can get the guy out there to DoorDash, you a goat and just show up right there.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

DoorDash is wild. Goat. Live goat by DoorDash.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

One of the things I want to ask you about, right? And I did get a chance to watch your TED talk. You said that was many years ago, but shout out to you. I got a chance to watch that. That was really insightful. Um, you did an RVA TED talk to talk about urban agriculture, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things that many majority black cities deal with is blight, right? Yes. I'm a real estate guy, you know, um, do some other things when it comes to um like local policy making in terms of like real estate and policymaking on the economic side. Right. Right. What do you feel for majority African American cities we can do to kind of entice urban farming? Because we have a lot of blight in these cities, whether it's Petersburg, whether it's Richmond, whether it's Baltimore, whether it's Jackson, Mississippi, you have vacant lots that are just sitting there that could cut down on those, you know, before the camera started, we talked about food miles. So the average food miles is a thousand to thirteen hundred miles combined on your plate. So every spring mix, every grape tomato, every cantaloupe, every strawberry eat combined, right, is 1,300 miles. So that's I don't know what a thousand miles is. I'm assuming that's pushing probably Texas, give or take, right? Maybe a little bit farther. So how can we leverage those those urban centers with all these vacant lots?

SPEAKER_00 43:54

So, you know, the that's a great question. And you know, when I did that TED talk, it hadn't Really exploded like it has. But um now, uh that was I think 2014 or something like that. Uh but today, 20 uh 26, many major uh cities with high African American populations have some form of policy that's been implemented on a municipal level that deals with the land use policy and relates it to urban ag or urban farming. I I know uh Richmond has a program called the Richmond Gross Gardens program where you know you can take a vacant lot uh that's owned by the city and turn it into a community garden. Now the the the the plots that are privately owned, that's a whole nother conversation. But um what folks can do, look up you know, your city hall ordinances around Urban Uh Urban Act or find out if there's a community land trust or a land bank in your community because typically talk to them the land bank has what has been surplused uh city or county property that they're holding explicitly for uh quote unquote affordable housing.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

You served on Maggie Walker, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:20

I did I read up on that. I did. I used to I used to serve on uh now we have our own community land trust, the Central Virginia Agrarian Commons that we operate. Awesome. Um so you know the vacant lot conversation is important. Um in urban cities all over the country, you know, because of redlining, the property values have been depressed. And now, you know, what 60 years, 70 years later, folks are trying to move back into these communities and they're taking these lots, purchasing them, and then you know, increasing the property value by doing you know home flips or what have you. Um, I encourage folks to see if they can acquire those plots um and turn them into green spaces because not only do we need more housing density and we need more affordable housing, we also need access to farms, to green spaces, to parks, and all that different type of stuff. Those also increase the property value of the community, but they also have a functionality and utility that can increase the individual families that live inside of those communities uh wealth, right? So a community garden, I've talked about this before, you know what I'm saying? If you're looking at a community garden to increase access to healthy food, it doesn't do that, right? It does create an opportunity for people to learn how to grow their own food, but you need scale, you need larger spaces to really impact access to people habits. You gotta grow a lot of food. If you're talking about you want to have food security in your community, you got a little 3,000 square foot lot, it's not happening, Jack. It just can't be real. You know what I mean? You can learn how to grow a couple things, but if you want to grow some food to feed your community, then you're gonna talk about some acres. But the community garden does have an opportunity to be a gate that opens up that you can then walk through and then explore, and then learn, okay, this is how I can replicate this process on something a little bit bigger. But it also serves as an opportunity for commerce. That's true, right? So the idea of those farmers markets, you know, those pop-up shops, uh, people all getting ingredients um to turn into products. I'll tell you a story. Um, at my first community garden, McDonough Community Garden, uh when we we've been training community members on how to do urban ag for you know almost almost eight, nine years now. And I remember um one gentleman came through my training and um started making pepper jams. Pepper jam? Pepper jams. Follow me. So where was he getting the fruits for his pepper jams? We planted fruit trees at McDonough Community Garden. We've got almost 30 of them. So we have plums, apples, peaches, you know what I mean? Plum uh pears. And so he would go over to the McDonough Community Garden, pick the fruits, and then take them back to his crib to turn it into the pepper jam. We took uh we took him to one of our um uh vendor markets, man, and man sold out of them pepper jams. So extra income came off of extra income, and then what I call uh opportunity for product uh development and product testing came by by way of that community garden because he didn't have to buy any of the peppers to experiment and create his recipe, right? He was able to just go at the time it was time for harvest and pick, you know, several bags worth of fruits, take it back, chef it up, and then he hit the market with it. So the community garden does do a lot of things, and those vacant lots are instrumental points in making that type of stuff happen for sure.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

I would definitely say shout out to Detroit. Detroit got a really good program. We all know the uh comeback story of Detroit, whether where it was at, where it is at, and where it's continuing to grow, they still have a very big blight program. One of the other things I would like to point out, too, I think, and I would love to hear your opinion, is with the I guess turnover in housing, because you know, people are tearing down and building new, right? A lot of what was conforming lots are not conforming lots anymore because what was cold back then is not cold anymore. Yeah, right. So what happens is you get a lot of like side jars, you get a lot of smaller pieces or parcels that nobody wants to deal with. They become scraps. Yeah, you can look around any urban city and you see these little slivers of land that nobody can deal with, especially in the southern cities because you can't build on them, but like you said, that could be a you know, a green space, that could be something. So, you know, like you say, it may not be for food, but it could be to help with stormwater and things. But right, I guess people have to reconnect themselves with nature and farming agriculture as a whole to kind of see those opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

Yeah, and I mean also it's it's a it's a responsibility of the municipal government leaders and urban planners to also encourage that. You think politicians um behave responsibly? No, not necessarily, but I mean I think that you know, for those that are innovative urbanists and the people that recognize the importance of these third spaces and the people that want their cities to be resilient in the future, it is like a it's it's not an anomaly to think, okay, well, maybe we do need some green spaces in the middle of all of this housing density, right? The the the the city is full of impervious surface, man. And it's not only an issue of stormwater management, it's also an issue of heat. Yeah. So the urban heat island effect is a big deal for people. Um, we did some research with the Science Museum of Virginia some years back, and we come to find that you know, in the hood, the block is hot. It's literally like 10-15 degrees hotter in this in the summertime, you know what I mean? And that's because it's so much asphalt, you know, in the city and way more green space in neighborhoods that were not redlined. So for those that are trying to redesign cities, make them walkable, right? You know, this is we need the green space in order to make that a reality. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

So you talked about the politics a little bit. Wanna try to dig a little deeper into that. So particularly when it comes to like um food deserts in general. Can you talk a little bit about the both the politics and the economics of why we have so many food deserts within black communities?

SPEAKER_00 51:42

The reason why we got a lot of food deserts in predominantly black neighborhoods is traced back to the 1950s and the redlining that occurred in these neighborhoods as a result of the New Deal, right? So the New Deal basically was this idea that home ownership would catapult, you know, the American economy and serve as a wealth building strategy. Uh but black Americans were excluded from the loans that were being offered to Americans all across the country. And the neighborhoods that African Americans lived in, irrespective of the amount of wealth, you know, there's many black Wall Streets that were excluded from uh the uh uh homeowners' loan corporation assessments and things like that. Uh basically, uh because those neighborhoods didn't get access to those resources, the neighborhoods were depressed in value, right? Now, uh a grocery store is a business, it's not a nonprofit organization, and it makes very slim margins when it comes to money, right? Uh uh a friend of mine in the grocery store industry describes the grocery store as basically a warehouse with advertising, right? Um so when the grocery store picks where it's going to locate itself, it's trying to find the highest median income possible. So the people that can pay for those higher price items can make those compulsive purchases, right? The grocery store doesn't make a lot of money on produce, you know what I'm saying? It's not like the highest selling item out of the store. And it's perishable. So and it's perishable, and it's getting thrown away every day, right? Um, the grocery store makes money on napkins, man, and detergent and toilet paper more than it does plastic forks and paper products than it does the produce. Canned goods. Yeah, canned goods. So this is so I I need people to understand that first, right? So it's not exactly like the grocery store is discriminating against black communities, it's just the way the market works. Yeah, they don't find it's like yo, we're gonna go into the hood. We ain't really gonna make a lot of money in the hood. I mean, even if you account for EBT, it's still way more money to be made in the in a in a suburb. So that's why you can go into Richmond and you could go to Carrytown and you could go to Publix, and then you go across the street to Farm Fresh, and you go across the next street to Foodline or Kroger, and you can go across the next street to Elba Thompson's. Because in Carrytown, it's right on the border of one of the wealthiest parts of the city. So they like, yo, people, you know, they're fans of these stores. They get they get what they can get from each one of them. Um, in the hood, you know, you're gonna find Family Dollar, Dollar Tree. You know what I'm saying? You used to be able to find mom and pop shops in um uh uh formerly red line neighborhoods, but because of the way, you know, these big box stores have evolved, like the Walmarts and the Costco's and the Sam's Clubs and unfortunately the Targets and the Food Lines, all this stuff, it's priced them out of the market. The reason being is that each one of these big box stores are vertically integrated. So not only do they uh sell other people's products, they make their own products. Talk about it. So if I'm a store trying to open up and I want to go to market and put, you know, let's say for instance today, Deron Chavez wanted to go open up a grocery store in the middle of Petersburg. I heard y'all got one coming. I'm gonna pray for her. You know what I'm saying? Because the reality is when she opens up her store, she's gonna have to enter into a value chain. Find a supplier for the products that will be on her shop, you know, on the on the shelves. And in order for her to get the best price for those products, it's gonna be a challenge. How do you compete with Kroger when Kroger makes its own canned goods, right? Kroger can basically sell them for the lowest price. That's why it's at the bottom shelf of the store. She's gonna have to buy everything that comes into her shop. So her prices are gonna be higher. It's no way around it, bro. You know what I'm saying? Unless she got a really nice, you know, trust fund and she can afford to, you know what I'm saying, take a loss on the products on the shelf. That's just how it works. So um the politics of the thing are, you know, this redlining thing happened, and uh, you know, the systemic racism racist thing happened in the 50s, and it still affects us today. On top of that, we got like the subprime lending more um uh scandal that happened in the 2008 that also like snatched so many um homes from African Americans in those communities. So now, you know, we're it's it's it's a weird thing where the communities of color that used to, you know, inhabit these predominantly black neighborhoods, now they're getting pushed out because not only gentrification, but because they were targeted with these subprime uh lending situations. So it's a really ill thing because watch every gentrifying neighborhood, you if you do the math or or do the mapping, you'll see that there's a large number of developers that have purchased up properties that are now Airbnb, those neighborhoods out, right? I know I see it in my neighborhood, and I will I I challenge some researcher that's watching this to do the mapping on major metropolitan cities and see who developers own where, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and so, you know, 10 years from now, what used to be a predominantly black neighborhood will not be. You know what I mean? And so you'll see the grocery store come because the income will continue to increase. So, yeah, I mean, this is just a reality. But yeah, the the the the the the piece that I try to uh engage with people on is that um the grocery store is a new phenomenon, relatively new. Talk about it, right? So uh the first uh refrigerated box truck it hits the market in the late 1940s by an African American uh by the name of Frederick McKinley Jones. He's the co-founder of Thermo King. So he if you don't have a Frederick McKinley Jones, you don't have a refrigerated box truck. The f the Highway Act in the United States is in 1954. Talk about it. So without a highway system, you don't have box trucks going up and down the road to pick up food from ports, right? So, yeah, I mean the first grocery stores like Piggly Wigglies, I think that's the early 40s, but the you know, can the conception is that these things existed all the time. They did. But before 1940, it was all local. It was all local, everybody knew their farmer.

SPEAKER_01 58:54

And it's funny you mentioned that because you know my grandma on my mom's side from Augusta, Georgia, she used to always tell me things were out of season. Things were legit out of season.

SPEAKER_02 59:02

I have no idea what's in season. I'm I'm I'm like, I want strawberries in the winter. No idea. No idea what season is what. We're gonna do that in the goat. Is it goat season? Yeah, what season is it right now?

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Nah, so you know, this is just you know what's happening today though, the the trends, people want more local food, people want organic food, people want to know who their farmer is. So, in response, there are more and more small farmers that are popping up all across the country. And, you know, I think the goal for us, well at least for the networks that I'm a part of, is to build out the systems for people to engage in the food in a way that uh makes a living wage and then also brings uh ownership and control to can to previously marginalized communities, you know what I mean? And it's not just the farming, it's also the aggregation of the produce, it's also the distribution, you know, the door dashes and the delivery services, it's the value adding, you know what I mean? It's the people that's making products, it's the restaurateurs, you know what I'm saying, it's the caterers, and then it's also like the waste management, because like we need healthy soil, so the composters and the production of this stuff, the food waste from going into the landfill is a big deal for us as well. So, like I think tomorrow, you know, when I say tomorrow, I'm thinking like 10 years from now, five years from now, we'll see more and more farmers will be more uh uh readily available and a wider spectrum of people that you could participate in this type of stuff with. But as far as the hood, you know, we gotta be on it now. Like, if we're gonna stay in the game, or at least if we're gonna get in the game, now is the time because those lots are disappearing. True. That's why our work of like land reclamation is both urban and rural. Because we about that life, we like, yo, black people exist in the future, we exist in the city in the future, and we owned, we own uh the land in our community in the future as well. Um, so it's not just about the grocery store, but that's kind of how we got here, you know what I'm saying? We're trying to reclaim the land that was stolen from us so that we could participate in this.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

It's a very layered, layered conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

That that was really enlightening, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

Yeah, this was this was awesome, man. Definitely. I got I I had like 20 questions to ask you, but we're gonna have to have a part two or something. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Yeah, like this you will be on one of our first repeat guests.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:39

Oh man, come on, man. Yeah, too much too much knowledge. We gotta, we gotta bring it back, man. We gotta bring it back back.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

I just want final, you know, just to say, I want to share that I'm really honored that y'all even asked me to be on this thing, man. Because I geek out, I can go hard. I mean, I really not not a lot of people really want to get into the nuts and bolts of this thing. It's like really a lot of people simplify the conversation. Oh, it's a food desert and build a community garden. Like, bro, nah, man. It's way it's way deeper than that. Um, so get so thank you for giving, you know, me the opportunity to, you know, I mean, dive into this with y'all.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

Well, well, we're honored to have you on as a guest because you you're you know, your your your knowledge just obviously is just kind of pouring out. It's just you know, and so definitely appreciate you sharing that knowledge with us, sharing with our audience. Um, and and again, definitely would like to have you back on for some part two of this. Because there's there's a lot more we I wanted to get into. We didn't even really get to touch on like some of the issues within the diaspora as a whole. Um, but but yeah, this it's it's a lot of layers to this this conversation. I definitely want to have you back on again.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

Yeah, yeah. Let me know, man. Thank you. For sure, man. Appreciate it. Yeah, shout out to you, Devon, and shout out to all our fans. You know, like I said, if you want to follow us, follow us on social media. As always, we want to shout out, you know, our sponsors. Uh, like I said, resist booksellers. Why buy from Amazon where you can buy it here? Hopefully, something drops from the sky, like a graphic or something, right? Modern man photography, right? Best cameraman and best videographers this side of the Mississippi, right? I'm claiming it. I'm claiming it, right? But hey, Deron, thank you so much, brother. We appreciate it. I'm honored, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

Thank y'all for the chance.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

First repeat guest. Let's go. Right? I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:26

Just let me know when, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:27

Right. And then, you know, for Christmas, right? We gotta send him a goat to his doorstep. Yeah, let's get it. Let's get it. Only if it's the day. Only if it's the birthday. Before I forget, we gotta do the book.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

Oh, yeah. The book of the book, the book of the week is Farming While Black. So far, farmers practical guide to Liberate Liberation on the Land by Leah Penning. Penning Penningman. Penman.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

Pennman. I was just with her sister, uh, her sister, uh Pennman.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

Okay. Oh, nice, nice. Please, Leah. You can get this here at Resist Booksellers. Not Amazon. Not Amazon, we don't do that. Nah, I got some in my car. Yeah, I'm gonna sell them every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

Okay, come on. You gonna judge me?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:11

You gonna judge me. But we don't want the books members now. We're the books in the Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

Hey, we love you, man. Take care of peace, we have a lot of people.