Of Seed and Soil
Hosted by Sommer Sibilly-Brown, founder of the Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition, “Of Seed and Soil” seeks to digitize the often untold and uncelebrated stories of farmers, fishers, producers, and food advocates from across the Virgin Islands and wider Caribbean. Through heartfelt interviews and candid conversations, the series invites listeners to reflect on the deep relationship between food, memory, identity, and resistance.
Of Seed and Soil
Episode 11: Inheriting Land, Carrying Responsibility
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In Episode 11 of Of Seed and Soil: Unincorporated Voices of Food, Farming, and Freedom, we speak with daughter of the soil, Emmanuella Perez-Cassius, a generational landowner, consumer advocate in St. Croix, who shares a deeply personal and practical conversation about what it means to inherit land and truly honor it.
With land passed down from her grandfather and father, Emmanuella offers a candid look at the responsibility that comes with ancestral land ownership. She speaks to the challenges and opportunities of managing land as both a sacred inheritance and a working asset, while advocating for policies and practices that support consumers and economic sustainability.
In this episode, Emmanuella explores:
-----The emotional, cultural, and financial realities of being a land steward
-----The importance of being an informed consumer
-----The need for Virgin Islanders to maximize land ownership for themselves and future generations
-----Her personal journey of learning, leading, and building through the lens of community empowerment
This episode is a testament to what it looks like when legacy meets leadership, and how land plays such an important role.
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Welcome to Of Seed and Soil, Unincorporated Stories of Food, Farming, and Freedom. I am Summer Sibley Brown, your host, and I'm so happy if you've joined us for another episode. And if it's this your first time, welcome. This podcast tells stories of food, farming, healers, people of the land, the soil. We are here in the US Virgin Islands, but we seek to capture stories from across the Caribbean. And just to add context to what a food system and what really makes um food important. And today I have the privilege of having Miss Emanuela Perez Cassius in the studio with me. I need to make a disclaimer to you. This episode might get a little crazy because she also is my best friend. So if you live in the Virgin Islands, you know Emanuela is my best friend. But she's also a land steward, an avid farmer's market supporter, and often has way too much to say. So morning, Emanuela.
SPEAKER_01Morning, morning. I'm so happy you put a little bass in your voice when you said my name. You know, you weren't from your elevated. Hey, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Summer, for making sure that this space feels like us.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate being here. Okay, so into us. Here we go, Bells. Um, I call her Bells. Sorry, Emanuela.
SPEAKER_01There we go.
SPEAKER_00You know, the people meeting us for real. Um, the reason I invited you, one, who don't want a chance to play with your best friend on air, but two, like you've seen my journey, but you have a journey of your own, right? And so I've seen yours as like I've seen you growing to a land steward. I've you know seen you grow into an avid supporter of farmers market and have a lot of opinions about it. Um, and I I wanted to actually bring that into this space, but first, I want to introduce people to you because I can't assume they know you. So, who is Emanuela Perez? Cassios.
SPEAKER_01Emanuela Perez, Cassius, yes. Well, born and raised Krujan, I am definitely from the seed and the soil of the Virgin Islands generation-wise. I work in the Virgin Islands, I went to school in the Virgin Islands, and now I raise my children in the Virgin Islands, and I also now own land in the Virgin Islands. But what was important for me in getting into this space you're talking about, being a farmer's market shopper or consumer, that really comes from this work that you started, right? I remember you talking about the amount of food that we are importing, and it started to give me a level of consciousness and connection to food and the way we operate. So, what am I also? I am also a consumer that have a whole lot of listen, my money is worth something. So, yes, supporting a system of food is important, but I also want to find a level of responsibility to the consumer market, and that's where me and you always battle because it's like, yeah, we want to support the farmers in the Virgin Islands, but the farmers have to have a responsibility to the consumers too. So I'm also a what am I, a nag in your ear? The gnat happens as we build this system up and strengthen it.
SPEAKER_00You're not a nag in my ear, but you definitely um offer me an opposite view, right? And I think that is important in the work that I do, right? I tunnel vision in it. I'm like, what does the farmer need? I am like, I want to support the farmer. I understand the import 98%. I understand that it's super important. And what you to bring in to me is the consumer lens. You'd be like, you saw in care of the farmer, that you forget that I just pay X, Y, and Z, or I don't see any price control in the market. And often we know these conversations that end up in elevated tone. Um, because we have labor issues here in the Virgin Islands, right? The cost of what people put into the food. So I'm always advocating for the farmer to get out, and I feel like you always reminded me the consumer needs access, which is part of the mission of VI Good Food.
SPEAKER_01So go on to the system, have a responsibility. Agriculture is a business, farming is a business. It can't just be seen as a special business that only gets exempts, and then the person who's producing just thrives uncontrollably without considering the fact that this is so good because we're gonna is important to us, right? We need your food, but we do a lot as a government and as a system to subsidize the making of food here in the Virgin Islands, from my opinion.
SPEAKER_00But do we really do a lot? And before we get into our first real debate, I want to ask you a little bit more questions for you. But like, no, pull the question back. We really do a lot. So, what do you do in your day job, Immanuela? I work for the Virgin Islands Housing Authority, and again, people and family.
SPEAKER_01What part of the Virgin Islands Housing Authority? I work in the resident wellness department. I guess that's important, right? Okay, let's let's get into it. You work in the Guinness title. I am also the director of resident wellness and empowerment for the Virgin Islands Housing Authority, and I love my job, absolutely love my job, and it spins from my job in education. So I'm about the family, and a lot of what I come with when me and you are getting into these debates is from the perspective of people who have moats to feed in the home.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so one, data soil, two, longest title ever, director of resident wellness and empowerment for Virgin Islands Housing Authority. What's your other role in this community? I'm also an elected member of the Virgin Islands Board of Education. Elected member of Virgin Islands Board of Education.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Let me see where we had a receipts. I'm a mother of five. I am also a graduate of class of 1996, Go Karens. You're like watching the camera, like, you're gonna see me, go, Karen's. Tell us, go ahead. I am a proud member of the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands. I am very active in the political realm, but also in the system change realm and the family support realm. So these things for me to tie in. And when I come and I'm having these discussions, it's because I get the systems, but we can't separate systems in a way when it comes to food, education, health, and safety.
SPEAKER_00So we agree on that. We agree that you can separate systems 100% safe. Hi five, that's usaker. Good job. That doesn't happen after that. That doesn't happen. That don't happen after if you know us, and if you know us, that don't happen after. So, okay, we agree that systems intersect. Yes. My focus, Virgin Island's good food focus, right, is building a web of support for the smallest actors in a system who happen to be, in my opinion, farmers, smallholder farmers, like family-based farmers, consumers, right? And chefs. I would I would say chefs, right? To get access to the support they need to build viable long-term businesses in a system that has historically not served them. So you was like, oh, well, they get a lot of exemptions or they don't get a lot of support. And if you ask a farmer, they'll be like, where is it? Because they don't. So what support you take? They don't get tell me.
SPEAKER_01Can we start with the land that they're starting on with your tax exempt and the amount of money you pay out to it, right? A dollar a year for land, land, land that is the highest commodity any community can have.
SPEAKER_00So let's we're giving it. Let's clarify that farmers do not pay a dollar a year for land. Okay, how much do they pay? So they pay a dollar a year for their license in the Virgin Islands. That is what is a dollar, and then the land that is given to them from the government, the the group that gets it. So two not given the land that is applied for that has to go through property and procurement and before the legislature that they need to submit a business plan for. So they given their work through a process, it's 15. I don't know if it's changing, but so it's $15 per acre, right? Per month. So if I get 10 acres, that's $150 per month for the acreage. I'm not saying that that's not a privilege, but okay.
SPEAKER_01So I'm just looking at it from the business perspective. What business, what, what business do you know gets that as their startup where they just had to apply to get their building to get started? Which business do you know does that?
SPEAKER_00Um, I feel like a lot of businesses in the Volgin Islands, we just lease a business to in St. Thomas. What was it, like a hundred-year lease for like two dollars? I mean, I've been I've been I've been exorbitant. I know it's not two dollars, but for some ridiculous price. We have nonprofits, we have people who and land that they don't pay a dollar a year for a hundred dollars one time for a hundred dollars lease. So, like, I don't feel like tell me which which business I synchro landmarks society have a lease for a long time. Farmers in action, the building in Saint Thomas that was just in the legislature. I'm talking about two non-profits and one for-profit. I don't know the name of the for-profit, but I just came before the legislature. Farming is for-profit, so is the other business. And that we just did it for in St. Thomas that we give them like a hundred-year lease or some ridiculousness.
SPEAKER_01Well, we could go and look at that, right? Even that one I would say the same thing too. If that is the case, then we have to have a level of control to ensure that the taxation around it is still being able to feed back into the system.
SPEAKER_00But who's supposed to put in the level of control, Emanuela? The farmers or the government? The government.
SPEAKER_01Okay, we're in agreement, we're in agreement about that too. I'm 100% agreeing with that. I think that we need to look at the way that and and this is be from the work you've done, has helped me to look and see, like, oh, there's gaps in here. A farmer right now can say my watermelon is $50 a pound, and ain't got a pulse in out here that will come and say, That's against, I can't even go to consumer and complain that farmer.
SPEAKER_00Actually, you should be able to go to consumer and complain that farmer. But we can't. Not in the system that we have right now. But again, not in the farmer fault.
SPEAKER_01I'm not saying faults, I'm saying there's a level of responsibility because you are in food. People are depending on you to eat. Survival is directly tied to you. It's like the hospital. A doctor can't just be like, Well, you don't have enough to pay, so you can't come to the hospital. That's why they're public hospitals or private hospitals, and because we subsidize it and I this because we subsidize the field, I think there should be a level of responsibility.
SPEAKER_00Give me one fee that we don't subsidize here in the Virgin Islands. Give me one industry in the Virgin Islands that is privately owned, that is a business that is privately owned that is not subsidized, that don't have access to subsidies.
SPEAKER_01I don't know any businesses that have access to subsidies on that level of.
SPEAKER_00So you don't, Kyle, you don't think that EDC tax benefits is a mechanism for subsidized subsidization?
SPEAKER_01That's uh no, I think that's their wraparound way to increase taxes coming in from one end and giving you a and services like money and giving you a break on taxes, but we didn't give them anything in the beginning to start with.
SPEAKER_00So we don't give Piagio, we don't give rum companies breaks to come in.
SPEAKER_01They're in a subsidization that is a huge, like I don't understand, and they're also agricultural back to the system versus the amount that we're getting back from the agriculture from the farmers, it's not the same, it's not equivalent. Why you can be on the market, we have a market, we have a market around rum, right? So there's a level of money coming into our government that we depend on that from. There is not a level of services coming back, in my humble opinion, from farming and agriculture worth the amount that we're giving out.
SPEAKER_00But what are we giving out? This is the part that's outside of an agricultural land, at least here and in Puerto Rico, that is managed by the government, shares much of the same infrastructure, right? Because you want to encourage people to remain in agriculture, especially when we import 98%. So, but we wanted to encourage large rum companies to come here. So we don't buy all the molasses for them, like to the tune of millions of dollars.
SPEAKER_01But the industry is still giving us back millions of dollars.
SPEAKER_00We're not getting that same get back from agriculture right now, and that's where we're having invested millions of dollars into agriculture. We haven't, we haven't consistently over years invested the same thing we have in agriculture for it to give yields. I disagree.
SPEAKER_01Land is a high commodity, the worth and the value that we could have maybe turned over from the land that we invested in. So we're saying we're gonna hold this off for you. We're gonna as a system, we're not gonna make any money off of this for a period of time because they are making money off of it, they're collecting their rent, that's the rent price they choose. So the system needs to be adjusted. And which have to meet the outcome, like the intention and the impact don't match for me when it comes to our agricultural system. And as a consumer, because even the amount of access I have to fresh foods that come from here, you're sitting on these lands, and I can't see where I can get that level where I'm not still broke. Like I feel like fresh food is becoming an elite thing. If you don't have a salary like mine, it's very hard for you to gain and support your family off of this. And I think that that should be important in your mind.
SPEAKER_00How do you just describe how you think a basic farmer, right, is getting to any given product? What do you think the process is?
SPEAKER_01What do you mean? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not a farmer. So I don't I don't understand that part. I mean the part I understand though is when it comes to market and me as a consumer and needing the service, it's like education. If I have a school, maybe I don't know what it takes to keep the school open and operating, right? But I still expect a level of education for my children.
SPEAKER_00But we're here, we're here debating it. So that's why, like, what is it worth, right? Why would a watermelon or a tomato or spinach or a mango cost what it costs, right? Because if we're talking about the business of farming, unlike most places, that food has to drive. So if a farmer needs a tractor to plow their land, that tractor comes in where from overseas. So they have to pay. If the Department of Agriculture is available, they may receive services. A lot of them tell you they won't. So those who can purchase a tractor, they pay in the cost of the tractor, that tractor has to come from overseas, they have to pay.
SPEAKER_01Tell me they're investing in their business.
SPEAKER_00Wait, but so you're asking why the cost of it, so they're not complaining, right? They turn it into around the cost of labor. Most of the the they have to pay minimum wage. Most farmers don't pay minimum wage because they can't retain anybody at minimum wage.
SPEAKER_01So their small farms again, you're telling me about their investment in their business.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no. I tell you why it costs why cost, because if you're saying you need them to operate as a business and we could come to an agreement, then a business, the outcome price is based on inputs. So we're looking at the inputs, right? Because you have assessed that okay, you're getting the land at a cheap value, so you should be able to provide me with more by saying I am not getting the tractor at a cheap value, I'm not getting the seeds at a cheap value, not getting the labor as a cheap value, I'm not getting the water as a cheap value, I'm not getting the packaging as a cheap value, then I have to go through hurricane season, disease, pest, all of these are business conditions that they are navigating. So when you see the outcome cost, and if I'm organic, if I paid pests, pesticides, like all these things vary. So that's the cost that's going into their food.
SPEAKER_01All these things are not regulated. So I'm just going by your word of mouth, right? Because the the things at the end, my system is not collecting taxes from you. You're a business that is charging based on how much you're investing and how much you're you're putting in, your inverse insurance, or like any good business, then you should be taxed on that same level as a business in the virgin, but instead we do not tax them on that level.
SPEAKER_00So nationally, that's not local. The schedule F and the Schedule C that's filled out by farmers, those fall under national standards for taxation. Because we want to encourage food, we want to encourage domestic food production.
SPEAKER_01So again, we want to encourage domestic food production. We're not getting more food production, and then you're still qualifying on that. There's there's the amount that you're given into the system that we've invested into encourage food production.
SPEAKER_00What amount has been given into this? This is the part that I keep not understanding because I hear you on the land subsidy and the license, right? So I see you're saying $15 an acre and a dollar. What else is being invested in them that covers the cost of anything?
SPEAKER_01Like, so there's no other subsidies that agriculture is getting because now I feel like I should have done a little more homework on the system. You wanna come back on the show after you do the lockdown? Because the point is still the same. The level of responsibility to the consumer means okay, I decided to go into this industry. This industry does not make me a millionaire. Nobody wants in the farming to become a millionaire. Absolutely. So then whatever it is it takes to ensure that my community is going to be fed at a reasonable that more people could be fed, I feel should be a part of their thought process. Instead, what I'm seeing in the pattern over the years, when we first started this, maybe about five years ago, the cost was one thing. I get it, things have gone up, inflation all over, but they skip and they unregulated. If I go to Summer, it's this much, but if I go to you, it's this much, and we're all inside of this system. And we're all supposed to be a part of this system, right? But there's no regulation to ensure that me, as a person who's purchasing wine, gets high-quality, no pesticide foods, right? Because that's a risk I'm taking as a consumer. That's the risk you take when you go to the grocery store. That's not true. Grocery stores have labels, grocery stores have things, and if push comes to stuff in a grocery store, there's a level of accountability. Hey, consumer, we just received bad product from here, and then somebody goes in and regulates them. If I go to the same consumer and say, hey, I just received six plums that's I don't know, I got sick from because there was pesticide on it. He never said my product has in uh pesticide, then there's not the same. A supermarket can't advertise something as organic and know that that is not organic. A farmer that happens on the market. I'm not saying it doesn't happen somewhere.
SPEAKER_00I'm saying because you say it can't. But you have products for you to buy in the grocery store every day.
SPEAKER_01If somebody challenges it, I have a means to challenge it. So you're saying you don't have any means to challenge this.
SPEAKER_00So who, but again, that to me is not a problem of the farmer.
SPEAKER_01I but we weren't arguing problem of the farmer, we're arguing strengthening the system so that it serves both needs: the farmer and the consumer.
SPEAKER_00So, what are the consumers' needs? Yes, let me talk about it. What are the consumers' needs? Use a consumer, like one thing I could say, um, as much as we're debating every Saturday morning, Emanuela is at the farmer's market, right?
SPEAKER_01So right?
SPEAKER_00So tell me, what do the consumers need?
SPEAKER_01A level of expectancy, right? Like expectancy in product, expectancy in service, expectancy in price. Maybe a little bit more access to variety, right?
SPEAKER_00So you're saying you're saying you want to be able to be a to budget or plan based on knowing that these are the prices that are available in the farmer's market across different farmers. So you don't want to see a tomato uh for one dollar and then a tomato for five dollars per pound. You you want a range, uh measurable range.
SPEAKER_01Tomatoes usually go for this right now. This is going for this right now, right? Like I want to know that this farmer is truly growing this or producing this and not stealing this from the neighbor tree or coming to sell it, like there's things that I don't feel it, so conflicting as a as the system is developing.
SPEAKER_00So you want to be able then. So, okay, one, you say price range, two, you what I'm hearing you're talking about is tracking or tracing or being being able to know the origin of the item, and like to be real, and looking at the camera, like theft is a thing in farming, like people have stolen products or can take things from other people and push it into the market quickly. So, you want to know the origin of a product. What else do you want to know, consumer? That's that's about it for now.
SPEAKER_01As a system, girls, I'll be able to see where more things are happening for me. I love the fact that you're willing to be patient with that. I want to keep supporting this, right? But it's not a vigilante show. It has to be, it has to be a system or a structure that gives people an opportunity to feed their families in an economic way where we can say, yeah, whether I'm rich or poor, I could eat. This and especially here in the Belgian islands, like it's we're starting to what about the fact that farmers places what about the fact that farmers accept SNAP?
SPEAKER_00Ebt there their farms I know like all the CSAs because I know there's a wick thing.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know that there's a snap thing.
SPEAKER_00Yes, farmers there are farmers' markets that accept snap benefits, right? That program is run through human services in partnership with the Department of Agriculture. I'll take it. I know farms that have CSAs that take partial payment, right? So you could join up for six weeks of fresh food and pay some up front. You could pay with your snap card. I know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, see, we need to tell people about this, right? Because this could make me feel better. Seriously. Like, I'm like, wait a minute, because part of the struggle is like, okay, so I could still eat like this, but I work in a place where I know we're not making the same, and I want their children to be able to eat like my children. So as I'm seeing agriculture develop and grow, it's like, is this becoming one of those farmer markets like in America that I go to where only the rich people and their nice organic bags walk around eating? Because that's what it feels like. I'm starting to see more and more.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, like one of the um our main slogan given to us by farmer fire love is first we feed farmer fire love, somebody name that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I didn't know farmers have names like DJs.
SPEAKER_00I'm in for it. I have Fama Fire Love. No, okay, Emmanuel, stop this in the world. All right, farmer Fire Love gave us gave us our name, First We Feed Ourselves, right? And so I agree, right? The thing is, is one, in order to reduce the 98% import rate, we have to start doing the work to have more production and maximize the use of land. But I think that part of the reason why we do this podcast is so that people cohere that that's what farmers want too. They want to be able to maximize the use of land, they want to be able to set up viable businesses and meet the cost means that they can drive price down and make food more affordable, right? But they want more people, they want to feed the people of the Virgin Islands. How do we do that? That is the that's why good food exists, right? Like, what is the what is the how that makes this to your point accessible to everyone? And it's actually connecting perspectives because and the system, and and the system uh if you want to be outside the system, fine.
SPEAKER_01There's there's space for business outside the system. There's uh business community that has nothing to do with the government of the Virgin Islands, but agriculture does have to do with the government, and since agriculture and farming tie in at one end, then they have to be able to build to ensure that they it's it's a um what do you call that relationship when we're both eating at the same time off of each other? Symbiotic symbiotic. That is where I would dream of our agriculture and farming system here in the Gulch and Islands to grow into something that both of them is feeding off of each other. I hear them when they talk about the disparities before of working with the government where they weren't being fed uh equally, right? But in fairness, you weren't producing equally either. So now that we're both here and we recognize our wrongs, we were talking about that earlier with parenting. This is like parenting for me. Okay, your children now is teenagers. We reached our place now. I feel the system is becoming adult. When we when we came in, it was more teenage, but the work I've seen you do over the last 10 years, the system starting to grow. So as this is growing, are we going to still say, Yeah, you could come to your mother's house every day to eat nonstop, but you don't buy groceries for the house?
SPEAKER_00Like, we've got to have a level of so I think if if we're talking about the work that VI Good Food does, right? I think the work that VI Good Food does is actually still very much like in some it's weird, you know. Like, um, so we're talking about children. So, you know, like when your teenager living in their teenage body, but also have still very like childlike tendencies, but it's talking to you like they're as an adult, and you're like, little girl, go sit down because I coherence see that you're thinking and clicking. I think good food is grown into a more teenage body, and we're still discovering like what it means to be an adolescence, and we're going through puberty, right? Like we're going through puberty.
SPEAKER_01I think the organization is doing that, yeah, but that's not the system of agriculture and farming in the region. You don't, I don't think they're going through puberty. I think this full grown, it just I don't think so. You can't, you're not a dependent full-grown. You have to become an independent, full grown agriculture. Has been here from my grandfather. This my grandfather buy some one full acre land in Cal Cahun. I used to cattle cows, and let's talk, let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_00Let's talk about land ownership. But I I do want to come back and circle around and said, So, like in systems change, right, we talk about like the wicked problem. So I feel like you know, like when you meet a person who they're in a full-grown body, but you'd be like, Oh, you stuck at 18, right? Um, I was going, I was going to be so sexist, right? And name one specific gender, and I'm not gonna do it, but that I just stated what they're in my head, um, right? But you stuck at 18. You you done a full body, but you stuck at 18. Like I feel because we came up, we came up against something, and while the system has existed for a really long time, for a very long time we've been stuck, and people have been trying to throw solutions at a while, um, but the symbiotic relationship is not there. So, what happens is a lot of blame and shame, right? Like the government blame and shame farmers and be like wagging a finger, like Ayo needs to be better business people, and Io need to did, and the farmers blame the government, Ayo, it never did, and even when things are changing, we haven't gotten past the blame and shame. So, like we have two sets of people working really hard to be seen, and there's no space for appreciation, right? Because there's actually no healing and forgiveness, and I think um, in this weird way, as friends, right? So, everybody, we've been friends since we were eight years old. She hates when I tell people that. Yes, we will not tell people on the podcast how old we are. We're not gonna but just now just know we've been friends since eight years old, and so the one thing we have learned to do is um forgive each other well, right? There's a I'm eight years old, I know we have to have to fall out, and we've had to make a lot of mistakes, right? The differences is the vulnerability to one accept when I make a mistake and two forgive when I feel like a mistake has been made because I trust the intention of the person sitting on the other end of the table. Because trust me, I can speak to myself, I get it wrong a lot of times. I am not all warm and cuddly. Um, and like Immanuela sees me and Manuela sees me and forgives me. And so when we talk about the system, there's a level of humanity that we have to bring back to the system where farmers could forgive the Department of Agriculture and other agencies, and Department of Agriculture could forgive farmers for the things that they may have said about them or felt in order, like we have to release the past in order for the system to move forward. So I don't feel like it's old, I feel like it's stuck, you know, stuck, but ain't young.
SPEAKER_01You can be stuck and be a hundred years old. You know, my father used to say, Well, you're learn today, alone today you're about to dead, you're gonna learn. So stop. That is what this is.
SPEAKER_00In go to one papo fashion, um, let's talk about your dad and let's talk about how you became a land steward.
SPEAKER_01Blessings. That's how I became a land steward. I mean, I purchased my first home, but I was giving land in the Virgin Islands from through inheritance, which was passed down three generations now. I am actually the fourth generation that's touching this land, and the third generation that's touching this land. My son will be the fourth generation, but this was because agriculture was the basis of why we acquired property in my household. My grandfather had two dreams. What's your grandfather's name? Vincent Harris Perez. Uh oh. Oh, he's not a Perez. Vincent Harris, Vincent Augustus Harris Perez is my father's name. But he purchased this because his dream was two things. One, we're gonna own land for generations to come, right? Every tub, my grandfather used to say everybody needs to own a piece of the rock. That's like a real thing inside of the family. They they pass it on. You own a piece of the rock yet, everybody gotta own a piece of the rock. Because when you go back to colonization, everybody else owned a piece of the rock. So that was important to him. When he purchased it though, he purchased it in an area where he perceived to be um good growing land, you know. So he went to Cal Calhoun with it. To our surprise, it's ish growing land because salt river to run right underneath it, and the salt water that affects the land itself. But two plots down, fresh water running and the yard, right? But at the time, everybody wanted to cultivate. My grandfather was into livestock, he wasn't necessarily a farmer that he holds. Yeah, man, we had cow, pig, goat, all kinds of good things on top of the property. As a matter of fact, he started off owning cows, you know, where um Martin Marietta there, you see that plot where all them solar panels there? Vincent Harris used to run cows wrong there, and then he got an opportunity to purchase this land in Cal Cahun, and he thought it was going to be great because we have enough space and he could grow. But he also wanted family to live together. The second part of his dream was plot after plot. My aunts, my father, the brothers, everybody gonna live on top of this because that's how you know ensure the family does stay, the land does stay within the family and ensure that we all keep growing on the same land. So, today tell me where you live and what's on your land because I think it's interesting. I am right back. I have a start off on the east side and I am right back in the middle of the island on the same land that my grandfather purchased years and years ago to raise animals. I am still raising animals on top of the land thanks to my husband. Truth be told, Emanuela is an involuntary farmer. Is an involuntary farmer. I married in to the idea of poultry farming. And when you marry somebody, you're gonna take a lot of calm with them. And my husband absolutely loves poultry. So we have almost every kind of board I could think of.
SPEAKER_00Name some of the right varieties that you make.
SPEAKER_01We got geese, we got guinea fall, we got ducks. Oh, I can't even name half the different breeds of the ducks. If I know you're one run down at the different ducks, it would have been thing, but one of them I know is a local duck. We don't call it local duck, I don't know. What I mean stuff around the eyes, that's the local dog compared to like the Moscato or something like that. That might be wine and not ducks. Absolutely perfect. The little brown ducks that are in America's pants when you go visit to the states and you see like these little brown ducks with like green. Like daffida highlights. No, daffy duck black. This is like the one with the green highlights, like the Donaldson.
SPEAKER_00Focused. Okay, sorry, focused. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01We also have small kiki dickies, I know those names. We've got big chickens, Leyas. We just and they're all free range. They're so free. They are so free.
SPEAKER_00They really are so free. Everybody's hostage to the ducks, especially the African geese. Yes, that was a thing with like the little afros in the middle, too much for me. But they did have like an afro. Afro moha. Yes. What do you do with your ducks? Do you sell the meat? Do you sell the eggs? Like what's up?
SPEAKER_01So we don't slaughter any animals, but we do sell live animals to individuals who want to eat. We also sell a lot of eggs, right? We give away a lot of eggs, you know, especially the duck eggs. We've learned that they're so high in protein that people who are under cancer treatment in the Virgin Islands, it truly benefits their bodies when they eat duck eggs because the yolk have so much protein, it'll basically give them their energy they need to continue fighting. So we don't give out a lot of eggs most of the time, eggs bottom dogs, because you could only imagine. So we're handing them out to people. We haven't gotten to the place where we've stabilized it of like a sale business because again, the regulations that we don't know about to ensure a level of the same thing I'm looking for as a consumer, a level of safety in my health, right? Like I like the integrity, yes, yeah. I'm not gonna say it's good for another consumer to purchase something and have no regulations. These eggs literally down and eat the mango tree, and I'm picking them up, washing them off, I'm giving them to you. I can't tell you what the I could tell you what the ducks were eating and stuff, but I can't tell you if this egg has been blood, if this egg sitting long, if this egg ain't sitting long. My husband can do. Let me ask you a question. When last you buy eggs, Emmanuel. Oh my gosh. 16 years I married, 16 years mean by eggs.
SPEAKER_00You have not purchased eggs from the grocery store for 16 years. 16 years. I only eat eggs out there. Do you realize the level of autonomy that has given you as in a world where egg prices have increased? You are and I, and I don't have to purchase eggs. Let me just say that you and I are really immune, right? So I also want to uplift that while you are an involuntary farmer, you are participating in growing our food security, even if it began just by growing your household's food security. That's how I look at it.
SPEAKER_01I look at it like those people who have those really nice little gardens. You know, some people could go by the yard and get lemongrass, bush tea, da da-da-da da-da-da-da. They keep a level of house gardening in their yard. That's the same way I feel about eggs in my yard, right? Like there's just us doing house gardening, it just happens to come out of living animals and they're all over the place. But we capture so two things.
SPEAKER_00Um, I want to go back to you saying first, you purchased a home. I want to talk a little bit about the purchasing of the home because on another episode we talked about a person's first experience buying land, and I would love it if you wouldn't mind sharing like what was your purchasing a home story? Because you said purchased a home and then inherited land. Right. And did one prepare you for the next, right? Which one came first?
SPEAKER_01So at the time when I had to go purchase a home, and I'm gonna say how to because my first plan was just to go and live in the house that I live in right now, because the house was free and clear and nobody was there. Daddy and mommy live up in the other house in Thai. And my father said, Manuela, every tub must sit on its own bottom. Like you gotta get a house because you get a house, not because you waited for me to dent to get a house. So I went to USDA. USDA have a full first-time home buyers program. And if anybody don't know, I had a whole tribe of children, so I qualified because it wasn't a tribe yet.
SPEAKER_00I mean, she had five, but okay, she had a full tribe of children. Then I want you to know it was. But it helped me to qualify. It felt like a lot, it felt like a lot.
SPEAKER_01But I was 25 years old, I went to USDA, I had never purchased anything, so my credit wasn't good nor was it bad. And I went inside there. The lovely people, Kimmy, she just retired. God bless her soul. Miss Kimmy Bryce. Yeah, she gone now, she's rural development. She's out there living the free life. So I say, God bless her soul. But she did the work to help people like me purchase my first home. I qualified for $125,000. They was like, okay, go out there and see what house you could find for this. And I went and I looked, and there were different houses. But my my parents, my father, my mom is like, make sure it's concrete, make sure we're built long ago because these new houses they ain't no da da da da da da. I thought I was gonna build at one point too, but then when I saw the cost and build, I was like, oh, that's not gonna happen. And the children will be adults before I own a home.
SPEAKER_00So pause because I want to clarify. So I want to, for a listening audience, you can USDA, you are rural development, rural development program, also has home buying programs in it. Yes. And you can purchase a home or you can build a home. Yes, okay, yes, you can go.
SPEAKER_01And all of this, of course, comes with qualifications, right? Like I could have gotten a three-bedroom because I had a tribe. If you don't have a tribe, you're probably gonna qualify for the same amount. But when I went out, at the time I was also doing real estate, the stars that just align when you're on a mission to do something. And like I remember when you were when you were a realtor at 25. And he was saying the same thing. We have to start owning. It's important for Virginia Islanders to own. So these messages was like coming to me in my early 20s from all over. Don't rent, don't rent. You got on, you gotta own. So he was able to then find me a home that was in foreclosure. And the house was great, except they had grass over the top of it. It had every regulation against what USDA to approve, but I was still able to purchase it because then housing finance came in. I said, Well, if you let her buy this house, we'll remodel it to meet the new standards.
SPEAKER_00Housing Finance as in Virgin Island's Housing Finance Authority.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. So, as a first-time home buyer, they have funds available to help you repair existently built units. So I purchased it through USDA for $89,000, which was not all of the money that I would qualify for. And then I went over to Housing Finance and they gave me money to fix up everything inside of the house. The catch, don't make any money off of the house for 10 years. At the time, I had a seven-year-old in no way. As a matter of fact, I thought this is it, this is the only house I'm gonna ever own. So I wasn't worried about the compliance measures. So you can't go out there and get the property and buy the house and then rent it and start making money, but you can make it your home. And that home is where I raised my children at in La Grand Princess. And now here we are years later. You passed the 10-year mark. I passed the 10-year mark, I've paid off most of the mortgage. Woo, whoo, whoop, woo, and then now it can become uh income, right? Like that's now passive income for my household because now I can rent that.
SPEAKER_00So I know people in Hawaii um who use You know people in Hawaii? I do know people in Hawaii. I'm special like that. I also know people in Alaska and Guam, but no, seriously. Um I know people in Hawaii who use the same because Hawaii land is super expensive, like like what is happening now here, more expensive. USDA gave a farmer who applied through the same program one million dollars to buy a home and land to farm on, right? I'm not saying that every person will qualify for a million-dollar home. I'm saying that depending on there, yeah, where you are and market value, and you do the qualification work, and that program in your rural development still exists today. Yeah, because do you value and believe, like Vincent Harris, that everybody should own a piece of the rock?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It's a fundamental piece of my upbringing, and it's a fundamental piece of what I teach my children. I believe everybody should own a piece of the rock, and I also believe don't sell your piece of the rock. Now, let's talk about that. Why not? Don't sell your piece of the rock, and I don't want it to sound like don't sell it, don't sell it outside. I selling a piece of the rock to family or selling a piece of the rock to another Virgin Islander, for me, I don't feel like that's treacherous. You know, I feel like that's that's legit sales. We're just not selling outside. Why? Because for so long, Virgin Islanders fought to be able to own it. We're a baby government, and I know people think we've been around for a long time, but for a long time we couldn't even own, we couldn't get no access to this. If my grandfather fought so hard in his generation, which is only two generations outside of me, we want to ensure that the next two generations have so much within their space that it's not a problem for us to ever not own. If somebody said, I want to sell the Virgin Islands, it's not going to be on the same, you only have to talk to one, right? You won't have to talk to all these landowners because that's what a deed is. It's say you literally own a piece of this. So if we're going to sell it, it's like in the stock market. You can't sell the whole stock without first consulting all of your stockholders, and that's how I look at it.
SPEAKER_00Having Virgin Islanders invested in the Virgin Islands to the point where they are stockholders of the land. I really really, really, really, really, really, really, really um appreciate that value. I don't own a Pisa de Rock. My dad, so like John Joseph Sibley, I think, shared the same. That's my great-grandfather, shared the same vision or dream um when he came to St. Thomas from St. Bart's almost 120 years ago now, maybe, maybe more like 15, right? And he bought land up north side and he parceled it out and he made sure his children have it, and his children's children have land. And my dad, um, not understanding the value of land, he sold his, right? Or maybe he did understand the value of land, and I can't appreciate the need he was in at the time, but like for me, I was just like, oh, I could have, you know, I could have been constructing my house right nestled in my little sibly village done from my cousin Jeffrey, crashed from my uncle Jimmy, right above overlooking Sibs. Because that's what John wanted, because that's what John Joseph invisit envisioned for the generations to come, right? And um now I am I am determined to own a piece of St. Thomas and a piece of St. Croix, but I'm gonna have to fight so much harder for it. Um, and so I do agree that your inheritance is a blessing. I want to round out our lovely and lively conversation. Conversation. Um, if you could tell farmers, usually I'm asking people if you could tell consumers anything today. If you could tell farmers anything, as a person who would have wake up every Saturday by six at least, to go to the market while me, the food advocate, is still in her bed. I should have like, you don't wake up yet. You went to the farmer's market today. I just want that to know that's what happened. What would you tell them?
SPEAKER_01We done this together, right? Like, like your need and your necessity, you're we need you to understand that our health is dependent on you in a level the same as doctors, right? Like our our substance is on the same level as teachers for our children. That's how much we dependent on you. So when you think your job is just to farm, no, no, your job is to ensure that all of us could be fed, and the way you do that might be different in different ways, but just remember we're all in this together. Farmers and consumers is like the best married couple if we get it right, or we're gonna go going back for another divorce if we don't get it right.
SPEAKER_00Trust. So thank you for joining us on this episode of Seed and Soil, where I get to have a robust conversation with my best friend in the whole world, Emanuela Marisha Perez Cassius. And the charge is farmers, if you are watching, please be mindful, careful, and thoughtful um about what it is you are offering in the community and make visible to them good price points and origins of your food because your consumers want to be in relationship with you for a really long time. So they want asking for a little bit of help. Thank you.
