Field Trip Reflections PT. 1

An enormous oak tree on Farmer J’s property in Castalia, NC.

Over the last seven days I have visited two different land sites for both inspiration and connection.

This is a reflective entry not a review! I enjoyed my time at both sites, learned a lot, and have immense gratitude for people trying to live in right relationship with the land. May we flourish forever. aṣẹ!

Something Stirring in Castalia

My mom and I visited a property owned by an older Black gentleman, carpenter, gardener, tea brewer… jack of all trades you get the jist. Farmer J is working on big things on 100 acres that has been in his family since the 1940’s. As someone who does not have access to family land like this, I am always awestruck when people can recall the generations and history of the land they are now stewarding. It’s a powerful thing, especially for our people who have been terrorized and punished for trying to make a way on land.

And, as an anarchist, I dream of the day we abolish land ownership as a practice and go back to the commons! For now though, we have a right to be here and to keep building.

Farmer J, my mother and I walked just over 2 miles in total touring the property. Through woods with beautiful trails and makeshift bridges over the currently dry creek. Muscadine grape vines clinging and creeping from the wood line toward fields caught my eye along with various canna lillies and spider webs. It really is a beautiful place. Farmer J has many plans for this space with a range of tourism and recreational opportunities and he emphasized wanting to create a quality experience with a team.

I resonate with this deeply. Five acres on my own is a handfull. While ideas are plentiful, money is not. Working around the heat and weeds alone is not sustainable. This visit to Farmer J’s land had me daydreaming on all of the cooperatives that can operate out of this space and my own.

Witnessing how much Farmer J has done and hearing how much he keeps to himself to focus and get the land to a presentable place was so familiar. I wonder about how we as land stewards do/can find people where we are who want to create in cooperative and mutually beneficial ways. A constant reality for many of us is that our anti-capitalistic and “natural living” values go against the grain in a way that interpersonal relationships strain or dwindle. What do you make of that?

“Nobody wants to die working so hard.”

And yet capitalism is deadly on the planet, your joy, and your actual health. Tight!

I don’t think I’m saddened by Farmer J’s emphasis on needing help. It is the reality for a lot of people trying to manage land and we all need help. I’m hopeful that he will get the help he needs. I trust I will find the cooperative worker-owners to build the Harriet Tubman Freedom Farm with. We will be free.

My final reflection for now on our visit to Farmer J’s property is this: Black Americans have got to get back to cooperative economics. Those of you with the money and resources, invest into our jacks-of-all-trades, mad scientist, agronomists, artists, entrepreneurs. Learn about cooperative economics and your role in feeding these economies to feed us all. The capitalists many of you worship(the tone is derogatory) had some major help getting their starts and still do.

ELON MUSK SHOULD BE NO ONE’S HERO AND IS THE BIGGEST WELFARE QUEEN ON EARTH. The majority of his empire wealth is due to government subsidy. He has built nothing (and is a rapist)!

Farmer J is literally building everyday. Who among us can invest, coach, market, organize, execute administrative tasks as investment, as cooperation? Not charity. Not as a test. So those of us with the desire to get in the dirt, blaze trails through the woods, unearth nourishment can keep going sustainably as the teachers and stewards we are.

My visit to Castalia, during this time of genocides has moved me to urge you to move.

Sudan, Congo, Haiti. How long do we have to see our brothers and sisters of the Global South starving, fighting, dying before we get that the United States has and will put us in the same position again? The things keeping people alive in Gaza, Congo, Sudan, Haiti are mutual aid and the commitment to land.

It’s not the so called “free market”, it’s not non-profits, and- I know you’re not going to like this- it ain’t Black Wall Street. Our culture is cooperation. We all have a roll. Please do your part, beyond lip service, thoughts, and prayers. Plant the seeds(dollars, time, energy, resources are seeds).