Agraria_Journal_WINTER_2022

AGRARIA JOURNAL 2022 11 Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, wrote multiple missives lauding the agrarian life of self-sufficiency as the most perfect form of living. But the perfect way of life he wrote about was dependent upon the free labor of enslaved Africans, which allowed the comforts enjoyed by Jefferson and others like him in the land-owning aristocracy. Jefferson’s version of the agrarian life was far from perfect for the landless African agriculturalists upon whose backs the country was built. For me, there is a better form of agrarianism that goes beyond the simple virtues of the rural way of life. It is an Earth-centered life, where land is not viewed as a commodity but rather a shared resource, where food production is the center of a community’s economy and food is distributed equitably throughout that community, where members are able to pursue personal economic ventures that in return support the community as a whole, creating dynamic exchange. This is no new concept; rather, it is an ancient and long-held reality lived by our ancestors in Indigenous, pre-conquest communities in Africa, the Americas, Asia and through the Pacific Islands. Many of their descendants, like myself, struggle to hold onto this worldview despite the pressure of our present extractive-based, materially driven economy where food equity is abysmal. Finding Agraria is part of healing ancestral angst and adding my energy to the Great Turning. It was here on this land that I was able to recover the depth of knowledge my people sowed into me. Here I found a community of people who valued that knowledge. Agraria’s commitment to “healing the hoop” keeps me inspired and energized. I appreciate knowing that while some staff tend the land and produce food and others grow financial resources and relationships, produce grown on site is a shared benefit for all employees and offered to the broader community via on- and off-site farmer markets. I also appreciate that the agricultural traditions of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) are valued, studied, implemented and refined as we employ ancient knowledge to confront shifts in climate and soils exhausted from industrial systems. An early proponent of an Earth-centered agrarianism would be the genius African American scientist and botanist George Washington Carver. It is believed Carver was born in BY OMOPÉ CARTER DABOIKU AMY HARPER Volunteers pitched in early last summer to help grow the vegetable garden on Agraria's George Washington Carver Farm.