Agraria_Journal_Summer_2022

10 AGRARIA JOURNAL 2022 “When I say agriculture, what do you think of?” That’s what I asked a class of 10th to 12th graders in the Agriculture Pathway Program at Linden-McKinley STEM Academy in Columbus, Ohio. The young, multicultural group of students all looked at each other, afraid to say what they were really thinking. “I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking. Go on, say it, it’s a part of history, and it happened,” I said. One student stammers, “Slavery.” If you would have asked a young Yolanda what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you an astrophysicist. Mae Jemison was the epitome of cool to me. She was a Black girl overachiever, just like me. Never would I have imagined that a science fair project on gravitropism (the process or differential growth by a plant in response to gravity pulling on it) would have me thinking more about the plant than the possibility of growing it in space. I am the daughter of a first-generation American mother and a father one generation removed from slavery. My relationship with agriculture is not one shared by many of my colleagues at work. Like the student in my class, I too have associated farming with menial work and the enslavement of Black people. But years of learning and unlearning have helped change that perception and heal my relationship with agriculture. I began to see the beauty in the power of a seed. How something so small held the power to exponentially impact the world, if only nurtured. My first awakening gut punch was while working at the Godman Guild Association, a settlement house in the Weinland Park community in Columbus. This was exciting because it was my first “real job” after graduating college. I was paired with a group of 15 youth who were to work for the next 10 weeks in the quarter-acre, award-winning Weinland Park Community Garden. More times than I care to count, they made jokes and commented about how this was “slave work.” Slavery is traumatic for those who identify as Black. It is an ugly time in the history of our country and its effects are still felt today as we look at the agricultural landscape across our country. One of the biggest pieces of getting through trauma, or trauma recovery, is to address it. Pretending that it didn’t happen, disassociating from it, or simply ignoring it, from either side, only allows for it to fester and cause further issues in the relationship — even if the relationship is an inanimate concept. Because of this, I encourage the youth to say it, to talk about why they feel that way. Then to take a step back and look at why this happened. Agriculture first originated in the Fertile Crescent, where the earliest farmers lived. From there it spread across Africa and throughout Asia before finally extending to Europe. During the latter parts of this expansion, before moving to Europe, agriculture was simultaneously spreading in the Americas via Indigenous populations. By the time European colonizers set foot on this continent, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) had been establishing agricultural communities for thousands of years. This is why, when it became clear that agriculture was key to the economic stability of the North American colonies, these experienced farmers were the folks who were kidnapped and forced into labor. They had both the knowledge and the strength Building Bridges Past Trauma to Reconnect with the Land BY YOLANDA OWENS “We must work to mend the relationship between Black folks and the land. … we must look for ways to do our part by creating inclusive and affirming spaces."