When Marginalized Communities Organize & Lead Themselves, Liberation Farms

"Liberation Farms is food justice in action. It is a demonstration of the success that is possible when marginalized communities have the opportunity to organize and lead themselves."

Today, we hear from Lana and Muhidin, the farm manager and executive director respectively, of Liberation Farms in Lewiston, Maine. Liberation farms is a 200+ acre farm in the Little Jubba Agrarian Commons. Sound familiar? This was one of the first farms moved into the agrarian commons framework by the Agrarian Trust (listen to my conversation with them here).

Lana and Muhidin tell us how the farm and commons began, how the land is used to meet the personal, economic, and cultural needs of the Somali Bantu community, the ways in which the farmers self-organize into iskashito groups, a little about access to farmland in Somalia, and how they are working to bridge the agricultural divide between Somalia and the US as well as current and future generations of Somali Bantu farmers.

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Check out their very informative website & contribute to Liberation Farms

Mentioned in the show...

The history of the Somali Bantu peoples

The Seed Growers Podcast w/ Dan Brisebois

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