OPEN  ((VO/NAT))
((Banner))
Teaching
((SOT))
((Neshima Vitale-Penniman, Daughter))
Because I’ve grown up with farming, I never think that it’s something people are really interested in.  It’s like, oh, that’s just how you get your food.  But then, like hundreds and hundreds of people come to every single event, and it’s like whoa…..
((Animation Transition))

((Banner))
Giving

((SOT))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
It's making the world fruitful.  We want to be good stewards of the land for the environmental impact as far as preserving for our future generations.  
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((Banner))

Learning
((SOT))
((Samantha Kuhn, Director, JK Community Farm))
It’s amazing for kids to see things that they’ve never seen grow before.  They’ve eaten it but they’ve never seen how it grows.  
((Open Animation)) 

BLOCK A


((PKG))  SOUL FIRE FARM  
((Banner:  Soul Fire Farm))
((Reporter/Camera:  Gabrielle Weiss))
((Additional Camera: Camilo de la Uz ))
((Map: Grafton, New York))
((Main character:  1 female))
((Sub characters:  4 females, 4 males))
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
We are part of a returning generation of black and brown farmers whose grandparents and great-grandparents fled the red clays of the South to escape oppression.  And we’re realizing that something was left behind in the Great Migration and that was a bit of our culture, a bit of our souls, a bit of our connection to our ancestors and the sacred earth.
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
Another worm.
((Neshima Vitale-Penniman, Daughter))
Mom, there’s three left.
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
Oh, ok.
((Neshima Vitale-Penniman, Daughter))
This one looks a little healthier.  Maybe I’ll switch it out.  It’s a little sickly little thing.
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
They grow, sickly little things.  It’ll grow.  It just needs soil.
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
My name is Leah Penniman and I’m the founding co-director at Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York.  
So, there’s eight of us who live here in season.  My family, including my partner Jonah and our two teenage children, Neshima and Emet, are here all year round in this beautiful, straw-bale, timber-framed home that we built from hand.  And additionally, members of our farm team live with us from the spring through the late fall. 
((NATS))
((Neshima Vitale-Penniman, Daughter))
Because I’ve grown up with farming, I never think that it’s something people are really interested in.  It’s like, oh, that’s just how you get your food.  But then, like hundreds and hundreds of people come to every single event, and it’s like whoa, like, my mom has created something that people really want to learn about and be part of, and that’s amazing to me.
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
Soul Fire Farm is a Black, indigenous, people of color-led community farm and we’re dedicated to ending racism and injustice in the food system.  We do that in three basic ways.  We grow a whole lot of vegetables, herbs, fruits, eggs and pastured poultry, which we distribute at low prices to people who need it most, in the communities of Albany and Troy. The second way is by educating about a thousand new farmers from Black, Latinx and indigenous communities across the country, who come for week-long residential courses in sustainable agriculture.  And the third and final way is that we organize, very actively, for fair laws that support farm workers, farmers of color and consumers in the food system.
((wendelin, Land Worker, Soul Fire Farm))
I've been coming to Soul Fire since 2017.  This place has really helped me to, sort of, find myself in the land, and to come to understand all of the things that I can bring to this movement, and to our people, and back to the earth.
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
Buenos días.  Good morning.  Welcome to Soul Fire Farm. We’re dedicated to ending racism in the food system, and healing land and our relationship with land, and part of that is being in a learning community where we deepen our understanding of how animals, like chickens, can be part of an ecosystem, and also how they can feed the community, and especially feed people, who otherwise would not have access to that delicious, vital, food.  I'm so excited to be here with all of you for this workshop on chickens.  Most of the participants, who are here for today's pastured poultry class, are farm workers from Hurley, New York.  Now we want to introduce ourselves. 
((Victoria, Farm Worker))  
My name is Victoria.  I grew up with farm-raised chickens and I’m here to learn about raising organic chickens.
((Victor, Farm Worker)) 
My name is Victor and we have plans to return to Mexico and we want to start a business like this and sell at low prices to help people out.
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
It's a little known fact that about 85% of the people who do farm labor in this country, speak Spanish as their first language.  So, if we say we're for food justice and liberation, it would be very disingenuous to only offer programming in English that excluded most of the farmers in this nation.  And there’s been a lot of excitement, particularly from the Latinx farm worker community in our area, to learn these skills, so that when they do have their own farms and are no longer working for wages on other people’s farms, they can implement these integrated livestock and vegetable systems. 
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
And then we're going to walk around and meet the chickens on the farm, and see how we take care of them, how we know if they're sick, what kind of houses they need.  Then after lunch, we'll actually take five chickens and we’ll process them for meat.  If you include all of our on-farm and off-farm programs, we reach over 7,000 people a year, of which around 2,000 actually come to the farm.  And we learn everything from seed to harvest, as well as the history of black, indigenous farming and land-based movements, and do a lot of work to heal from the trauma of slavery and sharecropping and the bracero program and other types of land-based oppression that seek to really separate us from a healed and dignified relationship with land.
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm, Author - “Farming While Black”))
We call these shelters chicken tractors.  I wanted to be able to move it by myself without a tractor, because for the first few years of the farm, I was managing the farm and I didn't have any staff or partners in the farm.  So, I had to think about systems that I could do on my own.  We also don't want the meat to be so tough that our customers don't know how to prepare and eat it.  So, keeping them in a smaller space that moves everyday or every other day means, they still get the benefit of pasture, but they're not getting so much exercise that their muscles become very tough. 
((NATS))
((Samuel, Farm Worker))
So, raising them like this in smaller cages is better for the meat, to keep it tender and it cooks faster.  So, now I understand why the meat from my grandmother's hens were so tough.
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
You can give a little push and help her.  You're doing perfectly.  You're very strong.
((NATS))
((Alex, Community Gardener))
Soul Fire Farm is just really at the vanguard of thinking about racism in our current food system and how we have to shatter that together.  And so, I've wanted to come and learn through that lens for a really long time.  So, this was the perfect opportunity.
((NATS:
Samuel, Farm Worker
Welcome.
This is it.  Goodbye my chicken friend.))
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
I believe so passionately that we all have the right to have dignity and belonging as it relates to the earth, and to have agency in the food system, and there's just been a whole history of dispossession and discrimination against certain people as it relates to land and food.  So, a big part of teaching is about empowering our people and equipping our people with the skills to take back that dignified relationship with land. 
((NATS))
((Lytisha Wyatt, Instructor))
We remove the feathers on the side of the neck that we're going to be cutting from.  And I cut cross body, so I don't cut this way.  I actually come over here, that's what I find most comfortable, because I'm right-handed.  I'm going to remove the feathers from the left side.  So, I want to remove enough feathers, so that I can see what I'm doing.
((Alex, Community Gardener))
So, I'm left handed.
((Lytisha Wyatt, Instructor))
Right.  Since you're left-handed, you would do it on the opposite side. Yup.
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm; Author, “Farming While Black”))
So, the bird is now considered dead.
((NATS))
((Leah Penniman, Founding Co-Director, Soul Fire Farm, Author - “Farming While Black”))
We want to build up a generation of people who believe that they matter, and that they're connected to something bigger than what capitalism would have them believe.
((NATS))
((wendelin, Land Worker, Soul Fire Farm)) 
I was just taken aback by how warm the bodies of these animals were.  Learning about the different aspects of pastured poultry, really, sort of, has affected the way that I will be consuming poultry going forward.
((NATS:
4 and a quarter, put 4.
4.1))
((Samuel, Farm Worker))
I know how to raise chickens now, how to get eggs, and I think it is something nice for my family going forward, because now I know how to feed my kids, and I can teach them to feed the grandchildren and future generations going forward.  And hey, even for my neighbors.
((NATS))


TEASE  ((VO/NAT))
Coming up…..
((Banner))
Community Farming
((SOT))   
The key to doing organic farming is to mineralize the soil and the plants.


BREAK ONE									
BUMP IN  ((ANIM))				 


BLOCK B  


((PKG))  COMMUNITY FARM  
((Banner:  Community Farm))
((Reporter:  Faiza Elmasry))
((Camera:  Mike Burke)) 
((Adapted by:  Martin Secrest))
((Map:  Purcellville, Virginia))
((Main characters:  1 female))
((Sub characters:  2 males))
((NATS))
((Samantha Kuhn, Director, JK Community Farm)) 
I'm so grateful to work here every day. It's so nice.  The volunteers that we have are so wonderful and caring and just want to help their community.  It's really great to work here.
((NATS:  
Doing OK?  Good, yes.  Say hi to Jayden.))
((Samantha Kuhn, Director, JK Community Farm))
So, we host volunteers for all of our planting and harvesting.  We also host field trips.  So, we like to focus on food education, making sure when kids come out, they are familiar with how the plant grows from seed in our greenhouse and becomes a plant which we transplant out into the field.
((NATS:
Do you see that orange one over there?  Yeah?))
((Chuck Kuhn, Founder, JK Moving)) 
You know, I look at giving back or running a business in a community, giving back in the community, not all that different from what we're doing with farming and gardening.  You can't just keep taking out of a community.  You have to put back.  And the community has been great to us as an organization, great customers, great support.  And we need to be balanced and we need to be putting back into the community.  And the JK Community Farm has given us the ability to give back at the level that we really wanted to give.
((NATS:  
But these are squash and zucchini plants and we just harvested from them this morning.))
((Samantha Kuhn, Director, JK Community Farm))
So, we want to make sure that kids are aware today with our global food system.  It's hard for kids to know exactly where their food is coming from.  They know that their parents get it from the grocery store, but they don't know how it gets there.  So, you want to connect them to agriculture with their farmers, to see things that they've never seen grow before.  Kale, broccoli, they've eaten it, but they've never seen how it grows.  And it's great to see them make the connection that everything that they are helping us plant and harvest, will go to families in need.  Forty percent of the people that we feed are children.  So, it's really nice for them to know that, maybe, some of their classmates are people that they're helping out.
((NATS:
Sometimes, she likes to hide.  So, if you see a bee with a blue dot on her, that’s the queen.))
((Samantha Kuhn, Director, JK Community Farm))
So, we love having bees on the property.  And we were able to find a wonderful beekeeper, George, and he brought the bees on, so that we can grow better in the field, and it helps pollinate things like watermelon and cucumber.  They serve a lot of great purposes.
((NATS)) 
((Samantha Kuhn, Director, JK Community Farm)) 
So, today alone, we will probably donate around a thousand pounds (453 kg.).  This morning, we harvested things like peppers, tomatoes and cabbage.  So, as we have more support from the communities in the form of donors and volunteers, we're able to expand and feed more families.
((NATS))

((PKG))  HONOR SYSTEM FARMERS MARKET  
((VOA Kurdish))
((Banner:  Farmer’s Honor System))
((Reporter/Camera:  Yahya Barzinji))
((Adapted by:  Zdenko Novacki))
((Map:  Warrenton, Virginia))
((Main characters:  1 male))
((Sub characters:  2 females; 2 males))
((NATS))
((Walter Holloway, Customer)) 
This is the best farmers market in Warrenton by far. Everything is fresh, comes from the valley or locally grown, and Al is a super guy, treats everybody fair.  That's why it's crowded here every day, seven days a week.  I love coming here.  I come here at least four times a week.  Pick what you want, your price, you know.  Everything is, I don't know, I can't say enough good things about this.  
((NATS))
((Dara Weber, Customer))   
I get some eggs and I put my money in the slot, and, you know, sometimes I might be a dollar short, might be a dollar over.  I pay it the next time.  
((NATS))
((Alvin Henry, Owner))  
I started planting a few tomato plants and some sweet corn and things like this, and I had some extra tomatoes, and I started out on a very small table here.  The table was probably four-foot by four-foot and I couldn't be there all the time.  And my front door here at the office here, I am a real estate appraiser by trade, and my front office here had a mail drop in it.  And so, I started asking people simply to put the money, the change, for the tomatoes in the front door.  
((NATS))
((Linda Wright, Customer)) 
I thought I was dreaming.  I've never lived anywhere where there was such a strong honor system.  And so, I wanted to not only give him what I owed him, but I wanted to give more because I thought: Wow, what kind of person is being so trustful.
((NATS))
((Jon Henry, Alvin’s Son))  
I don't know if that's like a particular thing to our region of America, like, particularly coming out of rural communities, but I feel like there has to be, like, a high level of trust in your community.  
((NATS))
((Alvin Henry, Owner))  
It makes them feel good.  I just trust them and they put the money in and it all works out, and actually, sometimes I think I have more money than what I should have.  
((NATS))
((Alvin Henry, Owner))  
People want to be trusted and this is an open hand, open opportunity here to be trusted.  And, I think, people enjoy that and they like that and they respond to it and they tell other people about it and other people come here and we really don't do any advertising at all.  And it's all word of mouth.  
((NATS))

TEASE  ((VO/NAT))
Coming up…..
((Banner))
Preserving the land 
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
We go to great lengths to keep the soil biology active and growing.  It's making the world fruitful.


BREAK TWO									
BUMP IN  ((ANIM))				 


BLOCK C 


((PKG))  FROM THE EARTH 
((Banner:  Stewards of the Land))
((Reporter/Camera:  Arturo Martínez))
((Map:  Glenns Ferry, Idaho))
((Main characters:  1 male))
((Sub characters:  2 females; 2 males))
((Banner:  Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) 1.6%)) 
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
I am Justin Wootan and I am a farmer, Idaho potato farmer.  I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
My brother, my dad and I, kind of, run the farm.  It's definitely a family thing.  Our farm is unique in that we only raise 660-acres (260 hectares) of potatoes on the 4000-acre (1600 hectares) farm, and then we rotate it around, and so, it's a seven-year rotation before we get back to potatoes.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
We are just out back, looking at the Omnitrac.  Thanks.  Love you.  Bye.  My wife came up.  She helps with the bills and helps keeping me organized in the office.  She does a lot, a lot.
((Shannon Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
They need to be filed.
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
Well, they have to make copies and then be bound.
((Shannon Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
We both have our master's degree and 10 years ago he said, "I think I want a farm."  Okay.  So, we moved down here and his whole idea was that this was the best way to raise a family and teach them how to work hard and how to play hard.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
And if you look way over there, that's Oregon.  Over there.
((Shannon Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
We have five children, so I stay pretty busy at home.  So, I come up and help him whenever he needs help, and I try and come up a couple times a week at least.
((NATS))
((Julia Wootan, Daughter))
We are so thankful for this day.  We are thankful that we could all have a good day today, that we could have a good day at school.  Please bless our physical and spiritual safety. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
((Wootan family))
Amen.
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms)) 
We try to practice our religion in our daily life.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
How are you doing José?
((José, Black Mesa Farms))
Good, how are you doing?
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
Good.
((NATS))
((Shannon Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
We were talking to the kids and they said, “We don't practice our religion when we go up to work,” and I said, yeah, you do. We make sure that we're honest in our dealings with everybody and we're telling the truth and we're doing what we know is right and we're respecting people from all different walks of life.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
And he's studying to be an engineer.
((Shannon Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
Nice.
((NATS))
((Banner:  In the 1800s, the early years of their religion, Mormons often were met with suspicion and violence))  
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
The LDS Latter-day Saints, the early members of the church, they came into a city and pretty soon they're a majority of the population, and people are a little reluctant to change and so that created the persecution.  And today, you're seeing large movements of migrants.  I think everybody deserves a safe place to live and practice a religion in a way that's beneficial to society.  You can't judge a religion by the extremists out there.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
The guys are out there right now, hooking up the solid set lines.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
We hire laborers that come up on the H2 program and they're hired for a certain period and then they go back. These are jobs that we advertise a couple months here in the States, and in the last five years, we've never had somebody come and interview for the job, and so then, we go and pick these folks up from, in this case, Mexico and bring them in, and they help us in the fall.  As far as faith, I think it's important that people have a way to provide for themselves and, I think, that this H2 program does that.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
Aren't you going to eat a little?  It’s midday.  Are you going to eat?
((Laborer))
You mean lunch? 
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
Yes, lunch.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
As a farmer, I do feel like I'm a good steward of the land.  We go to great lengths to keep the weeds down.  We go to great lengths to keep the soil biology active and growing.  It's making the world fruitful.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
We want to be good stewards of the land for the environmental impact as far as preserving for our future generations.  We look to build the soil, create a vegetative culture that's beneficial to the land.
((NATS))
((Justin Wootan, Black Mesa Farms))
When the Lord and Heavenly Father gave Adam and Eve the garden he said, “Go forth, till, work this ground, make it beautiful.”
((NATS))


NEXT WEEK / GOOD BYE  ((VO/NAT))                            
Next week…..
((Banner))
Climbing the Hill
((SOT))
((Congressman Pete Stauber, Minnesota)) 
I was born and raised in Duluth Minnesota.  Duluth is blue collar workers, just like the rest of Minnesota, “Minnesota nice.” My family has always been in community service.  I ran because I wanted to bring that common sense conservative values to Congress.
((Banner))
Climbing the Hill
((SOT))
((Rep. Katie Porter, D - California))
I've always had an interest in government service.  I'd always thought that my path to government was probably getting appointed to something or as a civil servant.  I hadn't really seen myself as a candidate until after President Trump ran and won.  


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