00:04:53.160It is the most segregated city in the country. More than 60 percent of residents live in
00:04:58.440neighborhoods dominated by their respective racial groups. In 1950, the population of Detroit was 1.9
00:05:04.820million. Now it is less than half of that, with more than 39 percent of people living below the
00:05:10.220poverty line. While the black poverty rate is 33.3 percent, the white poverty rate is 11.4 percent.
00:05:17.76040% of the population does not have a car, making access to work and food in such a sprawled city
00:05:23.700difficult. And Wayne County, which houses Detroit, is the most food insecure county in Michigan.
00:05:30.480Half of the city lives in food apartheid, requiring a drive two times longer than the average American
00:05:35.860to access fresh food. So those statistics read pretty grim, but of course these numbers only
00:05:44.640paint a limited picture. And I know that there are also an abundance of exciting and regenerative
00:05:51.400things happening in Detroit right now. So I'd love to ask if you could paint us a picture of Detroit
00:05:57.760today and how you are seeing the city through these statistics and beyond. Sure. Well, all of
00:06:04.900those things that you read are absolutely accurate. But as you noted, that's only part of the picture.
00:06:10.420In fact, there's a lot of people who come to Detroit to document what's happening, and we sometimes call the photographs that they end up shooting and publicizing around the world ruin porn because they really find the worst parts of the Detroit story and kind of publicize that.
00:06:25.180So many people around the world think that Detroit is just this barren wasteland full of crime and wild dogs running through the streets.
00:06:32.220So the statistics you read were accurate.
00:06:34.600We have a tremendous rate of poverty in the city. Like you said, about 40 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty line because Detroit was known as the motor city.
00:06:44.760Public transportation never developed in a robust way.
00:06:48.320And as you mentioned, about 40 percent of Detroiters don't own automobiles, making it extremely difficult to get to locations that are selling high quality food.
00:06:57.180And also, as you mentioned, making it difficult to get to the jobs which are largely concentrated outside of the city.
00:07:03.660And whenever there's poverty, there's typically, you know, kind of crime that accompanies it.
00:07:09.500So we, you know, we have lots of crime in the city of Detroit.
00:07:12.440There's lots of drug abuse in the city of Detroit.
00:07:15.860The city was flooded with crack cocaine in the late 1980s.
00:07:19.540And we continue to have a huge problem with crack as well as with heroin.
00:07:24.240So all those things are true about the city of Detroit.
00:07:27.500And simultaneously, we have neighborhoods that are very stable neighborhoods.
00:07:32.680We have people who are very resilient.
00:07:35.640We have an ongoing art scene in the city of Detroit that, contrary to popular belief,
00:07:40.280didn't just begin when the newly arrived Detroiters came and took up residence in various lofts
00:07:47.300in the city of Detroit, but there's been this thriving art scene, both art and music, for
00:13:45.540It's not a part of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, even though we were
00:13:49.860the primary organization that gave birth to it.
00:13:53.060So in a sense, it was like a gift to the people of the city of Detroit, and it now has its
00:13:57.600own office, its own board, its own funding sources, and continues to function around
00:14:02.380questions related to food access, access to land for urban agriculture, the water rates
00:14:10.140that farmers are charged, and other issues that are necessary to be addressed in order
00:14:16.100to have this vibrant, localized food system that we envision.
00:14:19.240So that was one of the first things we did.
00:14:21.200We also were very much interested in urban agriculture, and so we started in 2006 doing small-scale farming at a location on the east side of Detroit, and eventually, after a couple of years and a couple of locations, wound up in our current location, which is in a city-owned park, in fact the largest park in the city of Detroit, called Rouge Park.
00:14:43.940And so we have a seven-acre farm in Rouge Park, and we have a license agreement with the city of Detroit to operate this model organic farm.
00:14:52.700Now, seven acres to a rural farmer doesn't sound large at all.
00:14:56.220In fact, sometimes rural farmers laugh when I tell them we have a seven-acre farm.
00:15:00.700But for an urban farm, seven acres is pretty large, and it is the largest contiguous use of land for farming in the city of Detroit.
00:15:09.300So that's our largest and most labor-intense project at this point.
00:15:13.220At D-Town Farm last year, we grew 38 different fruits, vegetables, and herbs that we sell both at the farm on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and also we sell at various farmers markets throughout the city of Detroit, and we have a few wholesale customers that we sell to as well.
00:15:30.220We also probably more important than the tonnage of produce that we're producing is the development of a consciousness around producing our own food and also training people with the skills that are necessary to do farming in an urban environment.
00:15:50.320So every year we have an internship where we're training a cohort of new farmers and many of those people that have gone through our internship program have gone on to create other community gardens or backyard gardens or small scale farms.
00:16:03.400And so really what we're trying to do is be a catalyst for the movement, not really hold all the work within our portfolio, per se, but to train and inspire others who will then go out into their neighborhoods and do similar projects, even if they're not on the same scale that we're operating on.
00:16:21.060Also at D-Town Farm, we do large-scale composting.
00:16:25.100We have an agreement with another nonprofit, which is called Forgotten Harvest, and they're a food rescue operation.
00:16:30.860They rescue food from grocery stores, some of which is still fit to be consumed by human beings, that they donate to food banks and they give food away in various parking lots in the city of Detroit.
00:16:44.580The food that is beyond human consumption often ends up at our farm and becomes part of the source of our compost operation.
00:16:52.540So we might get a delivery of 10,000 pounds of rotten collard greens or corn or tomatoes.
00:17:01.440And that food waste is very high in nitrogen.
00:17:04.660Compost is basically composed of two elements, carbon and nitrogen.
00:17:09.140So the food waste is our source of nitrogen.
00:17:11.860We have an agreement with the Wayne County Forestry Department, and they provide us with wood chips, which provides carbon for our compost piles.
00:17:19.240So we make rolls that are about 50 feet long and about 8 feet tall, where we alternatively stack the layers of wood chips and food waste.
00:17:28.240And really what we're doing is creating the ideal environment for microbial growth.
00:17:32.720And those microbes really break that food waste and wood chips down.
00:17:36.800And we turn it with our tractor every three or four weeks, keep the piles hydrated.
00:17:41.100Then after about seven months, we have finished compost, which is the primary input that we use to keep our soil fertile at D-Town Farm.
00:17:49.980We also have an 8-kilowatt off-grid solar power station that we installed in the fall of 2015.
00:17:58.220And what we did is purchased a 40-foot shipping container, and we had 10 solar panels that had been donated to us.
00:18:05.080we were able to get the local utility company to work with us, to partner with us,
00:18:10.780to make the racks, to mount the solar panels on top of the shipping container.
00:18:15.280They put a catwalk on top of the shipping container so that we can service the panels if needed.
00:18:21.800They helped with the wiring and with the installation of the lithium batteries on the inside of the shipping container.
00:18:28.160And so that's now our only source of electricity on the farm.
00:18:30.720Interestingly, that project was headed by a young man named Ali, who was formerly a student at the school that I ran, that I mentioned, in Sodom Institute.
00:18:42.120So he went on after graduating from the eighth grade in our school to get two degrees in mechanical engineering.
00:18:47.600And he came back to the community, as we often instruct our youth to do, with his skill set and spearheaded this project and made it happen.
00:18:56.920So he's now created his own business called Rider Cooperative Industries, and they're doing several solar installations at places around the city of Detroit and in the city of Highland Park, which is a small city really surrounded on three sides by Detroit.
00:19:11.440It's really a city inside of the city of Detroit.
00:20:21.040And so we give tours of the farm, discuss our growing techniques, we discuss the use
00:20:26.680of solar energy. We discussed the rainwater retention pond that we have which we also
00:20:32.120installed in 2015 where we're capturing about 50,000 gallons of rainwater and pumping it via
00:20:37.720a solar pump to two 2,400 gallon cisterns and then feeding it back down through our fields using
00:20:44.200gravity. So we show folks all of these things on our farm and we also discuss with them our social
00:20:50.920justice lens so we want to make sure that everyone who comes to the farm doesn't just learn about the
00:20:55.800mechanics of urban agriculture, but they also have some insight into what motivates us,
00:21:01.160how we see the world, and how we're utilizing our efforts to try to create justice and equity.
00:21:06.360So that's our largest project, the D-Town Farm. We also have a youth program,
00:21:11.160which is called the Food Warriors Youth Development Program. And that program
00:21:16.120currently functions at two sites in the city of Detroit, a school on the east side of the city
00:21:22.200and a church in the center of the city the school-based program is only open to children
00:21:28.440who attend that school and that functions as an after-school program the community-based program
00:21:34.200at the church is open to any young people between the ages of 5 and 12 who are able to to attend
00:21:41.400and so at both programs we teach young people how to build and maintain raised bed gardens
00:21:48.680how to harvest those crops, how to prepare them in healthy ways.
00:21:52.380And often they're also doing things like making value-added products, learning how to can things.
00:21:58.580And as always, we're sharing with them our social justice lens because we're really trying to foster the development of food activists in our community,
00:22:08.700trying to foster the development of people who understand their own power and their own agency to make positive change in their communities.
00:22:15.920And then the big thing that we're working on now, which is probably the second biggest project after the farm, is a new building that we're constructing on Detroit's main street, Woodward Avenue.
00:22:28.400And that building is called the Detroit Food Commons.
00:22:31.580It's about an $11.8 million project, the cornerstone of which is a cooperatively owned grocery store called the Detroit People's Food Co-op.
00:22:40.500And so we are very dedicated to the cooperative model, particularly given the type of development that we see happening in the city of Detroit, which is by and large led by wealthy white men.
00:22:54.700And the city government seems to have bought into this idea of trickle-down economics, that if you support very wealthy people in developing stadiums, for example, and you let them obtain the land on which to build this stadium out of pittance, that somehow the wealth that's created will trickle down to the rest of us in the neighborhoods.
00:23:16.240So we don't see any historical precedent that that's true and have no reason to believe that that will be true in this instance.
00:23:23.540And so we think that the cooperative model is really the best model for oppressed and marginalized communities to use to galvanize our economic strength, to practice democracy within our own ranks, and also to have community ownership.
00:23:39.460So we are working very hard to begin construction on the Detroit Food Commons before this year ends, and we hope to open the Commons and the Detroit People's Food Co-op sometime in 2019.
00:23:53.540Just amazing. Really such important, heartfelt work that is inspiring in a way that's really holistic and takes into account the entire system. It's not just about food. It's not just about urban areas.
00:24:10.640this is about how we can live in a world that is regenerative and just and especially in say
00:24:20.660organic farming or permaculture any of these more quote regenerative strategies for so long
00:24:27.620the whole story wasn't being told for so long it was just a sliver of the truth and it wasn't
00:24:33.960really taking into the reasons why we're we're at these issues the the systems that are holding
00:24:41.920so many of us hostage to staying in this uh this horrible mechanism and it just seems like all of
00:24:51.460these projects that you're a part of and i'm sure there's more of them in detroit really get to the
00:24:56.980core of of not just food justice but beyond and so you know as you started talking about the
00:25:03.500trickle-down economy of these stadiums and how if, you know, just how you went into that,
00:25:09.440this question came up in my mind is, do you think that food justice can be instrumental
00:25:14.820in dismantling capitalism? That's a really good question. You know, I'm on the board of an
00:25:22.080organization in Northern California called Food First, and the executive director, Eric Holt
00:25:27.220Jimenez, recently published a book called A Foodie's Guide to Capitalism. And I would
00:25:32.500urge the listeners to pick up that book and read it. So I'm not sure that creating a just and
00:25:39.700equitable food system will in and of itself dismantle capitalism, but we certainly hope
00:25:45.180that it can begin to get people to think differently about our relationship to food as a commodity
00:25:52.060and to land as a commodity and really begin to rethink these concepts more from a human rights
00:25:57.860lens, not looking at food in terms of what profit can it make, but really looking at food as something
00:26:03.880that people have the right to as a result of being a human being on the earth. And I think if we
00:26:08.320reframe it like that, perhaps the kind of rapid individualism, which is a characteristic of
00:26:13.760capitalism, will be reduced. But another friend of mine, Raj Patel, who I was in a fellowship with
00:26:21.480several years ago, and is a pretty well-known author and activist and academic, said to
00:26:27.720me once, he said, local food tastes great, won't end white supremacy.
00:26:33.120So I don't think we should have unrealistic expectations about how the food movement can
00:26:38.920dismantle these entrenched systems of oppression.
00:26:42.220I think what we have to do, though, is that while we're struggling to create a just and
00:26:46.320equitable food system is link those struggles with the many other struggles that people
00:26:51.560are involved in to create justice and equity.
00:26:54.160For example, the struggles that are taking place in Sacramento now against the murder
00:26:59.640of Stephon Clark and the struggles that have taken place throughout this country against
00:27:04.940the murder of Black men and women and young people by police and the brutality and the
00:27:12.180injustice that exists within the so-called criminal justice system.
00:27:15.520We have to link the struggle for food justice with those struggles.
00:27:18.960We have to link the struggle for food justice with the struggles for fair and equitable
00:27:23.040housing, the struggles for quality education and community control of schools.
00:28:36.340And it was in an area that was known as the Cass Corridor.
00:28:38.980So Cas Cordo was known for being a place where there were lots of homeless people, there were lots of drug addicts, lots of alcoholics, lots of crime.
00:28:50.100In the last 10 or 15 years, Cas Cordo has been renamed Midtown, and there's been a tremendous amount of capital which has been poured into that area.
00:29:00.340So we have many now high-end restaurants in the area and condos and housing for university students for Wayne State University, which is nearby.
00:29:11.380But there was a major struggle maybe six or seven years ago around this Birdtown garden, which had existed in the Cass Quarter for many years.
00:29:20.260So as a result, in many ways, of the garden being there, it began to attract people to the area.
00:29:26.480Typically, community gardens begin to be an oasis where people see in the midst of devastation, they see some bright spots.
00:29:34.600And so because of this bright spot that the garden had created, a business opened up next door, which was a canine care business, a doggy care business.
00:29:45.240And over time, the doggy care business began to do very well and wanted to expand.
00:29:50.740And so they wanted the land that the garden was operating out of.
00:29:58.000There was a huge struggle between the gardeners and their supporters and between the business owner who wanted the land.
00:30:04.760Ultimately, the business owner prevailed and was able to get that land and the farm shut down.
00:30:10.240But this is an example of how, in some ways, the Birdtown Garden was a victim of its own success.
00:30:16.080The fact that it was this bright spot in the midst of devastation drew this business to the area.
00:30:22.280Then ultimately that business consumed the space that the garden was operating within.
00:30:27.020And so we have that danger of happening whenever we create community gardens.
00:30:31.940But I think the thing is for us to do it in a thoughtful way, which minimizes the possibilities of gentrification,
00:30:38.800which minimizes the displacement of people in those neighborhoods
00:30:43.800and really maximizes the engagement of people in those neighborhoods
00:30:47.800so that they see themselves as having a vested interest
00:30:50.180in protecting not only those gardens, but also the other kind of community assets.
00:30:55.460This is such a big topic to scale, the gentrification dilemma.
00:31:02.600And kind of from what I'm picking up from you is really
00:31:06.780when people move into neighborhoods say that have had urban farms or are close to green spaces
00:31:14.400you know mainly people of privilege white people coming in to these spaces that have been
00:31:20.480tended for a very long time a lot of times is it that these people are coming in and not really
00:31:27.760integrating into the community or showing up in a way that is with integrity so I guess I'm
00:31:35.140wondering if and how we can transform gentrification into integration or what are the other solutions
00:31:42.060what are other ways to because ultimately there are so many shifts happening and i i guess i'm
00:31:48.120just looking at this puzzle and going well what are the best ways forward knowing that uh change
00:31:56.700is inevitable whether you're in a city or even i mean in a rural community i've gosh i've been in
00:32:04.180so many uh wilderness areas or very very rural communities and i come back in a couple years
00:32:09.820and i'm shocked like oh my gosh this place you know had one little coffee you know one little
00:32:15.400coffee shop gas station and now there's 10 car lots or now there's this that and the other now
00:32:20.680there's suburbs popping all over the place it's really incredible to see the rapid development
00:32:26.400right now and so yeah i just sit with this question a lot and i'd love to dive in deeper with you
00:32:32.280Yeah, so it is very complex, and there's no manual on how to do this correctly. So I think we're all kind of figuring this out as we go.
00:32:41.040So one of the things that I think might be helpful is that for people who are newly moving into a community, that they really do a deep dive into the history and culture of that community and really understand what the aspirations of the existing residents are, what have been the community empowerment efforts over the last several decades.
00:33:04.740Because what often happens is people move into an area with no real knowledge of what that history has been and can unconsciously work against the aspirations of the majority of the long-term residents if they haven't taken the time to really do that kind of study.
00:33:21.340But there's another kind of gardening that is of concern as well in regard to this conversation about gentrification.
00:33:29.120So it's not just people moving into areas where there's long-term gardens, but also because of the tremendous amount of vacant land in Detroit, we have a number of young, well-meaning white people who are moving to Detroit specifically to start gardens because there is so much vacant land.
00:33:45.980And so some of those folks are doing a good job with connecting with the community and being part of the community and responding to community feedback, others not so much.
00:33:57.400And so there are some that have really, in many ways, alienated themselves from the community that they're operating within and are the source of lots of resentment in some neighborhoods.
00:34:10.760So I just wanted to kind of point that out as well.
00:34:12.760But one of the things that I think would be helpful is, you know, we don't really talk about race in any kind of in-depth way in American society.
00:34:23.640And so there's definitely racial elements to this in the city of Detroit, which is about 80 percent African-American.
00:34:30.940And most of the new people moving into Detroit are young whites.0.84
00:34:34.080And so without really having an understanding of how race and power and privilege all intersect in American society, well-meaning white people can move into black communities and really wreak havoc simply because of their own ignorance.
00:34:49.120And so I would really encourage that one of the things that people might do, in addition to studying the specific history and aspirations of the neighborhood in which they're moving into, they also should do a really in-depth study of race and how that plays out in American society, and again, how it intersects with power and privilege, so that they're not moving blindly, that they understand their own privilege and how that impacts kind of the social order.
00:35:16.020And they can move in a way which is more thoughtful and which will be more likely to create justice and equity as opposed to creating a further divide based on race and class.
00:35:25.280Thank you for speaking to that so directly. I absolutely agree that so much is not spoken to in a plain way. And there is this quote that somebody had just mentioned earlier, that we are in America, we are afraid of confrontation, or we don't communicate, but we're really ready to go to war, or something along those lines.
00:35:50.220And so it's really interesting that we don't just talk about the elephant in the room and call it out and just lay it on the table so everybody can actually see it clearly rather than people siloing themselves.
00:36:03.800And I think that's a lot of times what happens with well-intentioned white people, people with privilege.
00:36:09.100It's this not the willingness to – and maybe it's fear.
00:36:14.320I mean, there's probably a lot of psychological reasons behind it.
00:36:16.660But I can see what you're saying, that when that work, that historical work and understanding power and privilege isn't prioritized, that the well intentions, like you said, wreak havoc.
00:36:32.520And it actually kind of brings me to this other question that I've been thinking a lot about, which is the nonprofit industrial complex.
00:36:39.220and urban agriculture is surely a place where philanthropy and neocolonialism rears its ugly
00:36:47.560head and all too often these well-funded many times white-led organizations carry the savior
00:36:54.400mentality so this is kind of the flip side of maybe what we were talking about and then it's
00:36:59.000undermining and disregarding the self-determined grassroots solutions of the communities
00:37:04.360that they roll into. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this dynamic and how instead of
00:37:11.020extending historical disparities around power, such organizations that can actually leverage
00:37:16.220their privilege to work to shift power structures towards a dismantling of racism and so on.
00:37:23.060Yeah, I think you really hit the nail on the head. So one of the reasons our organization started in
00:37:29.1602006 is because at that point, all of the organizations leading what was being called0.96
00:37:34.100food security work or urban gardening or food justice work in the city of Detroit were white-led
00:37:39.860nonprofits. And again, they had good intentions. And that's what really makes this thing so complex0.88
00:37:45.180because for the most part, white people who are participating in the gentrification of places or
00:37:51.980who are ending up dominating the public discourse, they're not, for the most part, doing it
00:37:58.780intentionally. They're doing it because they're functioning within a paradigm that they were
00:38:03.080kind of raised within, and they're doing what they know. And so that's what makes it so complex,
00:38:10.040because it's not, for the most part, evil intentions, right? So what we saw in the city
00:38:17.480of Detroit, again, prior to our founding, was in a city that's at least 80% African-American,
00:38:23.200the entire food movement being dominated by white-led nonprofits. And so we pushed back0.53
00:38:28.200heavily against that when we were founded in 2006. And we were very vocal about it, both to people
00:38:34.920doing the work, to community members, and also to a number of the foundations. And so we've seen
00:38:41.360some shifts since that time. We've seen some of those white-led nonprofits make shifts in their0.70
00:38:47.240staffing and even in the board membership so that they're more reflective of the community that
00:38:52.540they're operating within. We've seen some shifts in funding. And I don't want to say our organization
00:38:58.140can take sole credit for that because we were one of many groups that have been engaged in
00:39:04.480the struggle for justice and equity. But the Kellogg Foundation, for example, in the last
00:39:09.38010 years or so, declared themselves to be an anti-racist organization, and they put a racial
00:39:14.820equity lens on their grant giving and require their grantees to operate through a racial equity
00:39:22.180lens. And there's some training that goes along with that. And so we think those are kind of
00:39:26.720hopeful steps that foundations need to think more critically about who they're giving money to
00:39:31.860and making sure that they're giving money in a way that's promoting community self-determination
00:39:37.700as opposed to white saviorism. So I can say, for one, the Kellogg Foundation has moved in a way
00:39:43.440which has been much more thoughtful, and I think in some ways is creating an example for other
00:39:48.200foundations. And that's not to say that they don't have continued room for growth as well,
00:39:53.100But I think they're certainly on the right path in terms of their justice and equity lens.
00:40:00.600So, you know, we, of course, think it's very important that people in communities lead themselves.
00:40:07.100And particularly for those communities that have been marginalized and oppressed, such as the African-American community or the Latinx communities, that those communities already have assets and leadership within them.
00:40:20.740And it's critical that we recognize and identify those assets and those leaders and that we build upon that instead of assuming that we're moving into an area that has severe deficiencies and that white people should come in and save, you know, save the people in these communities from the conditions that they're faced.
00:40:41.500So just, you know, recognizing that, you know, there's this very rich humanity in communities that have been oppressed and that we need to acknowledge and lift up that leadership and really follow the lead of that leadership, I think, is the key to creating community self-determination.
00:41:11.500I'm spirit man, a mystic warrior, check it out people these words are just for ya, I'm a falsehood shaker, reality maker, mess with me your mind and you'll see an undertaker, I'm a freedom fighter, a spirit flame lighter, gonna elevate our consciousness higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher.
00:42:03.760well recently i spoke to leah peniman of soul fire farm about many dimensions of the land
00:42:23.900access scenario for black and latinx farmers detroit black community food security network
00:42:30.660has worked for policy shifts. And I want to ask about some of the policy struggles surrounding
00:42:36.580urban farming that your community has faced and what actions and strategies have arisen in response.
00:42:44.140So one of the huge struggles we had in, I think it was 2014, was against a proposal by this
00:42:52.320wealthy Detroiter named John Hantz, H-A-N-T-Z. And John Hantz initially said he wanted to create0.96
00:42:59.860the world's largest urban farm in the city of Detroit, and there was talk about him having
00:43:06.260maybe 5,000 acres of farmland in the city of Detroit. His initial projections were just wild
00:43:13.560and unreasonable, and he got a lot of pushback from community residents because he wasn't
00:43:19.900committed to organic agriculture and was going to be spraying pesticides in these neighborhoods,
00:43:25.700And so residents pushed back against the use of pesticides in the areas around their homes.
00:43:32.640So Mr. Hance shifted his strategy to one which was called the Hance Woodlands, where he proposed to plant hardwood and Christmas trees on vacant lots in the city of Detroit.
00:43:48.200And he submitted this proposal to the city council.
00:43:55.420We're able to pressure the Detroit City Council into holding a community listening session.
00:44:00.000We organized more than 400 residents in that immediate area of the city where he was proposing to do his project to come out to this community listening session and talk with city council members.
00:44:10.920The overwhelming percentage of those 400 people in attendance were against the proposal, but the very next day, the city council voted to sell about 1,500 parcels to John Hance, and he has gone on to begin to plant these hardwood and Christmas trees on these various lots in the city of Detroit.
00:44:29.900So we thought it was a really dangerous precedent because, from our perspective, one of the major problems in the world today is the concentration of land, quote, ownership to the extent that human beings can actually own part of the earth.
00:44:44.960That's a whole other concept that we pretty much accept in American society without questioning.
00:44:50.920But that's not a universal concept that human beings can own the earth.
00:44:54.640Many indigenous cultures didn't have that concept.
00:44:56.900But we thought it was a dangerous precedent because one of the major problems in the world
00:45:01.400is the concentration of land ownership in the hands of already wealthy white men.0.54
00:45:07.080And so we're opposed to any scheme that purports to further concentrate land ownership, power,
00:45:13.800and wealth in the hands of wealthy white men.0.51
00:45:16.260And so we struggled against this, but ultimately we lost that struggle.
00:45:21.060And again, the city council sold these 1,500 parcels to him.
00:45:25.000Again, we think it's a dangerous precedent because Detroit has so much empty land that if the city follows that same strategy,
00:45:32.780that in the next 20 years, we could find a third of the city owned by three or four millionaires.
00:45:40.460And so we don't think that the best strategy for disposing of the vacant land in the city of Detroit is just to sell it to the highest bidder.
00:45:48.460And in this case, he wasn't even necessarily the highest bidder, but he was the one that they deemed had the most capacity, I guess, to actually follow through on the project that he proposed.
00:45:59.160So he actually was able to purchase this land for the equivalent of eight cents per square foot.
00:46:04.100And so, again, if the city follows that same kind of strategy for divesting itself of the huge amounts of land, vacant land that the city owns, then what we'll find is that wealthy developers will come in and buy up large swaths of land and that the public will not really have access to that.
00:46:23.460So we're in favor of land distribution in a way that really puts it in the hands of Detroiters, preferably in the collective hands of Detroiters through mechanisms like community land trust, where we can practice community level democracy and decide what we think is best in our own neighborhoods and how land should be used.
00:46:42.700Some neighborhoods might decide they want urban farms. Some neighborhoods might decide they want more housing. Some neighborhoods might decide they want more green spaces. And so all of those and other things are options. But we think the people in those neighborhoods should ultimately have the right to decide that rather than the city just trying to get the land off their books by selling it to people who have lots of money.
00:47:05.660Well, I am with you that this sale of 5,000 acres, I hope it, gosh.
00:47:12.660Well, ultimately, it was about 1,500 parcels.
00:47:23.580Perhaps one of the most concerning aspects of the deal he had with the city
00:47:27.760is it also gives him first right of refusal on any city-owned land
00:47:32.340within a one-mile radius of the land he's already purchased, that one-mile radius extends to the
00:47:37.840riverfront. And so in any city, the riverfront is always the most valuable property. So for many of
00:47:44.060us, this was just an outright land grab. In fact, what Mr. Hand said himself, I had the opportunity,
00:47:50.020in spite of my vehement opposition to his project, someone brought us together and we had breakfast
00:47:54.580one day. I wanted to really be able to look him in the eye and talk to him directly. And he told
00:47:59.080me directly that what he was trying to do was to drive the value of land up. He said
00:48:03.960that because there's so much vacant land in the city of Detroit, it doesn't have much
00:48:09.200value. But if you begin to take it off the market and create scarcity, that it drives
00:48:13.700the value of the land up. So he said clearly that's what he's trying to do. He also told
00:48:18.280me that for him this is a legacy project because these trees that he's planting now won't be
00:48:23.600harvested for 40 years so this will be wealth that he'll be passing on to his daughter wow this is
00:48:30.460such an intense example of neocolonialism imperialism just keeping the wealth with the
00:48:39.180one percent i mean it's it's really insane to see this land grab modern day land grabs over and over
00:48:46.780and over again throughout history and just continuing to see this pattern and i'm so
00:48:51.160grateful to you and all the people who fought against this and stood up and are talking about
00:48:56.680this people need to this is huge the people need to understand that these land grabs are happening
00:49:01.960and how destructive it is for people who actually live in these spaces and how the people who live
00:49:09.660there need to be the leaders of what they actually need for their communities and that's a really
00:49:15.600really important thing. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I want to talk about youth
00:49:21.880now. And I know that the state of the education system in Detroit is dramatic, and it's so
00:49:27.300connected to food, apartheid, state violence, and the prison industrial complex. The systemic
00:49:33.300machine of America is designed to shatter Black youth. And you're a beacon of light in your
00:49:41.160community and youth look to you for guidance. And so I'd love to hear from you, how do you see
00:49:48.080youth responding to your vision of self-determination, whether that's through the food
00:49:54.240justice lens or any of the other things that you've talked about in this interview or beyond?
00:50:01.000Well, first of all, with younger youth, you know, elementary school, usually the idea of
00:50:07.540garden is something that really resonates with them. They like doing things where they can put
00:50:11.360their hands in the soil. They like to see the process of planting the seed and actually
00:50:16.020pulling a carrot up some months later. So with younger people, you know, they're not very0.84
00:50:21.820resistant. That's been our experience. But once they start to get to middle school and high school,
00:50:26.900some things begin to kick in. And so in American society, agriculture is not seen as being
00:50:32.740sexy. It's not seen as being something that people should aspire to. In fact, I would venture to say
00:50:40.320that very few parents, as their children are growing up, say to their child, Johnny or Rebecca,
00:50:48.460I want you to grow up and be a farmer. Sometimes even farmers aren't telling their children that
00:50:53.900because it's such difficult work. And so this is not something that many people are aspiring to.
00:51:01.000So by the time children get to junior high school and middle school, they begin to have this view, this diminished view of the value of farmers in society.
00:51:10.140And then also there's this phenomenon that is kind of a global phenomenon where rural life is seen as somehow more backwards and less sophisticated than urban life.
00:51:20.600And so even in an urban area, when you bring these kind of what are traditionally considered
00:51:24.820rural aspects into the urban area, people still see this as being somehow beneath them
00:56:14.140If they go to our website and they decide they want to donate to the work that we're doing, there's a button that will allow them to do that.
00:56:20.400And if they just want to call us and just kind of give us their moral support, we appreciate that as well.
00:56:25.100well thank you so much and all of us here at for the wild are so supportive of this work of your
00:56:33.680work of so many of the people that you work with and i think for some of us who are listening who
00:56:40.860this is a new topic or for those of us who are listening that have been engaged in this work for
00:56:47.060a long time speaking with somebody like yourself who has dedicated themselves so intensely is a
00:56:54.600real honor. So thank you from all of us here. Thank you, Ayanna. Appreciate it greatly.
00:57:01.160We're honored to be able to share our work with you.