For nearly twenty years, SAAFON has been uniting a vibrant and diverse base of commercial, educational and transitional rural farmers, land stewards, ranchers, educators, and tradition-bearers committed to liberatory land practices across the Southeast and Caribbean. Our intentional organizing methodology crafts kinship through virtual and in-person connections, which are key as we’ve grown membership from 30 to more than 225 farmers across 10 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This year’s first quarterly virtual GROW Call focused on culture-based market development, with farmers discussing the ancestral and economic significance of seed production, rice cultivation, watermelon, indigo, and hops. Our annual membership assembly centered spiritual and practical applications of collectivism - we grounded in an agrarian politic around Afroecology with Blain Snipstal of @BlackDirtCollective, uplifting our practices of land stewardship, togetherness, and a shared commitment to struggle as we navigate sociopolitical challenges and the need for regional adaptations for climate resilience. Regional in-person convenings like this year’s SOWTH Conference have been important spaces to strengthen member connections. SOWTH is the successor to the celebrated Southern SAWG (SSAWG) Conference that ended in 2019 - SAAFON’s founders Cynthia Hayes and Dr. Owusu Bandele, Professor Emeritus of Southern University Agriculture Center, found SSAWG to be a good space for building relationships and sustainable agricultural knowledge among SAAFON members and other farmers in the region. In this spirit, we continue to leverage these touchpoints to seek and find each other. Through connection, we visibilize the tapestry of this vast work and our role in it, grow our collective skills and knowledge, and nurture our bonds, making cooperation and mutual support more possible as we navigate these times. Join us in Growing the Legacy. #SAAFONgrows #BlackFarming #BlackHistory #BlackCulture #GrowingTheLegacy #PastPresentFutureWithBlackFarmers (fb)

In 2006, Cynthia Hayes and Dr. Owusu Bandele organized SAAFON to ensure that Black growers and producers gained equitable access to the burgeoning organic certified market in the Southeast. Those earliest seeds of our network have continued to regenerate over nearly two decades, in the rich soil of collective action, cultural stewardship, and deep mutuality that comes from intentional kinship building among Black farmers across thousands of miles. SAAFON members - representing a diverse quilt of legacy and beginning farmers, elder landholders and youth collectives, and certified organic and transitional farmers - nurture new economies, community leadership, and intergenerational connections that make spiritual and economic vitality possible. We are collectively navigating an unpredictable socio-political climate and funding landscape, but y’all! Black farmers, land stewards, and cultural artists have relentlessly traversed this path for many moons as part of an unbroken promise of survival to future generations. Their courage and faith beyond sight inspire our uncompromising vision for a Southern Black agrarian future that we all deserve. Would you support our “Growing the Legacy: Investing in Our Future with Black Farmers” spring giving campaign? Any gift - whether $10 or $10,000 - would help us achieve our fundraising goal of $20,000 between now and June 13th to support: • Emergency, educational, and infrastructure funding; • Intergenerational farm work brigades; and • Cultural gatherings and agrarian storytelling. Gifts of all sizes are tax-deductible and can be made at saafon.org/donate or by mailing a check to our fiscal sponsor, Inquiring Systems Inc. You can also subscribe as a monthly giver, which makes gift planning easier for you and allows us to budget more effectively. Thank you for considering a demonstrated commitment to Black farmers as the past, present, and future of a thriving agricultural economy. #SAAFON #BlackFarming #BlackHistory #BlackCulture #GrowingTheLegacy #PastPresentFutureWithBlackFarmers #saafongrows (fb)