Healing Grounds - Chapter 4

 In chapter 3, it was disucssed how there were many diverse farms that only needed a small amount of land to be diverse. The beginning of chapter 4 discusses the Hmong and how a lot of Southeast Asian in Fresno, California were very small in size. Moua discusses the variety of produce that she grows on her farm and how it changes according to the season. She is able to do a lot with the land she has, and is still able to run a successful farm. This makes me wonder, why do people fear that if they switch from a monoculture to a polyculture that they will lose money? Moua talks about how her husband quit his job just to help her out on the farm which I find amazing that she was able to make a sufficient living wage off of farming. 

Chapter 4 also discusses how the farmers market that Hmong farmers sell at are usually very diverse and appeal to multiple different cultures. This is very important because it allows people to practice their traditions and prevents them from dying off. As we discussed in class, culture and food are very closely tied together. The Hmong people used their ancestors' knowledge of farming and applied it when they migrated to the U.S. This allowed them to make diverse crops and make the most out of what they have. 

The methods that Chinese farmers would use were very interesting to me. I have never thought about using fish poop as food for plants. How is this collected and spread around to different plants? It’s definitely more sustainable to use biological nitrogen instead of making fertilizers and using fossil fuels to do so. Why have these methods been pushed to the side in agriculture in the U.S.? We need to listen more to different cultures and what farming practices they use. 

I find it really disappointing that the discrimination the Hmong people faced lead to them not being able to hold onto land for a long time. This caused them to not be able to practice their regenerative farming methods, resulting in them turning to less sustainable methods. Appreciation and the understanding of other cultures is also necessary in order for people to continue letting their traditions and ideas live on.

Chapter 3

 What stood out to me most in Chapter 3 of Healing Grounds was how important land ownership was for Black communities and how much it connected to freedom and independence. After slavery and during Reconstruction, owning land meant people could support themselves, grow their own food, and not have to depend on systems that were built against them. Farming and working together through cooperatives gave people a way to build stronger communities and create opportunities for future generations. But racism, violence, and unfair policies made it really hard for Black farmers to keep their land, which made it harder to build long-term stability. I also thought about how this connects to Latin American communities. In a lot of Latin American countries, land has also been controlled by wealthy landowners or corporations, while Indigenous people and small farmers were pushed off their land. Just like Black communities in the U.S., many of these groups relied on farming, mutual aid, and co-ops to survive and support each other. Land is not just about food, it is also tied to culture, identity, and having control over your own future. This chapter made me realize that food justice is about way more than just having access to healthy food. It is also about who owns the land, who makes the decisions, and who benefits from the food system.

AMF and Ruderal Taxa

 Little did I know, arbuscular, is derived from the Latin word arbusucla, which makes a lot of sense. Little tree, arbol means tree, arbuscula is little tree, -ar suffix means belonging to. I thought the word stopped there not mycorhizzal fungi followed it. Almost instantaneously I remembered the words of Dr. El Mounadi, "Mycorhizzal fungi and carbon are really important to keep track of to know how biodiverse the soil is." Mycorhizzal fungi have a special sense of belonging to the little trees, and yet the way the communicate is also very much like that of litte branches and networks of tree pathways that aren't even visible to our eyes. "The whole really does add up to more than just the sum of it's parts." has to be one of my favorite eternal truths. Together, united we stand, working together we will always be much stronger than trying to solve solutions in a "lone survivor mentality."

Ruderal Taxa are typically the first ones on the scene after a massive crime scene, not the police and by that I mean a wildfire, landslide, exploitation of any kind. First coined by Berlin ecologists after WWII due to the many plants that first errupted in now blank canvases. Ruderal Taxa are the first to colonize disturbed land. Which Ruderal Taxa invades, will more than likely depend on the climate and specific geographic location of where you reside, a.k.a. your particular biome. Most commonly noted in our area is the beloved dandellion. From what little I do know I can only imagine that one could classify these ruderal taxa at some point or another a weed and or invasive species. The interesting part is that they multiply like flies on cow pies. The main job of these plants is to colonize, therefore, in the case of our dandellion containing as many as 150-200 seeds per head. 

Indigenous knowledge

"This... is what farming looked like when it wasn't wage work for an oppressed few but an entire community's way of life." Just before reading this page, I made a note that we could have such a happy and balanced society if it weren't for capitalism. Carlisle was illustrating the scene when Aidee Guzman visited her family farm in Mexico and was dreading harvest season, as she was used to what her parents experienced in the United States on large agribusiness monoculture farms. She was delighted by the party-like atmosphere harvesting from your own garden with the people closest to you. A general theme I am picking up from this book is the ways in which the white man has systemically destroyed cultures and then attempts to rebrand it for themselves. First with the Native Americans, then black slaves, and now with our neighbors in modern day Mexico. Through extreme political and economic corruption, we have made Mexico reliant on our corn and other commodities, while making it impossible for them to regeneratively farm on their own anymore, AND not permitting citizenship. We come at them from all angles, and then further demonize them for being "illegal criminals", when we are the ones forcing them out of their livelihood to work on our land for slave wages. The United States runs as a giant, corrupt corporation thinking only in short term, selfish gain. And come to think of it, the United States government greatly resembles the agribusiness commodities it is in the pockets of, all the same and no diversity. I think it's important to credit sustainable farming practices to those who truly invented them. Modern science can sometimes make a groundbreaking "discovery", but when the indigenous people try to speak up and say "Yeah, we've been doing that for literally thousands of years..", they are pushed aside to allow the light to shine on, typically, the white scientist. Many opportunities for science are only available for financially well-off white people, and due to various socioeconomic factors and prejudices, it's very hard for people of color to break into science, let alone be taken seriously, which perpetuates this white savior complex from developing. Science and research has a tendency to be quite pretentious and I understand the irony of that coming from a white science student, but I think for efficient advancement towards a just and sustainable society, we need to listen to indigenous wisdom regarding the Earth. We all deserve to have a party in the garden with our loved ones, free from the shackles of an oppressive oligarchy. 

Chapter 3

     This chapter taught me something new about migrants bringing seeds with them. It sounds obvious that one would do that if they were part of a farm and are moving to a new country or area., but it just never grazed my mind that a lot of the migrant farm workers in the United States likely tend to their own gardens when not working for a monoculture. Put yourself in the boots of someone who works for an agricultural system that ultimately forced them to move and work for them, that they know is flawed, inefficient, and unsustainable, and all at the same time tending to their own, more efficient garden, and are given zero say into how to improve the monoculture they work for. I would imagine it is painstakingly frustrating at least. A lot of our countries farms are literally covered in workers who could be doing more for the land than their bosses, and really policy, allows. The pieces almost could not be more in place to really start turning things around. Obviously farm owners and policy makers must know this. Are they afraid to let it happen because they aren't sure who would profit most from it?

    Those smaller farms, mostly undocumented and led by immigrants, were said to have more biodiversity, and more crops on a smaller land area. It is hard to know if their systems could be deployed at such a scale to feed the world, but we do know that they produce enough for themselves, on a smaller plot, with no soil degradation methods, and no artificial fertilizers. What other agricultural techniques could possibly be worth more to look into and experiment on ways to increase the scale of than these already proven ones? The way things seem to be going point to nature's natural methods of pest control and nutrient supply as already both the most efficient and sustainable ways to do so. Adding pieces to its equation have almost always resulted in more negatives than positives when treated as status quo as compared to only rearranging its pieces.

Healing Grounds Chapter 3

Due to my dad, I have taken up an interest in Etymology. What stood out to me in this chapter was the underlying theme of how language shapes culture and societal views. In the indigenous languages of Nahuatl and Maya there is no word that directly translates to the English word “agriculture,” with the most similar phrase being “MeyajbilK’aax,” meaning “working with nature.” Notice how fundamentally different those words are. One specifies the process of working WITH something else, in this case nature, which carries generations of reciprocity, communication, and heritage. The word agriculture, as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, means, simply, “the science or occupation of farming.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary then goes on to define occupation as “ the act or process of taking possession of a place or area.” The English language directly reflects the lens in which western culture looks at nature: as something to obtain and “own.” While other cultures, in this case specifically indigenous cultures, look upon nature as something to collaborate with to strive for mutual flourishing. These lenses can be seen in the “agricultural” practices and methods implemented by these cultures within, and beyond, this chapter of Healing Grounds. With evidence of indigenous complex agriculture landscapes of biodiverse home gardens that blended and mimicked the forests surrounding them through modern day Mexico and into Central America. This harmonious way of gardening is a stark contrast to the monoculture and chemical fertilizer practices common to “modern” western farming, highlighting the cultural views that stem all the way back to language.

Chapter 3

One thing that really stood out to me from Chapter 3 was how smaller farms can actually produce more variety than big farms just by working with the land instead of against it. It’s kind of surprising that farms with less space can grow more types of crops, while large farms usually stick to just one. It shows that diversity can be more effective than size.

I also thought the part about pollinators was important. Bees are more attracted to farms with different plants, and they struggle in monoculture farms because there isn’t enough for them to feed on. That makes me wonder why monoculture is still so common if it doesn’t support pollinators as well.

The section about fungi was interesting too. The way fungi and plants work together seems to depend on the environment, and in more diverse areas, that relationship is stronger. It shows how everything in nature is connected, even underground.

Overall, I liked the idea of treating soil like something alive. If farmers took better care of the soil, it would probably lead to healthier crops and better farming in the long run.

Healing Ground Chapter 3

  I found it incredible that the 1% of farmers in the Central Valley are able to have tons of different kinds of crops despite having 10 acres or less to work with. A lot of large scale farms only grow one kind of crop in an area much larger than these other farmers were. This shows how if you work with the land, you can get more out of it even in a smaller area. 

     Pollinators play a very important role in agriculture and overall biodiversity. They were more drawn to smaller scale farms, in monocultures the bees that were there struggled to find anything to eat. The bees in polycultures had a large supply to choose from, which resulted in them wanting to stay in that area. Having a more diverse farm results in having more pollinators, which then leads to happier plants. With this as a known connection, why do we stil continue with monocultures if we know that polycultures will be more successful. 

The mutual relationship between the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the plants that exist in biodiverse areas has proven to be more beneficial for coping with many different kinds of harsh conditions (conditions that could also be triggered or worsened due to climate change). The fungi there is more diverse, meaning they have different “personailities” in a sense. However, in monocultures the type of this fungi that exists there is more selfish and the relationship it has with plants is different than it is in a diverse environment. It’s fascinating that the fungi somewhat changes “personalities” based on its environment. We are just at the beginning of understanding this fungus and I find that fascinating. 

The intercropping method of planting corn, beans, and squash was a well thoughtout plan. It naturally drove away pests without the need for chemicals or other unnecessary things, while also drawing in insects that helped improve the crop. This makes me think of what other kinds of plants would best benefit from each other and “belong” together. 

I think the Mexica’s mindset of seeing soils as living organisms helps to humanize the soil in a way. This idea should be more mainstream in agriculture here in the U.S., it shows how the soil should be cared for and more carefully considered when being a farmer. If there was no soil, there would be no crop!

Using Farmworker's Knowledge

 Carlisle narrated regenerative farming, using Guzman's life experiences with the Latinx immigrant farmworkers.  Though the farming hardships of his family and returning to its ancestry farmland in Mexico. Points that to be effective will need to center around the farmers who do the labor. These are the people who possess a family history of ecological knowledge. This inherited successful agriculture is not new when compared to current practices of farming.  These tried-and-true practices include intercropping, seed-saving, and soil, enrichment.

Guzman's found that the knowledge gained by the farm workforce, is often disregarded with racism assuming that the correct knowledge only comes from universities or white farmers. The injustice showing who is the expert and excluding farm works from decision making, land access and recognition of their knowledge. You need the labor's experience with the regenerative skills to regenerate the land.

The farmer works with regenerative knowledge were displaced through US trade policies, land grabs, climate changes, and political violence. Farm workers must be protected with land access, labor rights and immigration and helped against exploitation. Suggesting developing inroads for these people to become stewards of the land and not just cheap labor. Goals to maintain fairness include aiding marginalized farmers, fair distribution od needed resources, reviewing past harms, including the shifting of power base.

A bottom-up model of regeneration moves forward with recognizing the farmworkers are leaders, beyond just physical labor, a truer understanding support of their ancestral knowledge to be used on land that is shared being stewarded collectively, Letting solution come from the people most affected.  Using a top-down model does not work.

Chapter 3 - Thoughts

  There is a common group called the “three sisters” which contains squash, beans, and corn. This is often represented as a piece of folklore and is commonly referred to as the Milpa. However, Carlisle treats it with the political and scientific respect it deserves, framing it as a carbon-sequestering technology rather than a garden patch. 

Milpa relies on a relationship-based design. Rather than using chemicals to kill all of the weeds, the Milpa works through cooperation. The corn provides a trellis for the beans to climb, the beans pull nitrogen from the air and put it into the soil, acting as a natural fertilizer, and the squash creates a living mulch with its big leaves that regulate soil temperature and help to prevent weeds. A healthy Milpa can contain tons of species, including plants that modern farmers would dismiss as weeds. Such a diverse ecosystem can withstand pests and droughts that would wipe out a monoculture field.

Carlisle then links the Milpa to the lived reality of Mesoamerican migrants. Ancestral seeds are often carried across borders, often in the face of hardship. In these communities, the Milpa is used as a form of cultural resistance. Growing Milpa is seen as an act of claiming an identity. The farmers are refusing to conform to the food system rather than erase thousands of years of botanical knowledge. 

Regenerative agriculture often repackages Indigenous knowledge as “innovation” while those who had guarded that knowledge are marginalized by the agricultural policies claiming to be fixed. Milpa is not possible without the people. By abandoning the philosophy and just adopting the technique, we are just practicing a new form of colonialism. The Milpa is a social contract between land, people, and ancestors rather than just a planting guide. We need to start looking at the relationships between things rather than just the techniques used. Laboratory chemicals are not needed to feed the world, instead we need to support small-scale farmers who already know how the work with the natural cycles on the planet. 

Chapter 2

 Chapter two of Healing Grounds also stood out to me because of how it focused on Black communities and their relationship to land, which felt like a really important shift in perspective. Instead of only talking about land in a general sense, the chapter highlighted how Black Americans have historically been denied access to land and how that has had lasting effects. It made me think about land not just as something cultural or environmental, but also as something tied to power, opportunity, and stability. What I found especially interesting was how the chapter talked about the history of Black farmers and land ownership, and how much of that was lost over time due to discrimination, policies, and systemic barriers. That loss is not just about property, it is about generational wealth and independence. I feel like that is something that does not always get talked about enough in discussions about sustainability or agriculture. It added another layer to what “healing” really means in this context.I also liked how the chapter showed examples of Black communities reclaiming land and reconnecting with agriculture. It made the idea of healing feel more active and ongoing rather than just something theoretical. These efforts are not just about growing food, but also about rebuilding community, creating access, and challenging systems that have excluded people in the past.Overall, this chapter helped me see how environmental justice and racial justice are closely connected. It made me realize that you cannot really talk about one without the other, especially when looking at the history and current realities of land access in the United States.

There is another way

What stuck with me the most from this chapter is the adoption of co-op and mutual aid organization in the Southern black communities during the Reconstruction era. Developed in a time of necessity when opportunities were not equally distributed to black Americans, groups such as the Colored Farmers Alliance, Freedom Farms, and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives allowed freed slaves and their descendants opportunities that would not have been there for them otherwise. While the lifespan of some of these co-ops was short lived, the impression they left is lasting. We talk a lot in this class about how many of society's problems can be traced back to money. Cooperatives are a step in the right direction, leading away from hierarchical economic statuses, and towards a more circular economy. We do not have to live within the bounds of our current system, there are other options that just need to garner enough support. The individuals and families who founded these co-ops did not have an easy life, but by banding together they were able to accomplish something in a system that worked against them. The same can be done now in an age with extreme wealth disparity that continues to grow, perpetuated racism, sexism and classism, and corrupt political parties. 

Additionally, the work Olivia Watson is doing at Oliver's Agroforest exemplifies working out of the bounds of the current system. Our common agricultural practices are gravely detrimental to the health of the planet. Simply knowing how to grow your own food, feed your community, and do it in a way that is beneficial to the planet is a great act of resistance against oppressors. Having a farm that functions in accordance with nature and the ecosystem is a dream of mine, and it's uplifting to know that it is possible and there are others working towards the same goal. 

Healing Grounds Chapter 2: African Indigenous Agriculture and What it Teaches Us

African Indigenous agriculture not only teaches lessons of the land, but also of humanity and the nature of the world. These strategies also provided a route of perseverance against the societal discrimination in the agricultural sector. The agricultural practices were accessible to economically struggling black farmers and provided food security, economic foothold, and sustainable self sustenance. The parallels between people and nature/land are so prominent, and that was really displayed in this chapter of Healing Grounds. Diverse forest plant life was destroyed, land stripped of biodiversity, for the sake of farming cash crops and rapid urbanization. Black farmers faced oppression and systemic racism through the seizing of their land, increased taxes, declining of loans, discriminatory laws and acts, and being forced into contract labor. Families who acquired land were targets of lynching and violence, which were further efforts to completely displace black farmers from their land and impoverish the black farming community as a whole. Through this extreme hardship, refuge was found within, what this chapter called, then “hidden Black subsistence economy,” saving them from borrowing money from their landlords or going hungry. This system was based on black agroforestry, resisting chemical agriculture, and drawing on strategies originating in Africa that supports biodiversity and the health of ecosystems, while also providing farmers with a huge variety of crops. The principle of this type of farming is to plant crops around trees, and to build up and sustain the existing, or one existing, ecosystem. I love how this strategy of sustainable agriculture was described, in a mutual thriving of the farmer and “farm,” of the oppressed ecosystem and oppressed peoples. The mutual benefit of mindful farm practices, providing freedom and self-sustenance, through collaboration and the unifying relationship between people and forest. Mutual flourishing learned from the land, and implemented, historically, by African Indigenous peoples and black farmers.

40 A & a Mule

 Sounds too Good to Be True

"I certainly wasn't expecting that," says every good-intentioned man with a plan. I can only imagine the type of words used by Gen. William T. Sherman after having his efforts halted by a new president. I think it allows us to see the nature of the beast when it comes to policy implementation within a bureaucratic structure, at the very least, a faulty system. This has been happening since the time the world began revolving. 

While providing immediate benefits in January only 4 days after being proposed by Gen. Sherman, President Lincoln helped establish the order with a bureau to allow for proper redistribution of lands and essentially forming a body of overseers that would ensure the act went into effect through the sovereignty of the people it was entrusted to, the Freedmen. 

It goes to show that although we may not agree with policies, we can learn to dialogue and resolve injustices working together towards a common goal. Gen. Sherman although, never boasted that he wanted racial equality for all. I can't help but think, hope, that just maybe a change of heart occurred and the General realized something needed to be done to acknowledge, repair, aid, in some sense the damage done to his brothers in arms. The rice coast (roughly 350 miles) was given to the Freedmen for many motives; punishing the Confederates who started the war, but more importantly a beginning act towards social aid and the beneficence of all. 

Works Cited: 

Myers, Barton. "Sherman’s Field Order No. 15." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Sep 30, 2020. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/shermans-field-order-no-15/

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Black Land Matters

     A lot of stories were covered in this chapter, specifically around Black-owned or operated farmland either here or in other parts of the world, either in the past, or present. What stuck out to me the most was that African and other non-European and non-American agricultural practices were and still are similar to practices being pushed by organic farmers today. And the idea of pesticides being introduced in this light made me view them as a weapon to weaken a community, just like killing the Bison. 

    We read before that the USA specifically targeted Bison in an effort to weaken native communities, and while I don't think this is as targeted, the thought occurred that policy makers may have been so quick to push pesticides not only for the short term production increase, but also because they knew many Black farm owners would not be able to afford them, and would then be out-produced and out-priced by wealthier white farmers. Conspiracies aside, the glamour of pesticides was seen through by Carver, yet they still went on to dominate agriculture, even today. 

    It was said that in the late 1700s, one person couldn't believe how productive some farmlands were on the Virgin Islands, all year-round. Yet we did not adopt those agroforestry methods as status quo, and had little agroforestry until the late 1900s. I don't know if there is some witty phrase for this, but it feels like every time the USA has tried to rid of something in an effort to do it the USA way, it goes south, and then the original ways are re-adopted and re-branded as new methods discovered in the USA. Ah, the internet calls it "reinventing the wheel". 

Black Land Matters

 I found it jarring that black people woud be arrested and forced into doing even more unpaid labor as punishment. People were attached to slavery even after it was supposed to end, they relied on it, despite it being completely inhumane. As long as they were meeting their quotas and making money, their workers didn’t matter. There wre so many loopholes that were used during this time period so people could continue to have lots of workers for free or for a low cost. 

It took a long time for black people to have the ability to own land in the U.S. and things had begun to look up at the beginning of the 1900s. However, the amount of black land owners greatly decreased throughout the century. Discrimination continued, white people were so against black farmland, ignoring the fact that black people were the backbone of the success of their farms. 

Hearing Olivia Watkins' story highlighted the hardships that people who managed to keep their land had to face. Being pressured by white neighrbors to give up portions of land, attempting to discourage them from creating livelihoods out of farming. What was salvaged must be cherished. It’s important for black land owners to have someone in their family to pass it down to. The conservation of legacy has to be protected to further open doors for black people that were once closed. Instead of being pushed out, they should be welcomed and considered vital to agriculture. 

Like various other articles we’ve read in this class, the importance of indigenous knowledge is brought up in this chapter. Building a relationship with the land instead of fighting against it. Olivia Watkins studies how different plants or fungi interact with the environment, and how that knowledge can be applied to revive the land. I think it’s important for this idea to be regurgitated constantly in order to keep the regenerative agriculture movement alive.

Chapter 2

In the chapter from Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle shows that farming is not just about growing food, but also about land, history, and fairness. One thing that stood out to me is how she explains that a lot of what we call regenerative farming today has been done for a long time by Black farmers. It made me realize that these ideas are not new, they just have not always been recognized.

The story of Olivia Watkins helped me understand this better. She grows mushrooms in the forest without cutting down trees. This shows a way of farming that works with nature instead of trying to control it. Her way of farming is about respect and taking care of the land, not just making money.

The chapter also talks about how enslaved Black people used similar farming methods to survive. They grew different crops together and took care of the soil so it would stay healthy. These were smart and helpful ways to farm, but they are often not talked about today. This connects to what we have discussed in class about how some groups already have good solutions, but they are not always listened to.

Another big idea in the chapter is land loss. After the Civil War, land that was supposed to go to Black families was taken away through unfair rules and racism. This made it hard for Black farmers to keep their land, and it still affects them today.

Overall, this chapter made me think about farming in a different way. It is not just about food, but also about fairness and history. Healing Grounds shows that taking care of the land also means fixing past wrongs and giving people a fair chance.

Recent studies on modernizing ag

 https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/11/2325

I was reading Chapter 2. It made me think about our discussions on how industrial agriculture is affecting the environment. I wanted to find an article that looked at what is happening because of our switch to modern industrial agriculture. The article talks about how agriculture's impacting the environment and how farming practices are changing ecosystems in big ways. Using fertilizers, pesticides and heavy machinery has increased crop yields but it is also causing soil to break down polluting water and reducing the number of different plants and animals. Even the tiny life in soil that is necessary for healthy crops is being disrupted which makes it harder for farms to stay healthy in the run.

Agriculture is a part of the problem when it comes to losing biodiversity around the world. As farms get bigger and bigger and only grow one type of crop habitats are disappearing. This means ecosystems are becoming more fragile. These farming systems may seem to be working for now.. They use a lot of chemicals. Because of this they are more likely to have problems with pests, disease and changes in the climate.

These findings are very similar to what Liz Carlisle writes about in Chapter 2 of Healing Grounds. Carlisle explains that industrial agriculture is not hurting the land but also affecting rural communities. Both the article and the book show that environmental problems and social issues are closely connected. For example soil that is in shape does not just hurt ecosystems it also threatens the livelihoods of farmers.

Carlisle's work show that we need to change the way we do agriculture. We need to use regenerative practices. This can help improve the health of the soil. It can also protect biodiversity. Support farming communities for years to come. Industrial agriculture needs to change. We need to find ways to make farming more sustainable so that industrial agriculture can be good for the environment and good for people. Agriculture needs to be done in a way that's good for the environment and good, for people and this means changing the way we do agriculture.

"Black Land Matters"

 Olivia Watkins, a black agroforest in NC articulates her progress from working on different farms with varied products and applying her learned knowledge on inheriting a 40-acre farm.  It expands on the racism black farmers endured through black land disposition.  How these injustices need to be address for meaningful agricultural healing. Watkins grows mushrooms on this land and shows have crops are cultivated without removing the trees. Calling his practice "spawn run" as opposed to "colonizing". Not clearing forest for profit. A method of black ecological tradition relying on care, reciprocity, and non-extractive relationships with land.  The story basis is that regenerative agriculture is not unique with deep roots in black agrarian knowledge.

It is noted that black slaves practiced regenerative agriculture as survival strategies, that were ecologically sophisticated systems that enriched soil and biodiversity, prior to regenerative branding. Highlighted practices included agroforestry, polyculture and Inter cropping, communal land management, and soil-building practices.

Land granted to black farmers by Tecumseh Sherman, post-civil was taken away through white supremacist intimidation. USDA unfair lend and credit practices negatively affected black land ownership. Property laws enacted made it possible to seize heirs' lands. Carlisle correlates soil health and land justice, explaining why blacks hold only 2% farm ownership today. She concludes attention be given to black land justice for building a sustainable climate-resilient future.

Healing Grounds Chapter 1

In the first chapter of Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle really shows that farming is not just about producing food, it is about relationships between people, land, and power. What stood out to me is how she connects agriculture to larger systems of control and inequality. It made me realize that food justice is not just about access to healthy food, but also about who has control over food systems and whose voices are actually being heard. It also introduced the idea of animals, like bison mentioned in chapter 1, can graze in a way that is helpful for the soil and  agriculture and aren’t fenced in like cattle which tied into systems we have already had but moved away from for large industrial traditional farming practices that are bad for the environment and effect soil health.Carlisle talks about Indigenous practices and regenerative agriculture in a way that shows these methods are not new, they have just been ignored or pushed aside. That connects to what we have been talking about in class about how marginalized communities often already have sustainable solutions, but they are not the ones being listened to or given power.I also considered how this connects to the Rodale Institute and the work being done with organic and regenerative farming. It makes the idea of “healing grounds” feel more real because it shows how improving soil health and farming practices can also support communities. It is not just environmental, it is social too.Overall, this chapter made me think about food justice in a deeper way. It is not just about making sure people have food, but about restoring relationships, acknowledging the importance of history and animals, and giving power back to communities that have been pushed out of the conversation.

Thoughts on Carlisle Chapter 2

 This chapter focuses on the loss of a closed-loop farm. Black farmers who have historically been systematically shut out of government programs and were greatly impacted by Jim Crow have developed some of the most complicated regenerative techniques in recent history. 

“Big Ag” has just recently discovered that planting only one crop, or monocropping, kills the soil, while Black farmers in the South have known this for over a century. Black farmers practiced livestock integration to naturally fertilize the land, polycultures, which are a variety of crops to keep the soil full of nutrients, and resourcefulness by transforming land into productive ecosystems sans the expensive chemical inputs. For these farmers, soil sustainability was a survival strategy rather than a goal. With dead soil comes dead independence. 

The most gut-wrenching part of this chapter is her critique of how we have modernized farming. The transition into industrial agriculture is not just hurting the planet, but it is also being used as a tool for racial dispossession. Farming became more capital-intensive, which forced Black farmers off their land. The deep-rooted communal knowledge was traded for shallow-rooted cornfields. Soil exhaustion goes hand-in-hand with the displacement and exhaustion of black bodies. 

    Books on regenerative agriculture typically feature a checklist for buying cover crop seeds and to stop tilling. However, the social structure within a farm is just as important as the biology of the first. A healthy ecosystem cannot occur when it is built on a foundation of exclusion and theft. We need to change who gets to own the farm rather than just how we farm. We have to look at land trusts and reparative justice in order to heal the land. A high output, high stress, and low diversity environment is hurtful and we should instead go back toward a “Homestead” model that prizes community and resilience. The innovations that we are looking for are not in a laboratory but are in the stories of black farmers pushed off of their land in the 20th century.

Bring Back the Bison

It has been common knowledge for me that colonizers hunted off the bison in North America to cut the supply of sustenance to Native Americans, but I didn't know of the attempts in recent years to bring populations back to their native lands. When Carlisle was painting the picture of what the prairies once looked like, I couldn't help feel sad, as that image will likely not be restored to it's former glory in any of our lifetimes. 

Humans, white ones specifically, have meddled so deeply in the fabric of nature, that we have to meddle our way out of it but now with many more obstacles from other meddling-projects we have done. We can bring back the bison, but must appease ranchers that we forced to ranch, shake hands across borders we invented, work around infrastructure that did not exist two, three, four hundred years ago. It was easy for the colonizers to go about hunting bison down, but to try to reverse those attempts at the same level of ease is impossible. I can't help but wonder what the state of the world would be had the British been less of colonizers and more of cooperators, community builders. By trying to dominant the planet, we have just created endless loops of problems for ourselves. This is evident when looking at the differences between cattle vs bison ranching. The bison dwell much better in the disparate Montana weather than cattle. Of course they do, they have evolved for thousands of years to live in that landscape. Had they simply learned something from the natives, maybe we wouldn't be in such an agricultural mess right now.

Healing Grounds Intro and Chapter 1

The biggest mistake humanity can make, in my opinion, is thinking we know anything. As in, thinking we can “fully understand” anything to the point of being able to have complete control or that we can just “own” anything. Nothing is ours: not the air, the oceans, the animals, the plants, the ecosystems, or the land we live on. More so, what baffles me, is that the productivity indigenous communities obtained was actually acknowledged by the colonists who ripped their land away from them. Despite this, they ignored the equilibrium ecosystem that was extremely successful they were presented with, and just absolutely destroyed it. It’s almost impossible for me to understand how they could’ve so blatantly just proceeded with their atrocities and inefficiencies- and what? Think that there would be no consequences to their destructive and uneducated behavior? It makes me so upset that colonialism ripped away so much from nature, the land, and the Indigenous people who had been living their for generations. 

Healing Grounds Chapter One

     Initially when the book opens up by telling the story of Latrice Tatsey trying to learn about their ancestors and the relationship with the native buffalo herds of the region, it appeared to be a lighthearted tale. It then elaborated into the atrocities the federal government has committed to Native Americans by corralling them into tiny plots of land, and then further dividing them up into subdivisions and forcing white culture onto them by sending off children to boarding schools and forbidding them from talking about their own culture. The shockwaves of these laws forced upon the native population can be seen as Tatsey struggles to find history or culture of their ancestors either through written documents or through word of mouth passed down through generations. The implications this has on the ecology in the region deepen when buffalo are deemed inefficient and cattle replace them. this part is interesting to me since country wide blanket laws are not typical of the United States government, shown through the fact that we primarily operate under state and regional laws rather than allowing the federal government to dictate everything however, the government believed using one or two specific breeds and species across the entire country rather than capitalizing on biodiversity would be considered "efficient". Logically speaking, using native species in regions they would thrive in like buffalo rather than pushing them out and replacing them with cattle, which struggle to thrive in hotter, drier climates seems to be contradictory to how the United States operates. 

Healing Grounds 1

     The first couple parts of this book dive straight into some of the largest core problems this class covers within food justice, sovereignty, climate, and addressing past discrimination tactics in agriculture. Carlisle tells us that none of them alone are enough, and that specifically addressing past discriminations is a part of both sovereignty and even mitigating climate change. 

        Carlisle describes to us the saddening story between settlers and natives, and specifically gets into the bits related to agriculture. She says that indigenous peoples who lived along the prairies were not mere spectators, but maintainers, overseers. They were able to form a relationship with the nonhuman parts of the prairie that enabled them to know exactly when and where to do "x" or "y" like burning, rotating, harvesting, etc. all without the use of modern machines and excess inputs. Instead, they mostly used fire and buffalo. It's described that buffalo show traits that may prove them to be better for agriculture than cattle. They can resist harsh weather better, defend themselves against predators better, and are actually active in maintaining their own environment which in turn aids biodiversity.

    Unfortunately, along came the settlers who apparently saw sustainable well being as a threat and decimated their way of life. Whether or not they saw their way of life as a threat or not, I don't know, but what is true is that they did try to destroy their way of life by literally killing the backbone of it, Buffalo, as well as the people themselves sometimes. When the indigenous peoples were willing to negotiate or surrender, they were boxed into a plot of land and forced to abandoned their ways due to it being almost impossible now. 

    Carlisle mentions now that groups such as Blackfeet have attempted to reintroduce buffalo to restart their way of living. She mentions as well that settler farmers, beginning in the late 1900s, started to see that what they were doing was not sustainable, and that regenerative practices were better for the land. She notes this as good, but also insufficient as it does not address the deep relationship with the land that indigenous peoples had. 

    Nowadays, I do not foresee majority of American farmers and ranchers garnering as deep relationships with the land as indigenous peoples. Some definitely could, and should, but I would assume most farmers are doing it because they need money or the family has been farming for generations, not because they love the land and feeding others. I'm sure many do like the fact that they feed others and many likely love the land, but I would assume most would leave if they had enough of those dollars saved up, and I wouldn't blame them since modern agricultural practices tend to leave farmers with depression at rates wickedly higher than the national average for other working Americans. If we could actually adopt some hybrid agricultural system that involves connections to the land and animals, as well as is on a scale large enough to feed the world, and does not involve degrading inputs, I imagine the depression rate in farmers would not only go down, but it would go negative, leaving more farmers happier than the rest of us. I believe someone in a reading we read earlier this semester, indigenous to somewhere in Central or South America said that their relatives told the settlers that if the settlers did what their people did, they would all live long, happy lives.

Connections to Chapter 1

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8793816

The first chapter really made me want to look into where our agriculture was in the past vs how we view it today. The points mad on how agriculture isn’t just this neutral system that naturally improved over time but was shaped by colonization, displacement, and inequality led to me finding research done by Emma Layman. The article pretty much sums up how all the damage and inequality in the current system isn't random, just as we've mentioned in class.

Modern agriculture is usually talked about like it’s just the result of progress and better technology, but honestly, it’s a lot more complicated than that. According to Emma Layman and her co-authors, agriculture in the U.S. is deeply connected to colonization and slavery, which means it didn’t develop in a fair or equal way. Instead, it was shaped by systems that took land from Indigenous people and relied on forced labor, setting up patterns that still exist today.

Colonization basically turned land into something to be owned and exploited for profit. Indigenous farming practices, which were often more sustainable and connected to the environment, were ignored or pushed aside. At the same time, enslaved people were forced to work the land, and that became a major part of how agriculture functioned. Even though things have changed over time, a lot of those same ideas, like prioritizing large-scale production and profit, are still part of modern agriculture.

Chapter 1

Healing Grounds Chapter 1 focuses on the work of Latrice Tatsey and her efforts to bring bison back to their natural grazing lands. Instead of raising animals in fenced areas like cattle, bison move across the land in a way that naturally improves the soil. Their grazing helps increase nutrients and store more carbon in the ground, which can help reduce the effects of climate change. Tatsey also shows how restoring bison is not just about the environment but also about reconnecting Indigenous communities with their traditions and land.

The chapter explains that the removal of bison in the past was done on purpose as a way to control Indigenous people by taking away an important food source. It also points out that many communities of color have long used farming methods that work with nature instead of against it. These practices existed long before modern industrial agriculture.

Overall, the chapter connects environmental health with social and cultural healing. Bringing back bison supports stronger communities, restores traditional knowledge, and helps create a more sustainable and independent food system.

Healing Grounds: Introduction and Chapter 1

  The introduction of this book touches on how there were debates about agriculture. Even though regenerative agriculture was a promising idea, it was still debated even by people who seemed like they would support it. No matter how good something sounds, there are still issues that exist within it. It’s important to figure out what methods are best in order to truly reach success.

It also brings up how a lot of people who helped out with figuring out how to create a more sustainable agricultural system are indigineous people or immigrants. In general they were people who did not have titles, meaning they may have been previously overlooked or ignored. I agree that it’s important to look at the history of agriculture in the U.S. because before colonization, the land was treated much differently by indigeneous people and groups. “Reversing the clock” may be able to efficiently aid agriculture currently. 

I found it facsinating the positive impact that buffalo have on plants and how the relationship between them and the land is mutual. The connection of buffalo grazing to assisting with climate change is a concept unheard of to me until now. They are the keystone species for Native American praries. This makes me wonder why they aren’t more common in our current agricultural system, they have so many benefits. How did we come to the conclusion of using cows? Is it just adopted from European farming practices? But this also makes me wonder if differnet species are better off in different biomes, surely buffalo can’t be the keystone species all over the country because of the differences in climate and such. 

The first chapter does a lot of comparing European farming to indingenous farming, it highlights the issues with our current system that has been “broken from the start”. The importance of having a connection to the land and working with it instead of against it is crucial for regenerative agriculture. Instead of continuing with the colonizer’s method of farming, we need to adopt and return to what previously has worked. 

Healing Grounds - Chapter 1

 Liz Carlisle posts Latrice Tatsey work of reintroducing bison back to grazing the land, as opposed to fenced in pastures with cows. Tatsey an ecologist and a member of the Blackfeet nation supports this showing that bison grazing increases organic soil matter and increase carbon soil content This increases soil quality and fights against climate change.  She relates ecological restoration with cultural restoration by reengaging indigenous peoples back to their ancestral land and better soil restorative practices.  Highlighting Blackfoot community in reclaiming their right to manage and define their own food systems, guided by cultural and ecological labor.

The removal of bison, a primary food source was a core colonial strategy to control the indigenous populations, Black, Latino, and Asian American communities have a long history of regenerative agriculture.  Their more natural soil regenerative ideas have been established long before industrial activities disrupted them. These original concepts have a more holistic way of managing our environment demands to increase a natural production.

Racial violence inflicted on the indigenous people by land dispossession, labor exploitation, loss of food sovereignty suppressed these proven traditional ecological ways.

Bison restoration encompasses restoring tribal decision making, developing a community involvement, with the use of cultural protocols, providing a goal of long-term stewardship.  Her thoughts on rebuilding bison herds leads us to ecological healing that leads up political healing. Producing cleaner indigenous knowledge uses, combating climate effects.  Focus on not just sustainable but providing food sovereignty.

Carlisle Introduction and Chapter One

  Regenerative Agriculture is a very common buzzword in the "eco-conscious" areas of the internet. This is often pitched as a way to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and return it to the Earth. However, Liz Carlisle calls for caution with this. By treating regenerative agriculture as a “new” modern invention, we are being colonizers as well as ignorant. 

The carbon farming hype is confronted at the very beginning. The innovations being used by current white, midwestern farmers are rooted in Asian-American, Indigenous, and Black agricultural traditions. The word “healing” within the title isn’t about fixing just the Nitrogen cycle; it is about healing the rift between people and the land they live upon. We are unable to fix the problem without looking at the extractive logic that causes it to break in the first place. This logic is tied to slavery and settler colonialism.

Previously, the North American prairies were one of the most effective carbon-sequestering machines on the planet. It was carefully managed through indigenous practices, which included the stewardship of buffalo and the use of fire. The indigenous model was reciprocal, while the colonial model is extractive.

The nice thing about this perspective is the idea that Regenerative Agriculture is not a technical fix. This narrow focus of how many tons of Carbon dioxide we can sink into an acre of land is just another form of extraction. We are still using the Earth as a tool rather than a companion.

Real healing occurs when we realize that the people who are most harmed by our current food systems are minorities. These minorities are the ones who hold the solutions to our problems. This first section of the book can serve as a deprogramming for those who feel we can just buy our way out of climate change with some organic labels. We need to acknowledge the grounds they were to begin with and whose labor was used in order to exhaust them.