Will Allen—Soil Survivor

But The Good Food Revolution is much more than a how-to guide. The story extends back to Allen’s family’s escape from share­crop­ping, his child­hood on the land, the bas­ket­ball career that pulled him out of poverty and allowed him to travel, his work for var­i­ous corporations—including a stint at KFC and one at Procter and Gamble—and his even­tual return to farm­ing. Alongside his own story, Allen also recounts the sto­ries of sev­eral peo­ple who were instru­men­tal to build­ing Growing Power with him, many of whom expe­ri­enced their first reli­able and ful­fill­ing job on the urban farm.

We spoke with Allen recently about the book, the obsta­cles it chron­i­cles, last year’s gift from Walmart, and the legacy he hopes to pass on.

Q. What was it like revis­it­ing those early days and explor­ing your fam­ily history?

A. My fam­ily was part of the “great migra­tion” north and my par­ents got away to the Washington, D.C., area. But the fact that my father still wanted to farm was a lit­tle unusual because most African Americans who had been involved in share­crop­ping in the 1930s pretty much wanted to leave behind that painful his­tory. And the fact that my father wanted to pass on his agri­cul­tural roots to my broth­ers and me was unusual (so many farm­ers didn’t, and the results are obe­sity, heart, dis­ease, etc.—all those things that come from being dis­con­nected from our food and from eat­ing bad food).

When I was first start­ing out in urban ag many years ago, I would go and work in com­mu­ni­ties and peo­ple would ask me, “Why are you doing that slave’s work?” I don’t hear that today, but back then I did often.

Q. You talk about the his­tor­i­cal dis­crim­i­na­tion against black farm­ers by the U.S. Department of Agriculture—and their near dis­ap­pear­ance in recent decades. Do you think Growing Power and projects like it have made more young black peo­ple want to farm?

A. Yes. First of all, we’ve had the first lady’s Let’s Move effort, and that has moved a lot of peo­ple to want to grow food in their backyards.

But I also think young peo­ple see­ing me—a per­son of color—involved in grow­ing food has helped many of them want to do what I’m doing. We train about 1,000 peo­ple a year and many also come back and work with us. [Growing Power now has 150 employ­ees.] We’ve also seen a lot of farms get going since 2000 when I first started these hands-on trainings.

Q. You talk about the fam­ily that lived at the farm—a woman named Karen, who’d had a lot of hard luck before she started at Growing Power, and her son and daugh­ter DeShell and DeShawn. Why did you choose to include their sto­ries in the book?

A. They were just three exam­ples of the many folks who have come from tough, stress­ful sit­u­a­tions, and who I’ve seen go through a trans­for­ma­tion by being con­nected to their food and the sys­tem that we devel­oped at Growing Power. I’ve seen a lot of peo­ple come out the other side with nice lives and occu­pa­tions, and even become lead­ers in their community—people who may have thought they’d never get beyond the chal­lenges they faced. So I thought it was impor­tant to put a human face on the issue.

Click here to read the rest of this arti­cle at Grist.org.