This past May and early June, SAAFON held its bi-annual Farmer Brigades in Alabama — a deeply collaborative effort rooted in shared labor, mutual aid, and the generational spirit of Black agrarian practice. Across two weeks and four farms, over 38 farmers, organizers and community members came together to support both legacy and new SAAFON members in building infrastructure, deepening relationships, and stewarding land in community.
SAAFON’s staff led two rounds of brigades with care, alongside farmer members and regional agricultural specialists, on a diversity of farms in central and northern Alabama: Fountain Heights Farms, Honey Haven Farms, Huckleberry Hills Farm, and Queen Bey Farms.
On a warm Monday morning, the SAAFON team arrived at Fountain Heights Farms, where we came together to construct a four-bin compost system designed to serve multiple sites in the surrounding neighborhood. The day opened with a “Tools of the Trade” presentation hosted by Fountain Heights — grounding the workday in the purpose and process of composting as a key practice in soil regeneration and food justice.
As M. Dominique Villanueva Co-Founder of Fountain Heights Farms reflected, “What would’ve taken a week was completed with excellence in one day! That is the power of farmers helping farmers.”
We were joined in this work by members of the Alabama State Association of Cooperatives (ASAC) and stewards & fellows from the Braiding Seeds Fellowship, whose presence brought additional labor and wisdom to the day. Exemplifying SAAFON’s landscape organizing imperative, inviting partners to throw down in the field with us, share their gifts and talents, makes the lift lighter and expands the resource and relational ecosystem that farmers and institutions alike benefit from.
The following day, we shifted to Honey Haven Farms, where the brigade cleared land to make way for an expanded beekeeping operation and a new food forest. This was a day of hands-on transformation — cutting, clearing, weed eating — all in service to making space for abundance. Farmers from Fountain Heights and our friends from Braiding Seeds Fellowship returned, continuing the thread of solidarity across farms.
The second round of brigades brought us to the Alabama counties of Huntsville and Talladega, where participants gathered to support two more SAAFON members: Huckleberry Hills Farm, a legacy member, and Queen Bey Farms (also known as Healers Land Farm), a new addition to the network.
On Saturday morning, the team met at Huckleberry Hills Farm to help install an electric fence enclosure for goats with a knack for escaping the care of their host, Ms. Sandra Simone. Ms. Simone – an artist, jazz singer, beloved community elder who raises meat goats and mentors youth about farming. This was a sizable undertaking brought some love and care to a 20-year old farm infrastructure: nearly an acre of fencing, requiring precision, strength, and coordinated effort ensures Ms. Simone has many more years of practice sustainability. Led by SAAFON’s Farm Practices Specialist, Jason Lindsey, and supported by the skilled crew from the EcoParadigm, the team completed the project over the course of two long and intentional days. The experience was deeply intergenerational, we cooked and camped out on the land and let music help move us through the day’s heat with delight.
EcoParadigm’s diligent development of its team, skills and services has been in service of growing and deepening their reach and offerings across the region. Providing skilled labor to farmers and farms help that union achieve their goals in ways that are economically viable and ecologically sound. Showing up and showing out during our brigade on Huckleberry Hill represented a concrete practice of years of relationship and vision cultivation together. During our brigades our objective is to see a project through from start to finish and this partnership certainly made it more possible to achieve our goals with more ease and more pleasure.
The final brigade was held at Queen Bey Farms, where the team installed three raised beds and two metal tubs using the Hügelkultur method — a soil-building approach rooted in mounding, layering, and water retention. Together, seven participants, including members from Honey Haven, planted the Spring Garden and several fruit trees. As the day came to a close, participants named each bed in honor of the shared effort and collective care that brought them into being.
The purpose of SAAFON’s Farmer Brigades is more than a series of workdays. They are an affirmation of our core values: to encourage member-to-member engagement that deepen relationships between members in their own locale, to provide a space to share technical skill and wisdom amongst the collective, and to fellowship and practice our culture as a tool for liberation. Facilitating farmer to farmer labor and cultural exchanges not only provide help and hands-on support for farmers taking on projects too big to do alone but anchors SAAFON’s presence in the field as a living, breathing institution grounded in ancestral practice and future vision.
In a time where land and labor are under constant pressure, the Spring Farmer Brigades reminded us: we are not alone in this work. We are a network, rooted on the land, tending not only to our crops — but to each other.
