News

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.

In partnership with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), SAAFON awarded three scholarships to two undergraduates and one graduate student for their continued work in agriculture that promotes racial equity in food systems. The recipients of the annual Cynthia Hayes Memorial Scholarship are Vicki Mines, Alaina Parr, and Mikelanj Ajinaku. 

From a panel boasting over 200 years of wisdom, to a farm tour that laid bare the present-day realities of watermelon cultivation alongside visions for tomorrow, the 2025 Watermelon Convergence dug deep.

This year, SAAFON will be hosting our first Watermelon Convergence, in partnership with the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives and Black Dirt Farm Collective, with funding […]

The Cynthia Hayes Memorial Scholarship honors the co-founder of the first regional network for African American organic farmers in the United States. Cynthia Hayes spent […]

The buzz of the summer season has still not winded down, even as we swiftly approach the autumnal equinox. In this spirit, much like nature, Summer for SAAFON has been a time of activation, moving and shaking, being in the “field.” We get busy when our farmers get busy, and the months leading up to Fall are spent on farms, in the landscape, and continuing our institutional development work to be in solidarity and service.  

We are pleased to announce our inaugural Agrarian Revival Fest: Rooting in Our Practices on Saturday, October 12, 2024, at Boggs Rural Life Center in Keysville, Georgia. 

In mid-February, Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition held its inaugural Island Food Systems Summit at the University of the Virgin Islands, drawing farmers, farmer advocates, policymakers, and organizations representing the food system of the Caribbean islands and beyond.

This report is a culmination of many years of work and serves as an introduction to the topic of Black agrarianism and land loss