Our mission
SAAFON’s mission is to elevate the collective power, prosperity, and visibility of Black farmers committed to practicing and advancing ecologically sustainable practices.
How we accomplish this work
We do this by cultivating liberatory approaches to land stewardship and agriculture in the Southeastern United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Caribbean region, and promoting the links between Black farming, Black history, and Black culture.
“My ancestors’ blood and sweat courses through this Southern landscape, that’s why I returned, for good.”
Who We Represent
SAAFON’s members are located across 10 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, including Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana.
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Our members represent diverse farming communities and land management models across various cultures and geographies. With a farmer-centered, farmer-led approach rooted in our commitment to ecologically sustainable practices, SAAFON’s goals are to increase farm viability and raise the visibility of our farmers’ practices both nationally and internationally.
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Our Values
Farmer–centered and Farmer-Led
Farmer–centered and Farmer-Led
We see Black farmers as the center of our work and the foundation upon which a Black land or food justice movement must be built. We see the farmer, and their inherent value, as the cornerstone of the agrarian community. We listen deeply to farmer needs, seek farmer leadership, and prioritize farmer voices.
Innovation Rooted In Legacy
Innovation Rooted In Legacy
We value the renewal and reactivation of ancestral practices, and believe in the return to our survival strategies as a way forward. We lead with legacy and value solutions that are in dialogue with the past. We honor the practice of storytelling, which has been and will continue to be used as a map for remembering ourselves.
Connectivity & Magnified Collectivism
Connectivity & Magnified Collectivism
We cannot afford to not be in right relationship to each other. We build collective power by cultivating intentional relationships at every stage and space in our communities through our organizing and movement building. We value interdependence, and building connections that weave us together in sustainable ways.
Walking toward a vision
Walking toward a vision
We are solution driven – we value tangible and demonstrated success. We see where our farmers want to be, and we will focus on going and getting there. We value solutions informed by past practices in order to learn from the legacy of the work. We believe in bringing things into reality through meaningful impact.
Wholeness
Wholeness
We honor complete personhood, and seek non-transactional relationships with farmers and in our landscape to push back on a system that is predicated on exploitation and extraction, which is not about and for people. We believe that the farmer is more than their farm, and value everyone showing up as their full selves, supporting authentic humanity and cultivating relationships that honor this wholeness.
Uplifting voices from The margins
Uplifting voices from The margins
We value intention in decision-making and resourcing those in the margins – elders, young, women, disabled, and queer farmers. We believe in telling their stories in their voices, creating narratives that visualize and uplift their work, needs, and visions for themselves and their communities.
Bigger Than Us
Bigger Than Us
We recognize the work that we engage in is not just about this particular place and time. It is overlapping, connecting to the ancient agrarian past, and rippling forward across generations. We are building on our ancestral ecological and cultural knowledge, and root ourselves in the agrarian tradition, so that we can continue the thread forward, and contribute to the legacy.
Learn About Our Approach
