Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Got to get up early on the farm. It's time
for black people to connect to the soil.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And so we have to get back to the land
so that we can make sure we can sustain ourselves
and our future generations. And we have to do that
through owning land and farmula.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
We're on the acres of land owned by farmer Patrick Muhammad.
He's young Black and never owned a farm before.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
We had no lawnmowers, I didn't have the right tools,
and we just stepped out on faith. We knew God
would lead us and guide us. And since that part
and time, we've gone from thirty one acres, we've got
up to forty cows, it's about sixty sheep, about twenty horses,
(00:49):
hundreds of chickens.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
You get the idea, we're on black land, in blackland,
and now as a brown person, you just feel so
invisible where we're from.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I welcome you to this joyful and day.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We celebrate freedom.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Where we are, I know someone's heard something and where
we're going. We the people means all the people.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
The black information that work presents Blackland with your host
Vanessa Tyler.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Some of us have land and our family not as
much as we used to. Patrick Muhammad knows the value
of land economically and spiritually. He owns your Faith Farms
in Georgia. Patrick, welcome, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It's such an honor to be with you today to
discuss our land journey.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Talk about the connection of black people owning their own land.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well, you know, this current generation is a generation where
our parents ran away from the farms, and so they
encourage us to go to school, get a degree, and
get a good job. And so we lost a huge
connection to the land and the value of the land.
(02:13):
And so it's important that in today's time those skills
are necessary to sustain life. We see in the news
every day where companies are being called out for adding
different chemicals to the foods. We see all the recalls,
we see all the shortages, and we do not want
(02:35):
to be solely dependent on someone outside of our community
to feed us.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Farmer Mohammad says, there is a spiritual connection for us to.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Oh absolutely, I can tell you this. I didn't realize,
you know, growing up in the concrete jungle. I grew
up in East St. Louis, Illinois. I'm proud East Saint
Louis resident and I went on to school in Kentucky
and I moved to Atlanta. And so with the hustle
and bustle you know, of the city and trying to
move up the corporate ladder, we're never present. We're alive,
(03:10):
but we're not present. The land allows you to get
in tune with Mother Nature, and ultimately mother nature is
an essence of God. And so being on the land
and knowing that those sounds that you hear are the
(03:30):
rhythm of the earth. Those animals, those insects, those vegetables,
they all submit to the immediate nature they were created
to be. Right. The bee doesn't say, you know what,
I'm gonna fly at night because it's cooler, Right, it
follows what it was created to do. The butterflies, the hummingbirds,
(03:53):
and so when you can be still and understand the
beauty and the bounties of God, then you can appreciate
having dominion but not dominance.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Well, you're called the principal farmer, and you are a
black farmer. Really on an entirely different level. Talk about
your land, the scope of your farm, and how you
acquired so much land.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yes, so my wife and I were in a conversation
with my dad, and he was saying, you know, you
can't leave your children that principal's parking space. He said,
what are you going to do where your children can
benefit for your hard work? And so we began to
study wealth in America, and all wealthy families at some
(04:40):
point had a farm inside their portfolio, and so we
wanted to duplicate that. And we didn't know where to go,
right And so I couldn't call on my dad, granddad, cousins, uncles,
because nobody in my family has land. And so we
did our little research and basically got pre qualified and
(05:01):
stepped out on faith and bought thirty one acres with
no experience.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Here he is giving a tour of the land.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Here's my pollinator garden. That's our country store. See up
there on the top where it says Hillslide Farm. Up there,
that's our growing farm.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
The Muhammad's farm is called Your Faith Farms, and it
is not located in the stick somewhere, but the Georgia
farm is twelve minutes from Atlanta's airport. What is the
state of black owned farms today?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Oh? Right, now, we're struggling. As you know, there are
many lawsuits that are out there, and too often we've
been picked apart by some of these quote unquote opportunities
where some may get some money and skimming off the
top and some get no money. And so as a country,
(05:53):
black farmers are struggling to maintain the legacy farms. There's
not that many legacy farms left. We're losing acreage, hundreds
of thousands of acreage every year from taxes from nobody
in the family wants to continue the legacy.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Farmer Patrick Muhammad says, something is changing. Just like a
seed in the ground, something is growing.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
There is an uptick and this next generation that's interested
in getting back at this space, and I think a
lot of it is due to the food that's out
there right this generation with this social media. You know,
if you show someone like, hey, this hamburger was purchased
two weeks ago and I said it in this window
(06:39):
seal and it looks the same way two weeks ago.
These children are smart. They start to think about, then
that can't be something that's good for my body because
it's going to do the same thing. And so we
have something I call regenerational for me. That's where the
older generation and the younger generation are now back through
(07:01):
the land and agriculture, and so yes, we have ways
to go. These lads fifty to sixty years have really
robbed us of a lot of our land. But I
can tell you there is an uptick, and I want
my voice to be a voice that encourages families to
do it.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
He's encouraging us to get back on the land. Even
the city slickers who never could keep a houseplant should start.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Since twenty fourteen, with my wife and I acquiring our land,
we have personally helped over thirty families move from their
subdivision from their townhouses to where they're living on forums
right now and changing their family's life. And if each
one teach one, then they're going to share the same reality.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And like seedlings, he's cultivating black children because he also
runs an agriculture school, the Chattahoochee Hill Charter School. He's
the principal, thus the nickname the Principal Farmer.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Hello, everyone, welcome to chatting to your charter school. I'm Kendell.
I've been a student here since kindergarten. This is our farm.
After scenes I've grown to seedlings. We transport them to
the farm to be harvest school.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
In our agriculture class, we learn about the sinces of
farming for our bountiful harvest. Like Kendall, the students here
are bright and learning modern farming with the technology of today.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
So my wonderful eleven acre campus of five hundred and
forty children, we get a chance to study art, agriculture
and environment every day and they do that with the
principal farmer.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
That is amazing. So you're making sure that there are
future farmers. Talk about a little more about that school.
So you basically acquired the school, But who are the
children there? Are these children interested in becoming farmers, are environmentalists?
Who are the kids who choose to go there?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
That's a wonderful question. My student we pour from seven
cities inside of Fulton County, which is one of the
counties of Metro Atlanta, and so there's a lottery. So
these are families that have reviewed our school and looked
at our history and looked at our model and said
(09:17):
I want to place my child in that school. And
so I believe that one of the reasons our families
we have a ninety nine percent retention rate. I believe
that our families know that we believe that every child
is the most important child. I don't have numbers, I
(09:38):
have children. I have five hundred and forty children that
I claim as my children. And my staff has the
same sentiments. And so what makes our school unique is
we are focused on developing the whole child. Yes, we
have to have the test scores that we have to
jump to. Yes we have to cover the math, science,
social studies. In addition to that, we have to work
(10:03):
on the social emotional learning of our children in this
day and time. And so on our campus, we have
access to eight hundred and twenty acres of natural hiking
trails where we go hiking at least once a month.
On our campus, we have rabbits to goads, to chickens,
to livestock, dogs, to horses and miniature horses to attack us.
(10:23):
We have a greenhouse, We have growing towers where every
child places a seed and grows a seed and then
plants it inside of the garden. And so what I
would say is the ideal child of our school is
that child that still has that imagining and wondering mind.
And we try our best to make every day the
(10:45):
greatest day of their educational experience.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
He says, the key is for his students to get
into college and get a little known scholarship.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
There are nineteen HBCUs in the country that are eighteen
ninety live and Grand collegests. These are colleges that were
set up with a focus on agriculture and their budgets
are inside of the USDA Form bill. Now, these nineteen
colleges have scholarships called the eighteen ninety Scholarship that goes
(11:17):
under applied for. In the State of Georgia, agriculture is
an eighty three billion dollar budget. Over fifty three thousand
jobs are associated with agriculture in the State of Georgia,
and so we have to make sure that our children
(11:39):
get an opportunity for a little bit of those chances.
And so we are lining our children up and showing
them the beautiful parts and aspects of agriculture, not just
planting seeds, but the AI technology that's necessary, the drone
technology is necessary, the legal help that's necessary in the
(12:00):
agriculture space, the science, the chemistry, the culinary. So our
goal is to expose them to as many opportunities that
are out there, and if they do choose a path,
then we know that they have some real life experience
from their time at our school that will aid them
in their future aspirations. And so I see in my
(12:22):
children's strategic solutionists. I see in my children children who
try to make sure they leave every interaction better than
they found it. I see in my children those that
want to plant positivity into their interactions. And so that's
our focus to guide them to become that home person,
so that as they enter into this adulthood, they're making
(12:45):
a bigger impact in society because they're mindful of their
place in society.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
He is a farmer and under the right condition, he
knows what he plants will grow.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
See when you put that seed in the ground, that's
no gary teeth that seed's gonna do anything but sit
dormit in the ground. But faith allows you to believe
that if I give this seed the right environment, if
I give this seed the right nourishment, the right light,
if I give this seed the right inspiration, then it's
(13:17):
gonna send a shoot down. And when it sends a
shoot down, it's gonna get the strength the foundation to
send a shoot up. And once they send that shoot up,
it's too late. Now it's ready to produce. So you
can have a harvest, and inside of that harvest, when
that plant knows that it's ready to end, it's gonna
push all of its energy to create seeds for the
(13:40):
next generation. And so forming allows us to know that's
the same thing we have to do for this generation.
We have to make sure before our time is winding up,
that we put all of our energy into this next generation,
so they will have a bountyful harvest, but they'll have
seeds to give to further generation.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
The Principal Farmer wants us to get a little soil
under our nails no matter where we are.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
But I will say this, no matter where you are,
if you're in a townhouse, you're in a high rise,
you have to start growing something, even if that's your herbs,
even if that's a tomato and a patio. You have
to get back to growing because that establishes faith.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Want to know more about the Principal Farmer, check out
his website Patrickmuhammat dot com. Also look for his TikTok
videos free during his animals and the Great Pyrenees dogs
he raises.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I think they're one of the greatest dogs for your
farm because they're very personable, but they are great protectors,
but they also are extremely caring, and they'll help the
sheep who just have the lamb and she's too tired
to get up, but they'll clean the baby lamb and
stay with it. So make sure that the coyotes and
turkey vultures don't come. And that's not something that the
(15:00):
principal farmers taught it. It's inside that nature. So the
more we get in tune with the nature that God
created for animals and ourselves, then we'll begin to witness
some of these miraculous gifts that we as human beings have.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Patrick Muhammad, the principal farmer, thank you for keeping us
connected to the earth.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Thank you and continue doing the marvelous job. You are
a voice that this generation needs to continue to listen
to because you are an inspiration to the masses.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I'm Vanessa Tyler. Please like and subscribe black Land. Join
me next week for a brand new episode.