This episode explores how a Black led urban farming collective in Birmingham is transforming abandoned neighborhood lots into a community rooted food system that blends land stewardship, cultural connection, and cooperative practice. It focuses on: (1) the cooperative’s land strategy, which has grown from a backyard garden into 11 farmed lots across Fountain Heights, acquired through neighbor relationships and city processes, with a long term goal of activating 119 lots to feed the neighborhood; (2) the collective of farmers, apprentices, and volunteers who steward the land, drawing on shared cultural experiences, a commitment to healing through the Earth, and a strong ethic of mutual care that supports both individual farm businesses and the collaborative as a whole; (3) the business model, where an LLC with fiscal sponsorship operates a joint CSA called We All Eat, collaborates with six other farms, accepts EBT and Double Up Bucks, and reinvests revenue into infrastructure, labor, and a forthcoming Heart of the Farm building that will include wash pack space, cold storage, a market, and apprenticeship housing; (4) the governance and conflict navigation practices, including a Neighborhood Advisory Council, annual healing workshops with the Aya Institute, shared systems for tracking farm tasks, and a culture that prioritizes direct communication, collective well being, and community accountability; and (5) the lessons emerging from urban farming at scale, including navigating restrictive ordinances and costly resurveying, building soil on former house sites, balancing ambitious food access goals with realistic capacity, and designing a long term cooperative structure that can support future farmers while keeping land in community centered production.

• Transcript of complete interview
• Fountain Heights Farm website