zzzzWe Are Each Other's Harvest

Natalie Baszile

$23.99 Regular price $29.99

In the early decades following enslavement, there were nearly one million Black farmers; today there are just 45,000, having lost 14 million acres of land. Black farming informs crucial aspects of American culture — strengthening the family, binding our national identity to the land, and healing our communities with food, empowerment, and self-determination. However, this legacy has been at risk for decades, and Black farmers continue to contend with discrimination from the United States Department of Agriculture and land loss due to the informal passing of land from generation to generation. 

As Baszile reveals, black farming informs crucial aspects of American culture—the family, the way our national identity is bound up with the land, the pull of memory, the healing power of food, and race relations. She reminds us that the land, well-earned and fiercely protected, transcends history and signifies a home that can be tended, tilled, and passed to succeeding generations with pride. We Are Each Other’s Harvest elevates the voices and stories of black farmers and people of color, celebrating their perseverance and resilience, while spotlighting the challenges they continue to face. Luminous and eye-opening, this eclectic collection helps people and communities of color today reimagine what it means to be dedicated to the soil.

Copyright 2021, hardcover, 352 pages.

About the Author:

Natalie Baszile is the author of the novel Queen Sugar, which was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2014, longlisted for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and adapted for television by writer/director Ava DuVernay and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey for OWN. Baszile holds a M.A. in Afro-American Studies from UCLA and is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers. She lives in San Francisco.

Praise for We Are Each Other's Harvest:

“We Are Each Other’s Harvest offers moving, edifying food for thought and will whet your appetite for action.” -BookPage

“Journeying from Alaska to Louisiana to Napa Valley, We Are Each Other’s Harvest uplifts the voices of Black farmers, honoring their perseverance and resilience. This insightful, eye-opening collection helps to reimagine what it means to be dedicated to the land.” -Alice Waters, chef, author, food activist, owner of Chez Panisse and founder of The Edible Schoolyard Project

“Black, brown and tan hands in dark rich loamy soil or in sandy shoals have been a part of the agricultural life of this country since its inception. Yet, all too often, the stories of African American farmers have remained unharvested. In We Are Each Other’s Harvest, Natalie Baszile reaps a bounty of tales and shares them along with photographs, history, poetry, and more. This is a must-have volume for anyone who revers that land and those who work it.”  -Jessica B. Harris, Ph.D., Culinary Historian, Professor, and author of My Soul Looks Back

Free Podcast

My Farmer, My Customer

New! Learn from Marty Travis's experiences converting the Spence Farm into one of the most successful farming co-ops in the United States today.