SAAFON

SAAFON elevates the collective power, prosperity, and visibility of Black farmers committed to practicing and advancing ecologically sustainable practices.

Our core programming centers collective organizing and direct farmer support for intergenerational work with youth farmers and legacy landholders, and training in sustainable practices, all aimed at directly shifting the material conditions of our members and perpetuating Black agrarian legacy.  

SAAFON’s 179 members include farmers across the U.S. Southeast and Virgin Islands who are certified-organic, naturally-grown, ancestral, heritage, regenerative, biodynamic, and agroecological. We prioritize Black and Indigenous leadership among our staff, programs, and board of directors, as evident in our organization’s structure and demographics: an overwhelming majority identify as Black/African American and reflect the diverse tapestry of contemporary farmers: young, elder, queer, land-owning, landless, seasoned, novice, commercial, and transitional growers. SAAFON’s methodology is rooted in a Black Southern agrarian politic that identifies the renewal and reactivation of ancestral land practices as a way forward for generations of Black communities to come. 

SAAFON’s major strategies to build power with and for Black elder landowners, small farms and textile companies, young and/or landless farmers, and other Black agrarians across the South include farmer support, movement building and cultural preservation:

1. Farmer Support of infrastructure, capacity building and training, and emergency disaster response needs, as informed by farmers’ indication of their farm goals.
2. Movement Building through webs of connection and mutual aid, co-developed with Black land and agriculture organizations that reflect communal self-determination; and
3. Cultural Preservation and amplification of the voices and stories of Black farmers, uplifting the histories of Black Agrarianism and afro-ecology in the South.