The National Black Food & Justice Alliance (NBFJA) recognizes that Black farmers are in a state of emergency having been drastically reduced in the United States by an estimated 98% over the past century. In response and under the tutelage of Blackademics, the research arm of NBFJA comprised of academic and research partners, a critical need has been identified for an institution - an agroecological hub - to grow and expand practices, develop innovative solutions, and provide cross-institutional support for our land grant institutions and future generations of land stewards to carry forward the food system and climate resilience our communities need and deserve. We are proud to announce the launch of the inaugural agroecology center at Florida A&M University, the Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology.
Although Black and Indigenous farmers in this country have generational roots in regenerative agriculture, our farmers, students and research institutions have been saturated with conventional practices and corporate incentives. We see this center, the first projected in the next 20 years, as a critical intervention in research, training and steering the next generation of farmers and land stewardship practices away from extraction and harm and towards practices that will recover our systems, heal our communities and lend towards the remediation of climate catastrophes. The Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology will support sustainable food systems for Black and other marginalized communities in Florida and the Black Belt region, while also playing a central role in galvanizing forces at FAMU to build an educational environment around climate justice and socioeconomic justice for Black communities.
Named after local land stewards and champions of sustainable agriculture, Lola Hampton and Frank Pinder, the center will provide an interdisciplinary space, a think tank, where Black farmers and underserved small farmer voices, needs, ideas, challenges, strategies are discussed together with scholarship and research to promote relevant changes and policy recommendations as a part of the solutions. The result will enable the dissemination of learning from the insights and brilliance of our ancestors, elders, and scholars, to carry forward intergenerational, (agri)cultural exchange of knowledge critical to our resilience and survival today and into the future.