Food Justice As a Path Toward Abolition

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Farmer and activist Leah Penniman, who runs Soul Fire Farm in upstate New York, calls herself an abolitionist. While food justice may seem unrelated to abolition, Penniman sees them as intimately linked.

Penniman, who is the author of the acclaimed book Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, is one of 12 abolitionists featured in the new book Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World Is Possible, written by YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar. Kolhatkar’s conversation with the food justice activist, featured on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali, focuses on restoring people’s deep connections to land and growing our own food. 

Penniman asks the question: What if we decarcerated our people and our food simultaneously, relying on the life-giving possibilities of land stewardship while rejecting the death-making institutions of policing and imprisonment?