A Biodynamic Farm and Training Center for Black and Homeless People
Agrarian education and entrepreneurship
The Young Jupiter Afro-Tourism Center will be an Afro-cultural market garden, café, and community development center cooperatively led by a small but mighty collective of women and men of the African Diaspora newly residing in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
By growing and sharing ethnically diverse produce through an Afro-indigenous, biodynamic approach, we are growing leaders positioned to provide for the holistic health, education, and self-sufficiency of our Black and African immigrant community.
Biodynamic Agriculture
a holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming, gardening, food, and nutrition.
The term is credited to scientist and philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1924, but we as the descendants of African agricultural genius know that the understanding of the land from which we cultivate as a living, interconnected being dates back thousands of years earlier. Biodynamic agriculture describes the Afro-indigenous agricultural practices that place immense importance on soil fertility, biodiversity, a complete absence of “waste,” and a spiritually-rooted relationality with the living organism of the land.
What is Afro Tourism?
Afro-tourism is the love of African culture and history through the lens of the peoples of the African Diaspora who have come here and whose stories of struggle can be composted into expressions of resilience and joy. We build from the eco-tourism and agro-tourism frameworks to center and give back to present manifestations of Afro-indigenous cultural and technical relationship with the land. Together, we hope to restore what has been stolen from us by sharing our history, our love of being land stewards, and our love for building sustainable, resilient, and united communities.
A Community Center
We envision a farm-to-table the garden providing employment opportunity for 5-10 Black individuals. We will ground ourselves by putting our hands in the ground and cultivate the fruits of our dreams for the future as we cultivate the fruits of the land. We will find rhythm in collective work; fully engaging our body, mind, and spirit.
Education and Skills Training
Engaged community members will learn the necessity for our community to be involved in the process of fighting climate change by cultivating healthy food locally. We seek to create workshops teaching how to minimize the application of synthetic plant protection products and on-farm workshops showing how we will deviate from the practice of monoculture, widespread mechanization, and the contribution of agrochemicals.
Afro-Quizine
The Young Jupiter Afro-Tourism Center hopes to create an Afro-Quizine Café, Wedding Catering service, and On The Road Food Delivery where we can share the vibrant flavors and welcoming culture of African cuisine and hospitality. In the tradition of the Black ingenuity that brought us agro-economic models such as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and You-Pick markets, we hope to revive a culture of exchange where individuals who have participated in tending and harvesting will taste the enlivening flavors of Congolese and African cuisines in dishes using the ingredients they have harvested themselves.
“The YJWMAC seeks to restore black women and men’s connection to being land stewards. Grounded in the belief that tending to the land can be a restorative and emancipatory practice, the Women and men’s Afro Tourism Center will cultivate practices around re-friending our bodies, minds, and spirits through an Afro-Feminist approach to cultivating the land
— Leons Kabongo, Founder YJWMAC
Contact
Feel free to contact us with any questions.
Email
youngjupiterfarmmarket@gmail.com