Urban Farming is Activism for the Women of Soul Fresh Farms

By Diana Turnbow, research assistant for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum  
 

Mia Jones is an activist, urban farmer, and entrepreneur from Springfield, Missouri. Her business, Soul Fresh Farms, grows and distributes microgreens to individuals and restaurants in her city. She started farming after organizing a community garden in Springfield. Jones is also the Founder and CEO of United Community Change, a nonprofit organization leading investment in equality, economic empowerment, and social justice. Healthy food access is part of the mission of United Community Change.

Jones recently participated in the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s program The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region. Federal funds from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool supported the activities of Jones and her mother, Sharon Jones, at the festival. In addition to participating in several festival panels, they ran a booth that guided visitors in preparing their own small trays of microgreen seeds while sharing their stories.  

Diana Turnbow, Research Assistant with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum had a chance to speak with Mia Jones during the festival. 

What made you decide to focus on food as part of your mission?

When looking for a focus point for my nonprofit organization, we went through a lot of different things because we were in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement. I was really trying to focus on the issues that were going to help people at a local level within the marginalized communities. I wanted to focus on things that had an immediate impact on our communities. 

I had to reflect on myself and my family and then I connected most with my brother’s situation. He had come out of prison and was going through a tough time. I found a garden and it was like mental therapy. It was mental therapy. I pushed my brother in that direction, and we would do it together.

During COVID and all the chaos that came with it, I realized that marginalized people are too dependent on other people to get our food and other basic necessities.  And for many African Americans food is a form of work—it’s how we earn a living. But we don’t own any of it. 

When I was in that garden space it just started coming to me. I was praying to God and He was saying: 

“Lead people to this space. Lead people to this space so that they can have freedom. Freedom to grow by understanding themselves. Freedom to grow food and decrease their expenses so they can have more income for their families.  Bring people to this space so that they can learn how to become entrepreneurs and not be so dependent on the community but allow the community to be dependent on them. And they can network and make new connections and create a better life for themselves under a different lens.”  

Agriculture and farming and gardening did that. I found it to be a solution for us.

Can you share your observations about African Americans working in agriculture? Why are there so few African American farmers today?

I know through conversations that I’ve had with others that African Americans relate agriculture with trauma not only because of its history with slavery and sharecropping, but because of the structural racism that has impacted landownership and financial self-sufficiency. The promise of “40 acres and a mule” negotiated by African American representatives at the end of the Civil War was short-lived.1 

So anytime you bring up the topic “Hey, get out in the garden with me,” it’s a little push that you have to give and little convincing that you have to do to get them there. But once they’re in that space they fall in love, and they start to heal, and they start to connect with even their own family.  They start calling people they haven’t talked to in a long time. It’s a beautiful thing. 

This is the connection that I need to bring back to people—especially African Americans and marginalized individuals—to feed themselves and become a part of nature again. To experience being one with nature and their own cultural differences. We as African Americans have a lot of power within us. We have been compelled to do so much for other people that we haven’t yet been able to do things for ourselves.  

What were some of the challenges you encountered as you combined gardening with activism?

I was growing food in our community garden and delivering it to the neighbors surrounding me, and it was making a really big impact. I wanted to see it continue, along with growing my organization, United Community Change. However, we didn’t own the property where the garden was located. 

I was getting a lot of offers of assistance, but the individuals and groups weren’t really giving back as much as I felt I was giving. Even though I wanted to help, it was pushing me away from the goals that I had, rather than pushing me forward in my vision. Since we couldn’t continue to use the garden property, I thought about how we could readjust to establish ownership or at least a location where we would have full control over our decisions. I’m a big advocate of pushing forward. And so are African American people as we know in history.  There is no way to stop us. If something doesn’t work, we have learned innately to just figure it out and keep it moving forward. 

You now own your own small business, Soul Fresh Farms, where you grow and sell microgreens through memberships.  Can you talk about how you came to be a producer and distributor of microgreens?

So, I went researching and I came across a program on microgreens. I had never heard of microgreens. But the initial investment was doable, and I decided to give it a try because it would allow me to continue the work that I was trying to do.  And not only that, it would fund my family. I was a single mother with three children, and I was working for people for free in the nonprofit world.  I wanted to keep the passion and mission going, but I also needed to make a little bit of money.

I was so excited when I grew my first microgreen tray. Not only was I excited for myself, I also became excited for my brother. He had been in a farming program apprenticeship but was let go due to difficulties with transportation and taking time off to sign in with his parole officer. These are obstacles that formerly incarcerated people often encounter. It was hard to understand why more wasn’t done to help him complete the apprenticeship. There were many judgements that left him feeling discouraged and labeled, rather than supporting his success. 

But with the microgreens, I felt like it was a way to recreate that learning experience for my brother. He got excited and found hope again, and we started doing it. 

We got the business running and quickly found our customers. Through memberships we deliver four types of microgreens on either a monthly, or a weekly basis to our customers’ doorsteps. 

I am excited about microgreens because it does exactly what my organization, United Community Change wanted, which was to take individuals like myself, in the marginalized community, and empower them to be an asset to the community. I have lots of people, restaurants and stores reaching out and wanting to use our product. And that’s very empowering all around, because we are not just helping ourselves, we’re helping the community as a whole. We are being looked at in a different lens, which is the goal.

¹See Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Donald Yacovone, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (2013), pages 128-130, to learn about the resources initially granted to African Americans at the end of the Civil War. 

The 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival received Federal support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.