(Birds chirping)
- I remember a time,
when me and Shantae started talking about our story,
there's so many people looked at us
with disbelief on their face.
They're like, so you're telling me you don't have any land,
you both quit your jobs,
you have six kids between the two of you,
and you think you're going to be a farmer in the city.
- Full-time - full-time.
(Shantae laughs)
And I was like you were like, yeah.
- Yeah (laughs) - Yeah.
That's exactly what we think.
- [Narrator] As unlikely as a dream sounded,
five years later Arthur shavers and Shantae Johnson
are still living it.
- These are huge (laughs).
- Shantae and myself wanted to switch
from urban living to move into the rural.
We wanted to learn how to homestead
and raise our kids in that kind of environment.
(tractor engine starts)
- [Narrator] The couple borrowed a half-acre plot
from the Oregon food bank
and began growing produce for a handful of local families.
But nourishing their community meant more
to them than just food.
(people laughing and pan frying)
- Are you going to eat all those peppers?
- I would probably eat a lot of all.
(Shantae laughing)
- We wanted to really help to incubate
agricultural businesses for black indigenous
and POC farmers.
That was important because there's not very many
black indigenous and POC farmers in Oregon
- [Narrator] POC or people of color make
up a tiny fraction of Oregon's farmers.
A 2017 USDA census counted more
than 67,000 farm producers in the state,
of that figure only 64 were black.
That lack of diversity has deepest historical roots.
In 1857, Oregonians voted
to specifically exclude African-Americans
from settling in the territory.
Black exclusion laws were enshrined
in the Oregon constitution until 1926
and effectively deterred black people from moving here.
- There was also the Oregon Donation Land Act, where
if you were white or half indigenous and half white
you could acquire 640 acres.
When you look at land, that's how people build
generational wealth.
- 640 acres given out for free to people who moved here.
I mean how impactful, how amazing could that have been?
If African-Americans were able to realize that.
(cork crows)
(footsteps)
- It's a lofty goal, but we really wanna re-imagine
what it looks like to be a black farmer
here in Oregon specifically.
- Let's start making the crisscross pattern like we do.
And then you guys comb through pop in garlic.
- [Narrator] Digging out every resource they could find.
Mudbone grown began training new farmers of color,
not just how to grow.
- The root down tail up just like that.
- Okey.
- [Narrator] But also the important step
of marketing their crops.
The next year, they teamed up with the local VA
to train veterans.
Kwame Bey was part of that first veteran
farming program at Mudbone.
- For me, the most important thing
about growing food really is the soil, the soil itself.
When you're in the military it kind of forms
a certain concept in your mind and some handle it well,
some don't do as well and then war on top of that.
But now we're back here in the States trying
to reform our lives.
This is whether I can kind of get that therapeutic aspect
by being in the dirt, touching the earth.
- Smells popily.
- If you really look at it, those that have a consideration
for the earth have a certain piece about them.
Those not acknowledging the beauty of the earth,
there seems to be some chaos going on.
- [Narrator] Mudbone sense of mission,
hard work and resourcefulness have won them grants
forged partnerships and open doors to farmers of color.
In 2018, that same combination secured them
a long-term lease on this 19 acre property near Corbett.
(bricks scratching metal)
- In the last two years, we've put in an access road
we built a greenhouse, we're building aquaponics,
we've opened up probably about eight acres,
where we have crops in, put in irrigation
throughout the whole thing.
It's has been a struggle, but we're just moving by faith.
We are putting everything we've got into this.
- [Narrator] 2020 turned out to be a year
that tested everyone's faith,
as the COVID-19 pandemic descended on the world outside,
Arthur and Shantae's farm, became a haven.
- Hey Fenix. - Hey.
We came here blind, right?
When the quarantine thing was starting,
and then coming here was just a lot less stressful
and a lot more rooted into doing the work.
I sleep better, that's the first thing,
it feels good out here, smells better (laughs).
- [Narrator] Fenix is here to learn the growing
and marketing skills he'll need to run
his own farm business one day.
- We'll look to see what the biggest heads are.
- Right now we are shadowing them by learning the way
things work, what to do's and what not to do
- My cut. - Ooh.
- And then I like to take the leaves off of this tip.
- I feel like I'm in the dojo
when I'm just watching my sensei's do they art.
- There's a lot of historical trauma
that people have around farming.
And there's a lot of people pushing away from that.
A lot of younger people that are like, well
I don't wanna be out in the field.
I don't wanna do that type of work.
But it is honorable work,
and reconnecting community to farming and growing food,
it's like you're helping to activate a seed within people.
All right, I think we're good (laughs).
- It's never not a good time,
even walking up the hill with 20 pounds squash,
it's still a good laugh.
(woman laughs)
Hot day is still a good laugh,
rainy day, still a good laugh.
- [Man] Yeah (laughs).
(woman speaking indistinctively)
- You know, they good peoples, they been looking out
and we just like enjoy the happiness
that's around them and around us.
(pig snorting)
- [Narrator] Where most businesses struggled
through the shutdown, Mudbone grown
was an Island of abundance.
- Okay.
- For this season, we really thought about
who in the community is being missed.
And when we both thought about it,
we thought it's, it's our elders.
And where can we find them?
Its the church.
- [Narrator] Mudbone grown partnered with Life Change Church
in Northeast Portland to supply 20 elders
with four weeks of fresh groceries.
- This one is missing tomato.
(indistinct woman voice)
- Yeah.
- We approached them and basically said, Hey
we have plenty of crops, plus we've got a little funding.
And so we were able to not only supply vegetables,
we would also purchase about $25 worth
of other goods per week for those 20 elders.
- We try to do things each week.
So there'll be ground beef, potatoes, onions,
celery, everything basically to make a meatloaf
and also some household items.
I think we're good.
Hi sister Joan
- I need to do my three people.
- Okay.
- [Narrator] Wanessa Lawrence and Barbara Perry
run the health and wellness program at Life Change Church.
- Oh good, they're here.
(car engine vibrates and cargo door opens)
We'll be working as a team today,
assisting mostly elderly, maybe disabled and
with the COVID-19 they're afraid to go to the stores.
So we're gonna take it to them.
(polythene crackles)
They're very excited and they love it.
It's these that they wanna eat every day
and it's healthy food.
- There's two there.
- Okey, thank you.
- They look forward to Tuesday (laughs).
(car engine vibrates)
Okay, everybody get four of that.
- I was very grateful that they said,
we're here we got extra here.
That was amazing to me.
- I know, I understand okey.
( Vickie cries)
You know what, it's okay, its okey.
- We appreciate it, thank.
- Yeah, you gonna make me cry stop.
- Its just happened being blessed so much,
and God is just showing me Himself.
(birds chirping)
- There's a weird thing that happens to me.
I can go through a day, have all kinds of challenges,
struggles, you know, my body aches.
But when I wake up the next day,
sometime I have to try really hard to remember
what were the things that really would bother me
the day before, because I wake up every day,
refreshed, ready to start again.
I feel like there is something healing about sleeping
under the stars, listening to these crickets
and playing with this earth
and microorganisms all over me every day.
(woman laughs)
I feel like it is doing something internally.
- We really love what we do
and, we are gonna farm probably till the day that we die.
(Shantae sighs)
We have a genuine love for the land and for people
and building community, just the support along the way
from so many different community partners and people.
And that's what really fuels us to keep going.
Even in our hardest moments,
we never ever wanna be the only ones at the table.
And so we reach our hands out to invite more people
in to this movement around farming.