Announcing the Launch of the Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology at Florida A&M University

Release Date: October 20, 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NBFJA & FAMU Announce the Launch of the Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Agroecology Center

(TALLAHASSEE, FL) - The National Black Food & Justice Alliance (NBFJA) and Florida A&M University (FAMU) are proud to announce the launch of the Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology. We recognize 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. 

This inaugural center at FAMU, the first projected in the next 20 years, is 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.

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 center will also develop local maps for food infrastructure and unearthing, recording, and preserving the food culture and foodways of Black, indigenous, and underserved farmers. The result will enable the dissemination of learning from the insights and brilliance of our ancestors, elders, and scholars, to carry forward intergenerational, agricultural exchange of knowledge critical to our resilience and survival today and into the future. 

Celebrations of the Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology launch will commence the weekend of November 11, 2022 on the campus of FAMU with a private dinner Friday night and a food and farm festival, FAMUly Roots, on Saturday that is open to the greater Tallahassee community.

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National Black Food and Justice Alliance 

The National Black Food & Justice Alliance (NBFJA) is a coalition of Black-led organizations working towards cultivating and advancing Black leadership, building self-determination, institution building and organizing for food sovereignty, and land justice. NBFJA currently has over 50 member organizations representing hundreds of urban and rural farmers, organizers, and land stewards based in eastern, Midwestern, southern and western regions of the U.S. NBFJA members are working together to build an intergenerational, urban/rural alliance of organizations to map, assess, train and deepen the organizing, institution building and advocacy work protecting Black land and advancing food sovereignty. 

NBFJA Blackademics 

Blackademics is the research arm of NBFJA comprised of academic and research partners to anchor projects supporting NBFJA member organization research needs. NBFJA Blackademics partners lead research, publish data and public messaging around Black farmers and communities’ regenerative practices and impacts, amidst climate change to inform the landscape and contribute to the popularization of sustainable agriculture foodways and practices. 

Florida A&M University 

Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University was founded in 1887 and is the premiere 1890 land grant institution serving Florida, South Georgia, and the Gulf Coast region. Prominently located on the highest hill in Florida’s capital city of Tallahassee, Florida A&M University remains the only historically Black university in the 11 member state university system of Florida. It is home to multiple institutions that will contribute substantially to the formation of the first, HBCU agroecology center. 

For press inquiries, please contact LeeAnn Morrissette: leeann@blackfoodjustice.org

Fundraising and development inquiries: grants@blackfoodjustice.org

Finance related inquiries: kenni@blackfoodjustice.org