Episode 10: There is Healing in the Soil: Connecting Back to the Land and Using Food as Medicine

Healing While Black Podcast

In this episode, we have a conversation about how being connected to the land and healthy food systems can support healing and well-being for the Black community.

Quiana and Misty speak with special guests, Dr. Chemine Castor and Camille Hall, who are both members of ECO City Farm’s Growing Urban Farms and Farmers Program.

Dr. Castor and Camille share their unique perspectives as Black women farmers and about the great work they are doing around food justice and education and what it means to reconnect Black folks to the land. They also shed some light on ways farming can and has historically contributed to the nutritional, physical, mental, economic and communal health of Black folks.

Thank you all for joining us. Let us know what you think about this episode. Follow us on instagram @hwbpodcast. You can also email us at [e-mail].

About our Guests:

Dr. Chimene Castor, Ph.D., EdD, RDN, LDN, CHES, FAND, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences in the College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences at Howard University. Dr. Castor is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist(RDN) with 20 years of experience working in hospitals, Nursing homes, and the community. She is also a certified health education specialist (CHES), Diabetes Prevention Lifestyle Coach, and Advanced Certified Telehealth Professional (ACTTP). Dr. Castor specialized in the prevention of pre-diabetes and management of diabetes and diabetes-related complications in Black women. She worked in several countries to address nutritional health, such as South Africa, Kenya, Jamaica, Haiti, Tobago, Ghana, Benin, and Togo. Dr. Castor is the founder of Sowing Seeds Inc. non-profit organization working to provide nutrition and educational support to children in Haiti and Kenya. Dr. Castor is also the owner of Complete Nutrition Therapy and Counseling, LLC. Her mission is to provide comprehensive nutritional education using a plan-based approach to healing chronic health diseases. Learn more about her work at: www.thecompletenutrition.com

Camille Hall has led a career in the beauty and entertainment industry for the past 10 years. After moving to NYC in 2009 she explored many creative outlets by modeling for beauty and clothing brands and DJing in nightclubs. A chance meeting with an old family friend led her to a career behind the scenes in the beauty industry and ultimately to her current role at Milk Makeup.

Camille moved back to her hometown of Silver Spring, MD in 2019. She connected with old friends and has started a social club called Shanklin Hall, which produces dynamic cultural experiences for people of color to congregate, collaborate, and celebrate. Living outside of an urban environment like NYC also encouraged her to understand the basics of growing her own food and how farming might further develop her love of art and nature. Joining ECO City Farms is the first step in a new journey to land stewardship and land ownership.

About ECO City Farms & The Beginning Farmer Education Program:

ECO City Farms is a nonprofit urban teaching and learning farm in Prince George’s County that grows great food, farms and farmers in ways that protect, restore and sustain the natural environment and the health of local communities. Working with area children, youth and adults, ECO educates and trains the next generation of urban farmers and eaters.

ECO City Farm’s Growing Urban Farms and Farmers Program is a 10-month-long training program designed to help aspiring, new, or beginning farmers learn about farming– from the ground up. The program uses a culturally­-appropriate curriculum that incorporates everything from hands­-on experiences to mentoring to crop production to business and administrative skills and more. Upon completing the program graduates earn a Certificate of Urban Commercial Agriculture and continuing education credits.

Learn more about programs of ECO City Farms and how you can get involved here!

This podcast series “Farming While Black” is created by Healing While Black, LLC as a partnership with the Healing While Black Podcast and ECO City Farms with special funding from the USDA-financed Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Training Program. Every effort has been made to appropriately credit the sources. The content of this podcast episode reflects the opinions and experiences of the speakers and podcast hosts and does not necessarily reflect the views of ECO City Farms or USDA.