The Therapeutic Power of Growing Food in New Orleans
For Jonshell Johnson-Whitten, a staff member at Grow Dat Youth Farm, working on the land brings healing and strength.
By Nijah Narcisse
When Jonshell Johnson-Whitten was pregnant with her second child in late 2020 and early 2021, she knew the healthiest option for her was being outside and working the produce fields at Grow Dat Youth Farm in New Orleans City Park.
Johnson-Whitten experienced extreme and persistent nausea and vomiting during her pregnancy, a condition known as hyperemesis gravidarum. At the time, she was taking three different types of nausea medication to manage what felt like “morning sickness times 100,” Johnson-Whitten said. Family and friends urged her to stay inside and get bed rest, but her symptoms were less severe when she was walking around the farm, she said.
“It was the healthiest thing for me because I was able to be outside in fresh air, accessing fresh food,” said Johnson-Whitten, now a mother of a 4-year-old and an 8-month-old.
I spent time with Johnson-Whitten on the Grow Dat farm on a Saturday morning in November 2021. She now works as the nonprofit’s education coordinator helping to teach agriculture to local youth. I remember walking onto the farm with Ejaaz Mason, co-founder of Lede New Orleans, and Alec Devaprasad, another community reporting fellow, and smelling the fresh thyme beds and catching a glimpse of a Comma butterfly. A group of small tangerine trees welcomed us into the farm offices. I could see what Johnson was talking about.
Grow Dat is a nonprofit dedicated to nurturing young leaders through the work of growing food. The organization runs a two-acre sustainable farm, growing and harvesting roughly 32,000 pounds of fresh produce each year. Most of that is sold to the community and at local farmer’s markets. A third is distributed to low-income residents through its Shared Harvest program.
When I arrived on the farm, the staff was holding interviews with future youth farmers, young people who come on weekends and after school to learn how to farm. While the program is focused on youth, I quickly realized the adults there serve as leaders and inspiration to fellow farmers as well as the broader community.
Johnson-Whitten and I found a quiet space on the second floor of Grow Dat’s farm office, and started talking. I remember it felt like we were sitting in a treehouse. I learned so much about her. Her first experience with urban agriculture was as a teenager at a community garden in the Lower 9th Ward, where she grew up. Now 24, a wife and a mother, she wants to pass her knowledge about growing food on to others in her community and her family members.
“We deserve to own our own land. We deserve to have power over what we’re eating, how we’re eating,” Johnson said.
Getting that message across isn’t always easy. Johnson-Whitten, who is Black, said her grandmother still has trouble understanding why she would choose to work in agriculture when her ancestors were forced to work in fields as enslaved people.
“Why would you do that now? It’s 2021. You could do an office job,” Johnson-Whitten recalled her grandmother asking her.
Talking about farming can be complicated and triggering, but Johnson-Whitten still feels it’s a conversation worth having. She finds it healing when she can call attention to the positives of her work, like knowing how to grow bell peppers and tomatoes at home.
“I’m a part of that therapeutic process,” Johnson-Whitten said.
After visiting Grow Dat, I have to agree with her. The knowledge that is spread on the farm and its impact on New Orleans and its people is powerful and healing. At the farm, I saw people of color taking back the land and empowering themselves. I saw the opposite of enslavement. I saw freedom.
After our interview, I decided to follow Johnson-Whitten to a team meeting, or what the staff there calls a “debrief circle.” Johnson-Whitten and other team members formed a circle and shared how their mornings went, one after another. They laughed and smiled at me as I walked around the perimeter of the circle, trying to get the right framing for a shot.
As I watched the circle break and walk toward lunch at the Grow Dat building nearby, I was struck by how powerful this place was. There’s a lot of power in knowing how to grow your own food, Johnson-Whitten pointed out.
“I’m just grateful to be a part of the continuous learning,” she said. “Food is such a pivotal part of anybody’s life, so when you’re in charge of getting some of that for free if you can grow it and help others… that’s really powerful.”
Nijah Narcisse is a Fall 2021 Community Reporting Fellow. Narcisse was born and raised in Algiers, and studied film at Dillard University. She is a filmmaker, writer and storyteller based in New Orleans.
This article is available to republish under a Creative Commons license. Read Lede New Orleans’ publishing guidelines here.
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