Leah Penniman is a farmer and food sovereignty activist who cofounded Soul Fire Farm near Grafton, New York, in 2010. Penniman was born in 1980 to Adele Smith, an African American woman and a White father in Central Massachusetts. Penniman’s parents divorced at an early age. At age 16, Penniman began farming, working with The Food Project in Boston, Massachusetts. The Food Project is a non-profit organization that focuses on education about health, leadership, charity, and sustainable agriculture. The organization is also known for employing urban teenagers on farms and for community building.
Penniman attended Clark University, a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. She received her BA in Environmental Science and International Development in 2002. She received her MA in Science Education at Clark University in 2003. After graduating, Penniman lived in a food desert in Albany, New York, and worked on the U.S. Government-sponsored Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
In 2006, 26-year-old Penniman purchased 72 acres of land in Grafton, New York, to cofounded what would become Soul Fire Farm in 2010. The Soul Fire Farm’s purpose was to end racism and injustice in the food system. The organization adopted its name from a song, Soulfire, by Jamaican musician Lee “Cratch” Perry.
Penniman worked at the Food Project, Farm School, and Many Hands Organic Farm before starting Soul Fire Farm. She also worked internationally with farmers in Ghana, Haiti, and Mexico. Penniman served as a science teacher at University Park Campus School in Worcester, Massachusetts, Tech Valley High School in Rensselaer, New York, and Darrow School in New Lebanon, New York. She was also a founding director of the Harriet Tubman Democratic High School in Albany, New York.
In 2018, Penniman published a book called Farming While Black, which was designed to create sustainable, equitable, profitable, and dignified relationships with food that historically disenfranchised communities, including especially African Americans, eat and the land that produces the food. The Soros Racial Justice Fellowship, Fullbright Program, the Presidential Award for Science Teaching, NYS Health Emerging Innovator Awards, and the Andrew Goodman Foundation have all recognized Penniman’s work with Soul Force Farm.
In 2019, Penniman was awarded the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award for facilitating food sovereignty programs. Penniman identifies her sexuality as being genderqueer. She is in a relationship with a partner, Jonah Vitale-Wolff, and they have two children, Neshima and Emet Vitale-Penniman.