Sorghum! Community Call with the Staple Crop Growers Network

The Staple Crop Growers Network  is a community of farmers, gardeners, and food system advocates across the Midwest learning together about staple crops—the calorically dense, versatile crops that connect us to our heritage and nourish our communities every day.

The Staple Crop Growers Network is a project of Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, in partnership with Fresher Together, the Fondy Food Center, and Michigan Food and Farming Systems. This collaboration is supported by funding from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The 2026 Staple Crop Community Call series continues with a look at sorghum, a major staple crop (one of the top five cereals) grown and consumed around the world. This crop holds cultural importance in Africa and India, as well as in African American diaspora communities and the abolitionist movement. Learn from Chelsea Askew (Georgia, Truelove Seeds), Jalal Sabur  (New York, Sweet Freedom Farm), and Jon Kasza (New York, Home Farm) about their experiences growing, processing, and marketing sorghum for grain and syrup production in their communities. Our conversation will center on the cultural importance of sorghum and the small-scale approaches and innovations used when adding sorghum to fields and farm businesses.

This webinar is part of an ongoing series focused on the food crops that sustain us, connect us to our heritage, and help us adapt to changing climates and food systems. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and share experiences from the field. Learn more about the Staple Crop Growers Network at michaelfields.org/staplecrops

Participants will also connect with fellow farmers, and resource providers from Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, Michigan Food & Farming Systems, Fondy Food Center, and Fresher Together. Together, we’ll learn about upcoming workshops, training opportunities, and available one-on-one support. You’ll also be introduced to USDA programs that may be a good fit for your farm business.

Speakers

• Chelsea Askew grew up in Peavine, Georgia as the 5th generation on her family's farm, where her love of growing grits began. She has farmed numerous plots in Southern Appalachia over the years with heavy emphasis on growing regionally adapted, high calorie, and culturally significant varieties that have been handed down from dear family members and neighbors who share in the love of seed preservation. Chelsea is also a wood-fired baker and is quite passionate about intercropping old varieties of grains and legumes for use on a small scale. Growing corn, beans, and squash, inspired by the Three Sisters tradition, is her first love. She currently grows for Trulove Seeds.

  
  

• Jalal Sabur Jalal (he/we/us/beloved) - In 2010, Jalal began farming with Wassaic Community Farm – growing produce for farmers markets while running a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and gleaning project. While at Wassaic Community Farm Jalal co-founded the Freedom Food Alliance and the Victory Bus Project. The Freedom Food Alliance is a collective of small rural and urban farmers, activists, artists, community folks and political prisoners who use food as an organizing tool. The Alliance founded the Victory Bus Project to connect urban and rural communities and to support families of prisoners by providing transportation (along with a box of farm-fresh food) for folks visiting prisoners in the Hudson Valley. In 2013, Jalal started Sweet Freedom Farm to grow and aggregate vegetables, grains, herbs, and maple syrup, prioritizing the folks impacted by the prison system. Sweet Freedom is also a training site for young Black farmers,  a gathering space for partnering projects in the alliance, and building a Grow Food, Not Prison movement.

  
  

• Jon Kasza is an organic farmer producing vegetables, seed and grain on his farm, Home Farm, in the Hudson Valley of New York State. He is committed not only to growing food at scale to feed his community but also to cultivating seed sovereignty, where farming communities maintain control over the genetic futures of their staple crops. He and his team are working to revive genetic diversity in staple crops for climate resilience—rice, wheat, rye, vegetables, buckwheat, and more—through population breeding. By stewarding regionally adapted, genetically diverse gene pools, they are aiming to cultivate regional resilience for small farms in the region. Jon was born in Ohio to a family of hard working Western New Yorkers. He worked on farms in Kansas, Florida and Maryland before returning to his roots in Upstate New York.

This event is free to attend, but registration is required to get the Zoom link. Can’t make it live? Sign up anyway and we’ll send you the recording!

Language interpretation (Spanish, Hmong) is available upon request. Please indicate your need for interpretation on the event registration form, or by emailing Christine Johnson (cjohnson@michaelfields.org) by April 9th.

Interpretación en español y hmong disponible a solicitud. Por favor, indique si necesita interpretación en el formulario de registro del evento o enviando un correo electrónico a Christine Johnson (cjohnson@michaelfields.org) antes del 9 de abril.

Muaj kev txhais lus Mev (Spanish) thiab lus Hmoob yog muaj raws li thov. Thov qhia tias koj xav tau kev txhais lus rau hauv daim ntawv sau npe rau qhov kev tshwm sim no, lossis xa email rau Christine Johnson (cjohnson@michaelfields.org).

About Michael Fields Agricultural Institute

Michael Fields Agricultural Institute is a non-profit organization that has been cultivating resiliency through research, education, and policy work since 1984. With a broad coalition of public and private partners, MFAI supports farmers, food systems and communities in the Upper Midwest and beyond through a range of programs and initiatives. Follow along on Instagram and Facebook for the latest news and events. Learn more and join us at michaelfields.org.

About Michigan Food and Farming Systems (MIFFS)

MIFFS is a statewide nonprofit with a mission to connect beginning and small-scale, diversified farmers, including farmers who underutilize support programs, to each other and resource opportunities to ensure resilient, healthy, vibrant, and viable local food systems. Learn more at www.miffs.org Growing in Michigan? Connect with Hagan hagan@miffs.org 

About Fondy Food Center  

The Fondy Food Center cultivates wellness in the Lindsay Heights and Amani neighborhoods and the Greater Milwaukee Area by focusing on issues of healthy food access and economic opportunity. We operate local farmers markets throughout the year, provide access to land, resources and support to local farmers, and work with partners to build a better food system for our community. Learn more at www.fondymke.org Growing in Wisconsin? Connect with Stephen spetro@fondymarket.org 

About Fresher Together

Fresher Together is a Black and LGBTQ+ owned and led food and farming collaboration dedicated to serving the people in our community with local nourishing foods and restorative spaces for healing, economic development, training and retreat. Learn more at www.freshertogether.com. Growing in Illinois/NW Indiana? Connect with Fresh outreach@freshertogether.com  About Truelove Seeds

Truelove Seeds is a farm-based seed company offering culturally important and open pollinated vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. Their seeds are grown by more than 50 small-scale urban and rural farmers committed to community food sovereignty, cultural preservation, and sustainable agriculture. Learn more at trueloveseeds.com

About Sweet Freedom Farm

Sweet Freedom Farm is a Black-led farm that grows culturally relevant, nutrient dense foods for communities impacted by food apartheid and the prison industrial complex. The food that they grow currently moves through mutual aid programs, traditional food banks, and other institutions serving working families. They also operate a monthly free farm stand outside of Sing Sing Correctional Facility. We envision a world free from prisons and from food apartheid. In the traditions of our elders and ancestors, they are working to bring that world to fruition by building regional networks around co-operative food systems and mutual aid. Learn more at sweetfreedomfarm.org

The views and opinions expressed by the speakers in this webinar are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (MFAI) or partners. The inclusion of these speakers, and the recording, hosting, or sharing of this webinar, does not constitute an endorsement of any individual, organization, product, or service mentioned.