Leah Penniman, co-owner of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton (Times Union profile here), has been named a recipient of a 2019 Leadership Award from the James Beard Foundation. From the announcement:

Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol educator, farmer, author, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY. She co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2011 with the mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim our ancestral connection to land. As co-Executive Director, Leah is part of a team that facilitates powerful food sovereignty programs — including farmer training for black & brown people, a subsidized farm food distribution program for communities living under food apartheid, and domestic and international organizing toward equity in the food system. Leah has been farming since 1996, holds an MA in Science Education and a BA in Environmental Science and International Development from Clark University, and is a Manye (Queen Mother) in Vodun. The work of Leah and Soul Fire Farm has been recognized by the Soros Racial Justice Fellowship, Fulbright Program, Grist 50, and Presidential Award for Science Teaching, among others. Her book, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land was released in Fall 2018.

The awards, according to the foundation:

raise awareness of timely industry issues by celebrating the visionaries responsible for creating a healthier, safer, and more equitable and sustainable food system. Honorees can be recognized for showing emerging promise or specific outstanding initiatives, as well as for bodies of work or lifetime achievement. Excellence of work, innovation of approach, and scale of impact within a community or the nation were among the criteria used to choose this year’s honorees, selected by ballots submitted by past recipients.

Penniman and her fellow recipients will each receive a $10,000 prize and be honored at a foundation dinner in May.