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Micro Solar Leases: A New Income Stream for Black Farmers in the South?
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BY DANIEL WALTON • February 14, 2024
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Rows of photovoltaic panels glimmer placidly in the winter sun amid the fields outside Pendleton, North Carolina, a farming community in the state’s northeast Northampton County. The calming country scene is a far cry from the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But that’s where Ajulo Othow, who developed the solar energy installation through her company EnerWealth Solutions, traces the roots of the project.
After Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in the summer of 2005, Othow explains, she helped to lead nonprofit economic development efforts across the region. She was struck by how many of the area’s jobs involved coal or gas
production; Louisiana ships nearly two-thirds of U.S. liquified natural gas exports, for example, and New Orleans is the country’s third-busiest port for coal exports.
“I could see how people’s livelihoods, tied to fossil fuel extraction, basically were contributing to their own vulnerabilities,” she says. “In thinking with communities about what other economic development opportunities they had, I got very interested in renewable energy.”
Othow went to law school to learn more about the financing and regulation of solar power, and after gaining real-world experience with Strata Clean Energy in Chapel Hill, she
struck out on her own with EnerWealth in 2017. Based in Oxford, North Carolina, the company’s goal is to maximize the benefits of the solar boom for rural communities.
That mission drives every facet of EnerWealth’s development approach, starting with site selection. The firm specifically seeks out Black and small-scale landowners in North and South Carolina, including farmers, who want to lease some of their property for solar panels. In return, those landowners receive a consistent stream of income that far exceeds what they would earn by leasing to other farmers. Read the full story.
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The Land Back Movement Is Also About Foodways
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BY KATE NELSON • February 12, 2024
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In 2020, just months after George Floyd’s murder, then-President Donald Trump visited South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore as part of an Independence Day celebration and used to rally his right-wing supporters with a “dark and divisive speech.” Complete with a showy fireworks display and fighter-jet flyover, the affair satisfied his longtime desire to mark the Fourth of July standing before the “Shrine of Democracy.” But the occasion served as another rallying cry as well.
For almost three hours before the event, about 150 protesters—many of them Native Americans—blockaded the road that leads to the controversial national monument. Carrying signs reading, “You Are On Stolen Land” and “Honor All Treaties,” the activists were contesting Trump’s policies, standing in solidarity with the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement, and calling for the return of land to Indigenous peoples—namely South Dakota’s sacred Black Hills. They faced off with local law enforcement and National Guard soldiers in riot gear, eventually disbanding following the arrest of 21 people.
Among those apprehended was Nick Tilsen, the Oglala Lakota president and CEO of NDN Collective, a Native-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power, which has been on the frontlines of the fight to return land to tribal communities. (The charges against him were dropped in December 2022.)
“The Land Back movement is much
older than 2020, but that was a catalyzing moment,” he says. “We had the entire White House press corps here, and we wanted to amplify this authentic Indigenous narrative at that very specific time in history when we were seeing statues getting toppled and Confederate flags being lowered around the country. We see Land Back everywhere now, and that’s because this is a decentralized movement that isn’t driven by just one organization or leader. It’s truly a movement.” Read the full story.
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Op-ed: Meals Made With Fresh, Whole Foods Could Transform Our Health Care System
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BY JAMES MCGOVERN • February 13, 2024
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When I was a kid, my grandmother used to tell me an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I used to ignore her. Now I wish she were alive so I could tell her she was right.
Researchers now tell us that 95 percent of seniors have chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis. They also tell us that eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and whole foods can help improve health outcomes and even prevent or reverse illness.
Unfortunately, in our country, the science is light-years ahead of the public policy on this issue. Instead of acknowledging the link between poor nutrition and chronic illness, federal programs like Medicare often incentivize costly treatments and expensive prescription drugs.
But what if things were different? What if our health care system recognized the healing power of food and let federal programs like Medicare treat and prevent diet-related diseases through healthy eating?
A new bipartisan bill in Congress that I’ve introduced alongside Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) in the Senate aims to do just that. Read the full story.
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