By Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

On June 3, 2011 Blackstone Academy out of Atlanta, GA made one of its many
visits to Muhammad Farms. On this trip were 35 students and 7 adults including
teachers, parents and Ministry of Agriculture members. The students ranged from
pre-school through high school, but all enthusiastic and thirsting to learn more
about farming and agriculture.

We divided the group into teams to accomplish various ongoing tasks of the
farm for this time of year. We had one group to pick vegetables: rutabaga,
broccoli and cabbage. We had another group to fight weeds in our string beans
field, while another put labels on our Muhammad Farms Whole Wheat Flour bags.
After one group finished putting the labels on the bags, they were assigned to
wash and box the vegetables coming from the field. Another group was assigned to
clean the wheat seeds in preparation for the wheat to be ground, milled, into
flour at our new state of the art flour mill and sifting unit installed at
Muhammad Farms just this year.

In previous years we had our wheat ground into flower at another farm that
was 55 miles away. That distance may not seem much, but when you are hauling
10,000 pounds of wheat on a trailer behind a pickup truck in the middle of a hot
Georgia day, and have experienced a number of tire blow outs, a flour mill at
the farm makes a whole lot of sense (smile). Although the quality of the flour
that came out of that milling operation was good, it could not produce the
finest of flour needed by commercial bakers. On top of that the bakers would
have to sift the flour themselves, which basically took Muhammad Farms out of
the commercial bakery market. However, with our new 10 horse power flour mill
and commercial sifter, we are able to grind and sift the flour to baker’s
specification. You should soon be tasting Muhammad Farms flour in the world
famous bean pie produced in Chicago. This flour mill will also allow us to grind
navy beans into bean flour.

After the students and adults finished the field work, Dr. Ridgely
demonstrated to the whole group how wheat is milled into flour, sifted, and then
poured into 5 lb bags. We allowed the students to put their hands in a sample of
the wheat that we prepared. We had to tell them to just get a little in their
hands, “not swim in it” (smile). They were quite pleased to see the
demonstration and touch the final product.

Next we performed a demonstration with the help of four volunteers to show
how being far apart from each other makes a simple task extremely difficult. We
videotaped much of the activities and especially the demonstrations, because we
are trying to teach a very difficult subject of economics and logistics. We had
the four volunteers to grab hold to four separate pvc pipes attached in the
middle and supporting a 5 lb bag of flour. We asked them to lift up the bag. Of
course with four people working closely, the task was very
simple and easily accomplished. However, when we asked them to slide back to the
end of their 10 foot long section of pvc pipe and then repeat trying to lift the
5 lbs of flour, the task was a lot harder and in fact one of the pipes broke
under the pressure. This demonstration was to show how it is so much easier to
work in unity, close together. But when you are spread far apart, as we are
across a hostile country 2,000 miles north to south and 3,000 miles east to
west, you can expect not only to work much harder, but have many accidents in
the process.

We next called on 9 volunteers to help demonstrate how a group can be
exploited during the process of production, trade and consumption or how that
same group can gain economic wealth under a different model of that process. We
will not take the time here to explain the model used or go over the various
scenarios that the model permits. Get the DVD that we produced and look for the
follow up book to “Commonomics: Developing a Post Yakub Economy.” We will
repeat the demonstrations and also allow for attendees of our 9^th
annual Founder’s Day Celebration on July 4^th weekend to do some
farm work and tour the farm. The theme for this Founders’ Day is “The
Reverse Underground Railroad Movement” which will point out, encourage and
give direction to the national trend of Black people moving from the North back
to the South which was traditionally called the Black Belt. Information and
details about Founders’ Day can be viewed and registrations downloaded at www.MuhammadFarms.com.