By Melannee E. Muhammad

On June 26, 2010, Minister Louis Farrakhan taught the world that the black
man and woman are the true “children of Israel”! He also told us that while
the Jews are not the people that fulfill this prophecy we must acknowledge that
as a people they excel in every form of human endeavor. Consequently, The
Minister instructed us to study them so that we may learn how they have become
so successful.

Our forced labor and their efforts to thwart the utilization of our labor
and/or talents for our benefit and/or advancement can be divided into four time
periods characterized by the method and/or system utilized to extract our labor.
These periods were:

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that “history is the best reward
for all research”. Therefore, let us look at the methods utilized during each
period so we know what was done and conversely identifying what not to do when
we come into our own.

In the first period (1555-1865) we were chattel slaves. Bought and sold like
any other livestock. We worked from sun up to sun down without any benefit from
or control over our labor. During the first part of the second period
(1865-1877), we were able to exercise a modicum of independence and demonstrate
our brilliance and potential greatness despite efforts to keep us in a
subjugated position. However, after the Compromise of 1877 a set of laws (Jim
Crow) were legislated that fraudulently gained access to our labor through
peonage. The “Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2”
documented 10 Jim Crow laws. Of the ten laws, three dealt directly with our
labor in the following way:

The third period (1886-1950’s) is characterized by the development of the
unions to block the black man’s ability to utilize their skills, talents and
expertise as a craftsman and/or skilled laborers to benefit themselves. This was
done to thwart any economic advancement and to disrupt the natural hierarchy of
the family thereby destroying the family unit. If blacks possessed other talents
they were exploited by agents who were more than willing to facilitate the
expression of their musical genesis while robbing them of the royalties. Just
consider the history of music giants Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Little Richard
and Chuck Berry to name a few.

The last period (1950’s through present day) is characterized by a system
of 21st century slavery where black musicians, athletes and entertainers are
allowed to express their talents via entertaining white people but are still
being robbed of the fruits of their labor by (primarily Jewish) unscrupulous
agents. In this period blacks have made progress in that they are allowed to own
the “masters” of their music and/or benefit from their athletic abilities.
However, the “brothers” of the entertainment agents control the distribution
channels through which their music is marketed and sold as well as the lucrative
athletic endorsement contracts the athletics enjoy.

This strategy is just a variation of the sharecropping system that evolved
after our so-called emancipation with a 21^st century twist.
Controlling the distribution of our “product”, in this case our musical
talent is another example of one of the ten Jim Crow laws documented in the “Secret
Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2”. This law stated that blacks
were forbidden to sell farm products like flour, cotton, hay, rice, peas, wheat,
etc. without the written permission from a white man. Instead of ex-slaves being
required to bring the product, most often cotton, to a specific merchant the
artist is tied to a distribution system that the agents and their “brothers”
control. Any similarities between this law and present day practices are not a
coincidence! This law has other implications for black agri-business and black
economy in general but more of that another time.

Other methods utilized to rob black entertainers and athletics have been to
guide them either to marry whites (so the wealth does not stay in our community)
i.e. Tiger Woods whose estranged wife (a former nanny) is reported to have
received 100 million dollars in their divorce settlement and Michael Jackson
whose children will inherit the bulk of his vast estate. Another way wealth is
stolen from blacks is through fraudulent investments and/or business deals like
the airplane in need of extensive expensive repairs that Scottie Pippen was
doped into purchasing to name a few. (See Final Call: Volume 29 Number 40).

The time has come that we must take control of our labor so that it benefits
us. Therefore, the issue today is what were the mistakes the usurpers of our
birth right made to build this world and how do we avoid them? They were “the
chosen” but because they broke their convent with Allah they forfeited their
position. What caused them to forfeit their chosen status? In my opinion, they
used the knowledge given them to enslave instead of benefiting humanity and the
“usury” of the labor of a whole race of people for over 300 years for their
benefit.

Well then, how do we share the knowledge we’ve received and what system
and/or model should we use to incorporate the principals of freedom, justice and
equality into our system? I humbly submit that the answer lies in the
utilization of the co-operative corporation. Under this model all benefit
equally from their labor.

The concept of corporations evolved after the Civil War as the option for
land ownership diminished for whites and became almost impossible for blacks.
The future industrial barons were gobbling up land faster than it became
available. By 1870 the need for an industrial labor force was almost as great as
the agricultural labor force. As a result, landless workers found themselves in
industrialized cities in what can be called “virtually wage-slavery”. Driven
by the desire to free themselves from this pseudo slavery, American workers
began to organize.

The cooperative corporation was one of the models developed in the mid 1800’s
in an attempt to transition wage-earners into becoming self-employed. The
Knights of Labor were at the forefront of the struggle. Not only did it advocate
better wages and working conditions it also sought to eradicate the entire
wage-slavery system for all workers by structuring the corporations so
that it was actually owned by the workers.

Obviously, this did not go over well with the factory employers. Ultimately,
the Knights of Labor and other organizations failed in their attempt to
eradicate the wage system. The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions
(which later became the American Federation of Labor -AFL) was the only
organized labor movement that survived – partly because they accepted the wage
system that benefited the employers and were opposed to the co-operative
corporations vision of a fair and equal division of the profits from the worker’s
labor.

The other reason the AFL reigned supreme was because the organization was a
champion of the racist views held by the general population who were intent on
keeping the black man in a subjugated position.. The “Secret Relationship
Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2” gives a detailed description of how the AFL
accomplished this by forcing the black man out of the skilled trades and
relegating them to the lowest wage rates through their anti-Black union policies
under the leadership of Samuel Gompers.

That is why the fundamental premise of the co-operative corporation lends
itself to an economy based on freedom, justice and equality for all. The concept
and/or model is also very versatile. It can be applied to virtually any business
situation from banking to food production and distribution.

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

In studying the history of Black land ownership I became fascinated with the 45 year period after
slavery when Black people amassed over 16 million acres of land. Most of the land was in what is
called the Black Belt.

Twenty to thirty percent of the farm land in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Arkansas was
owned by Blacks in 1910. Forty to fifty percent of the farm land in Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia
was owned by Blacks. Fifty to sixty percent was owned by Blacks in South Carolina, while over sixty
percent of the farm land was owned by Blacks in Mississippi. These nine contiguous states would have
been a good base for economic development of the Black race in the early 1900’s. Add to this the
schools, hospitals, insurance companies and other institutions which Blacks had produced in this
Black Belt region, you have the beginning of a viable nation within a nation.

Blacks were sold out by the Republican Party after the 1876 elections which is known as the Hayes
Compromise. Subsequently, the Northern troops were pulled out of the South allowing the KKK to have
its way with Blacks. A string of crucifixions called lynching reached a crescendo by the 1890s
terrorizing Black people literally out of their minds. Between 1889 and 1930 records show at least
3,000 Blacks were lynched, some specifically targeted because they owned land or had businesses. All
attempts of passing anti-lynching legislation failed as the federal government sat holding its hand.

In 1910, about 90% of Blacks lived in the South , but large numbers began migrating north looking
for better job opportunities and living conditions, and to escape racial violence. The "Great
Migration", as it was called, spanned the 1890s to the 1970s. From 1916 through the 1960s, more
than 6 million black people moved north. By 1970 only 53% of Blacks lived in the South. But in the
1970s and 1980s, that trend reversed, with more Blacks moving south than leaving it. From 1975 to
1980 the South gained a net of 194,000 blacks through migration. And the trend continued through the
year 2000. From 1990 to 2000 over 500,000 Blacks migrated back to the South. Most of our three
million acres of Black owned farmland is still in the South.

Blacks moving back to the South generally had higher occupational and educational status than
non-migrants. On average, their incomes were higher than those of the overall Black population of
the South. Unlike the previous migration from south to north, which included many agricultural
workers, the net migration rates for those Blacks with college degrees or with at least some college
were higher than for those with lower levels of education, according to the article "Southern
Brain Gain" on www.inmotionaame.org.

Presently, 50.5 percent of Blacks moving south have a college education. Some southern states
have indeed experienced a "brain gain," attracting thousands of black college graduates.
Between 1995 and 2000 Georgia (and Atlanta in particular), Texas, and Maryland had a particularly
large influx of college-educated Blacks.

Although the reasons are well understood as to why Blacks left the South from 1910 to the 1960’s,
the factors that are stimulating the reversal of this trend must be investigated to determine if
this migration home to the South, and more importantly to the land, will continue. Sometimes
anecdotal information or personal experiences can give clues as to which factors should be further
evaluated in a quantitative and statistical manner. I take myself as an example. Interestingly, I
left the South in 1966 with a scholarship to prep school in New England feeling that I was going
places in the mainstream of America. I subsequently went to Columbia University in New York, but
when I joined the Nation of Islam in 1971 in New York City, I transferred to a Historically Black
College back in North Carolina. The Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad reversed my desire to
fit into or change White America. Instead the teachings gave me a feeling of confidence that I could
separate from White America and do something for myself and people.

So I went back home to North Carolina and enrolled in a Black college hoping to awaken more of my
colleagues, family and friends to the prospect of economic independence and separation. The
Honorable Elijah Muhammad also taught that agriculture was the root of civilization. Therefore I
subsequently changed my major in college to agricultural economics.

If we look at the history of the development of the Nation of Islam, we can see some interesting
features that at one level were a result of the Great Migration to the North, while at the same time
the Nation of Islam was developing a mindset in the children of those immigrants that could lead to
a return home to the South.

The founder of the Nation of Islam, Master Fard Muhammad, started teaching in Black Bottom
Detroit in 1930 to a people ripened by the 40 years of lynching and brutality that led them to the
northern cities. It is reported that as many as 25,000 Blacks were directly affected by the
teachings of Master Fard Muhammad in Detroit from 1930 to 1934. One of those affected was Elijah
Poole, soon to be Elijah Muhammad, who had fled the South in 1923 specifically to get away from the
lynching and brutality in Georgia.

The Nation of Islam grew first in the cities outside of the South and especially the North.
According to a list of numbered Muhammad Temples of Islam in the October 4, 1974 Muhammad Speaks
Newspaper, of the 75 temples established by that time, 53 or 70.7% were outside of the South
although at this time still 53% of the Blacks still lived in the South. If we break these figures
apart we find that of the first 40 temples established, 29 or 85% were outside of the South. However
of the last 35, 16 or 45.7% were established in the South. Over time it seems that the South was
becoming a more fertile bed for the establishment of Islam. The question is, was this due to a
change in the racial climate of the South or the affects of the Muslims from the North migrating
back to the South?

As stated earlier the reversal of the out migration of Blacks from the South began in the 1970s
and continued at a faster pace through the year 2000. Adding to this trend the Nation of Islam
purchased in 1994 1600 acres of a 4,500 acre farm previously owned by the Nation of Islam prior to
the departure of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in 1975. Such a move could stimulate the potential in
a renewed interest in Blacks to come all the way home to the land. In fact we recently attended a
family and friends’ reunion or a homecoming in Dublin, Ga sponsored by Brother Willie Muhammad who
is just one of these returning immigrants.

Brother Willie migrated to Plainfield, N.J. 42 years ago where he subsequently joined the Nation
of Islam. After hearing a speech by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in 1992, Brother Willie
visited Georgia and began the process of purchasing a home on 35 acres of land outside of his native
home of Dublin, Ga. It took him 15 years to pay off the mortgage, sell his businesses in New Jersey
and make his permanent trip home.

At the homecoming or house warming event that he and his wife, Sister Jennifer sponsored on Labor
Day Weekend of this year were a number of other X-northerners who had joined the Nation of Islam and
were now buying land and properties in the rural South, reversing the trend of fleeing north to the
cities. Will this trend of Blacks coming all the way home continue? We will see. And how does one
find the "useful land"?

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

According to an August 23, 2007 report from the American Chemical Society researchers have found
new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may contribute to the
development of diabetes, particularly in children. In the current study, Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D.,
conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found
‘astonishingly high’ levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages. These undesirable and
highly-reactive compounds associated with "unbound" fructose and glucose molecules are
believed to cause tissue damage, says Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New
Brunswick, N.J. By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and
glucose components are "bound" and chemically stable, the researcher notes.

HFCS is a sweetener found in many foods and beverages, including non-diet soda pop, baked goods,
and condiments. It is has become the sweetener of choice for many food manufacturers because it is
considered more economical, sweeter and more easy to blend into beverages than table sugar. The long
standing boycott of Cuban cane sugar combined with the annual corn subsidy to U.S. farmers of over
$10 billion explains why sugar costs more than corn fructose.

The figures from the USDA for 2003 are that the average world price of refined sugar is 11 cents
per pound compared to 28 cents in the U.S.–more than twice as much due to subsidies and import
quotas. Meanwhile, the price of HFCS is 14 cents per pound. However, corn prices are expected to
rise because of corn increased use as a source of energy through ethanol production. This price rise
plus new evidence of the dangers of HFCS may finally force the processing industry to cut back on
its widespread use.

The process for making the sweetener high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) out of corn was developed in
the 1970s. Use of HFCS grew rapidly, from less than three million short tons in 1980 to almost 8
million short tons in 1995. During the late 1990s, use of sugar actually declined as it was eclipsed
by HFCS. Today Americans consume more HFCS than sugar.

From zero, the average consumption of HFCS in the U.S. has risen to over 60 pounds per person per
year, on average. Starting in the early 1970’s, there has been a dramatic rise in the U.S. in the
rate of obesity and its related ailments including type-2 diabetes and heart disease. This alarming
development coincides almost exactly with the introduction and subsequent ramp-up of consumption of
High Fructose Corn Syrup. An estimated 16 million Americans have type-2 diabetes, making it the
sixth leading cause of death overall. Studies have linked a high intake of refined carbohydrates
such as fructose with a high "glycemic index" to the development of diabetes.

The processing industry argues that fructose is just another form of sugar and does no more
damage than sugar. However, High Fructose Corn Syrup is an extremely refined version of the fructose
naturally occurring in nature. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is produced by processing corn starch
to yield glucose, and then processing the glucose to produce a high percentage of fructose. Three
different enzymes, two of which have been genetically modified, are needed to break down cornstarch,
which is composed of chains of glucose molecules of almost infinite length, into the simple sugars
glucose and fructose.

A team of investigators at the USDA, led by Dr. Meira Field, compared the effects of sugar and
fructose on laboratory rats according to the www.longlife.com article entitled "Should You
Boycott High Fructose Corn Syrup?" This article points out that sucrose is composed of glucose
and fructose. When sugar is given to rats in high amounts, the rats develop multiple health
problems, especially when the rats were deficient in certain nutrients, such as copper.

The researchers wanted to know whether it was the fructose or the glucose moiety that was causing
the problems. So they repeated their studies with two groups of rats, one given high amounts of
glucose and one given high amounts of fructose. The glucose group was unaffected but the fructose
group had disastrous results. The male rats did not reach adulthood. They had anemia, high
cholesterol and heart hypertrophy–that means that their hearts enlarged until they exploded. They
also had delayed testicular development. Dr. Field explains that fructose in combination with copper
deficiency in the growing animal interferes with collagen production. In a nutshell, the little
bodies of the rats just fell apart. The females were not so affected, but they were unable to
produce live young.

"The medical profession thinks fructose is better for diabetics than sugar," says Dr.
Field, "but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be
metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of
alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic."

Going back to the research done by Chi-Tang Ho, his group is also probing the mechanisms by which
carbonation increases the amount of reactive carbonyls formed in sodas containing HFCS. They note
that non-carbonated fruit juices containing HFCS have one-third the amount of reactive carbonyl
species found in carbonated sodas with HFCS, while non-carbonated tea beverages containing
high-fructose corn syrup have only about one-sixth the levels of carbonyls found in regular soda.

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

The major goal of the Ministry of Agriculture is to develop a sustainable agricultural system
that would provide at least one meal per day, according to the teachings of the Most Honorable
Elijah Muhammad for the 40 million black people in America. Also this system should
provide the necessary raw materials for the production of clothing and housing for the 40 million or
more black people in America. This requires the attainment, proper utilization and conservation of
the useful land and using science and technology to make the non-useful land useful.

According to the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, of the 57,255,000 square miles of
land on the earth 29,000,000 square miles are classified as “producing” or
“useful”. How does the teacher of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Master Fard Muhammad,
determine what is “useful land”? How do we determine the value of land when we do not know
how to properly utilize the land? How do you make non-useful land useful? How many acres of land
will be necessary to feed 40 million people?

Back in 1934 when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was codifying the Teachings of Master Fard
Muhammad there were 4,400,000,000 Original or indigenous people and 400,000,000 Caucasians.
According to those same teachings the Original people used 23,000,000 square miles while Caucasians
used 6,000,000 square miles. Each square mile of land consists of 640 acres. So when you multiply by
acres per square mile and then divide by the population of the two groups, you find that each
Original uses on average 3.35 acres while each Caucasian uses on average 9.6 acres.

Therefore, although the Original or indigenous people out number Caucasians 11 to 1, as
individuals Whites utilize almost three times the amount of “useful” land than an Original
or indigenous person. Below we have included a chart using data obtained from the World Book
Encyclopedia on population per square mile for six continents. Although you find the different races
of people on each continent, most will agree that Europe and North America are predominantly
Caucasian. According to the data Europe enjoyed a population density of about 170 people per square
mile and North America had a population density of about 40 people per square mile in 1981. In fact
in 1981 the population density of Europe was greater than Asia’s 160 people per square mile. Now
one does not hear very much about starving children in Europe but one sees stories on the TV about
starving children in some of the Asian countries.

Now when we look at Africa which is portrayed as always on the brink of starvation, we find that
Africa in 1981 had a population density of about 40 people per square mile, almost exactly the same
as North America. By 2001 Africa’s population density increased to about 70 people per square mile
which was still less than one third of Asia’s 220 people per square mile, and less than half the
population density of Europe.

Now let us analyze the data. Europe and Asia both have high population densities but Europe seems
to have plenty of food. North America and Africa have comparatively low population densities, but
North America has ample food while Africans starve.

What is the explanation? Well maybe Caucasian people are better farmers than Blacks and Asians.
Or maybe Caucasian people not only utilize the land base on which they are settled, but also have
the power to draw food and resources from Africa and other places while the indigenous people are
politically or economically locked out of utilizing the land beneath their feet.

Take Zimbabwe for instance. According to President Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s land crisis began in 1895
when the European powers set down to partition Africa among themselves. Zimbabwe, South Africa,
Kenya, Nigeria and Namibia went to Britain. The Europeans first entered the land looking for mineral
resources. They did not find as much gold as they had anticipated so they turned to grabbing land
and practicing “ethnic cleansing” to secure it. Instead of paying their soldiers in gold,
they paid them in land. white British soldiers who fought in World Wars I and II were given the best
farm land in Zimbabwe while the black soldiers were given bicycles. Over time this gift to white
British soldiers grew to 46.6% of Zimbabwe’s agricultural land and was comprised of the best land.

When Zimbabwe won its fight for liberation from the colonial rule of Britain in 1980, the white
population was 60,000 while Black population of Zimbabwe was 12,500,000. Of the 60,000 whites only
4,000 were farmers, but that class owned 46.7% of Zimbabwe’s farm land. These white farmers held
40% of their land for speculative purposes and did not farm them, but would not lease them out to
Blacks to grow food. The “mystery” of Blacks starving in Africa is now revealed; whites
own the best agricultural land, because they stole it.

By 2002 Zimbabwe had transferred over 90% of the white owned farms and distributed the acres to
black farmers. However, now there are reports of food shortages and low yields in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe
has turned from a net exporter of food when the majority of the farm land was controlled by Whites
to a net importer now that the land is controlled by Blacks. To understand what is happening in
Zimbabwe and other former colonies of the West, we must get an understanding of what can make land a
productive asset or an unproductive liability. Land by itself does not produce food. You must have
seeds, labor, equipment, transportation, markets, access to capital and enforceable contracts.

Black farmers in America are loosing their land, while acres of Black owned farm land are sitting
idle. The same principles that cause Black land loss in America can be used to analyze low
productivity of agriculture in other Third World countries. In a future article we will discuss how
useful land can be made useless by a failed or non-sustainable agricultural system.

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

According to a USA Today October 16th article by Sue Kirchhoff entitled, "World Events Work
Against Grain Buyers" a set of market, weather and grain demand events have produced the
"tightest world grain stocks in about 30 years". Reduced grain stocks "…are
contributing to rising food inflation, fueling worries about food shortages in some countries and
straining international aid budgets…" The article continues by saying that "…prices
are being pushed up by bad weather in a host of countries, surging world demand and a drive in the
USA and abroad to devote more acres to corn for ethanol production, which has tightened supplies of
some grains and tied crop prices more closely to energy prices."

The decline in the value of the dollar has also contributed to surging international demand for
U.S. grain. The falling dollar makes U.S. grain more affordable for foreign buyers while at the same
time making foods imported to the USA more expensive to buy.

Wheat touched $9.61 a bushel on Chicago futures markets in late September — doubling from the
previous year. Although the price of wheat could fall by harvest time in the spring of 2008, many
analysts do not believe that it will fall back to the $4 per bushel prices in 2007 and surely no
where near the $2 per bushel prices that the farmers in Southwest Georgia have been facing from 1998
through 2006.

The increased wheat prices have caused the rise in the price of bread and grain fed animals and
their products. In the USA, the average price for a loaf of bread is up 11% over the past 12 months.
Ground beef has risen 6%, chicken is up 9%, and eggs are up 31%. Overall U.S. food inflation is
running 5.6% so far this year, compared with 2.6% for all of 2006. Consumers spend about 10% of
take-home pay on food compared to only 6% ten years ago. The American consumer is on the way to
increasing the proportion of their income devoted to food to the world average of 26%.

World grain stocks are on pace to be the lowest since the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
began keeping track 30 years ago, even as consumption increases in emerging economies — including
demand for grain-fed livestock — and population growth continues. In the mean time there is no
magic technology in sight to increase crop yields. Water supplies are being strained. The ethanol
market absorbed more than 15% of the U.S. corn crop in 2007 and could take 30% next year, if all the
ethanol plants now under construction come on line. Ethanol prices have recently fallen due to
problems in transportation and a glut of product.

The current crisis in grain stocks have a historical basis and a political basis, not just short
term supply and demand relationships. Food has been used as an economic weapon since WWII to destroy
Third World economies under the guise of food aid. American agriculture was revolutionized during
and after WWII through increased mechanization and fertilization. The same factories that produced
bombs using nitrogen during WWII were turned into fertilizer factories after the war. The use of
artificial nitrogen fertilizers greatly increased the yields of wheat and corn. This increased
supply prompted the food industry to develop a demand for meat which would eat up a lot of the feed
grains.

During the 1950s Africa and other Third World countries were clamoring to break from beneath
colonial rule and establish independent economies. The U.S. used her surplus grains to destroy these
emerging agricultural based economies by dumping cheap grain into the cities of these countries
while their local farmers were trying to bring their products to market. The farmers finally gave up
and moved to the cities themselves looking for employment, pushing their countries further into
dependency on the west.

By the 1980s and 90s the American farmer had served America’s economic warriors well and were
no longer needed. America first got rid of her Black farmers by denying them the farm price subsidies
that she gave to her white farmers and by denying the Black farmers access to capital that they
needed to enter the modern world of agri-business.

In 1996, a year after the Million Man March and the Nation of Islam’s return to farming, the
Congress of the United States passed what was called "The Freedom to Farm Bill". The
American farmers called it the "Freedom to Fail Bill" because this bill reduced the farm
subsidies on major commodities such as wheat, corn, soybeans and cotton. By 1999 prices for these
major commodities were almost half of what they were in 1996 and back to what prices were in the
1970s. In the mean time the price of tractors and other production inputs were three to four times
higher than they were in the 1970s. Now Black farmers and small white farmers had no recourse but to
sell out to the much larger white farmers. The big white farmers were taking a huge risk and were
looking for anything that would cut production costs. Along comes Monsanto and other big chemical
and biotech firms with genetically modified corn, soybeans and cotton which promised to reduce
production costs while increasing yields.

However, Europe and Japan rejected the genetically modified corn and soybeans from America and
even lowly Africa became suspicious of these untested genetic innovations and countries like
Zimbabwe rejected these crops as well. America’s big farmers were now being stripped of foreign
markets so the government steps in and revitalized the plan for large scale ethanol production which
was proposed by the Carter administration in the 1970s. As the USA Today article indicates there are
some demand problems developing in the ethanol market. But farmers have already shifted out of wheat
into corn. Now to shift back into wheat production becomes even more risky because wheat seed prices
have doubled and there are already reported seed shortages in the Midwest due to reduced spring
harvests precipitated by unusual floods over long time periods.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan warned Bush to get out of Iraq or suffer the consequences
of God’s wrath. And in April of 2004 he said "watch the weather". Now the unusual
weather, man’s greed, his appetite for meat and cheap energy along with the U.S. using food as a
economic weapon plus her disrespect for nature could be the "perfect storm" to push the
world to the brink of famine and anarchy.

As the price of gasoline consumes the disposable income of the middle class and drains the
pockets of the poor, the debate over biofuels heats up once again. I say once again because biofuels
are not new and in fact the first internal combustion engines were developed to run on biofuels.
Let’s look at the historical development of ethanol as a fuel put out by the Energy Information
Administration of the United State’s Department of Energy:

1826 – Samuel Morey developed an engine that ran on ethanol and turpentine.

1860 – German engine inventor Nicholas Otto used ethanol as the fuel in one of his engines. Otto
is best known for his development of a modern internal combustion engine (the Otto Cycle) in 1876.

1862 – The Union Congress put a $2 per gallon excise tax on ethanol to help pay for the Civil
War. Prior to the Civil War, ethanol was a major illuminating oil in the United States. After the
tax was imposed, ethanol cost too much to be used this way.

1896 – Henry Ford built his first automobile, the quadricycle, to run on pure ethanol.

1906 – Over 50 years after imposing the tax on ethanol, Congress removed it, making ethanol an
alternative to gasoline as a motor fuel.

1908 – Henry Ford produced the Model T. As a flexible fuel vehicle, it could run on ethanol,
gasoline, or a combination of the two.

1917 – 1918 – The need for fuel during World War I drove up ethanol demand to 50-60 million
gallons per year.

1920’s – Gasoline became the motor fuel of choice. Standard Oil began adding ethanol to gasoline
to increase octane and reduce engine knocking.

Why did gasoline become the "motor fuel of choice"? Ford’s Model T was able to be
driven on ethanol, and Henry Ford touted it as the "fuel of the future." He envisioned
that every farm would be a filling station for his cars. Not only was Henry Ford an advocate of
ethanol but also peanut oil and soybean oil to be used as fuel for his diesel engines.

Standard Oil was started and owned by John D. Rockefeller who was a ruthless pursuer of profits
and generally recognized as the prototypical "robber baron". It just so happens that he
got involved with the "Temperance Movement" and with his financial support steered it and
the country to establish "Prohibition" in 1919. With Prohibition as the excuse, law
enforcement officers went around the country and destroyed the farm based ethanol plants which
ushered in the era of the dominance of John D. Rockefeller’s gasoline. Now America has involved
herself in wars around the globe to secure petroleum for her addiction to gasoline and diesel fuel.

The revolutionary engine that Rudolph Diesel unveiled to the world in Paris in 1900 wasn’t
powered by diesel fuel. Diesel’s diesel ran on peanut oil. To Diesel, his invention was more than a
mere machine. It was an engine of social change.

"The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils," Diesel explained in 1912, "and
would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it."
Rudolph Diesel died a year later after making this statement.

George Washington Carver first tested soybeans, among other plants, to find uses for them and
diminish the dependence on cotton as the single commodity of the Southern economy. He invented
soybean based varnishes, paints, inks, mayonnaise, salad dressings, linoleum, plastic and even fuel.
He and Henry Ford partnered up and used soybeans to make plastic window handles, gas pedals and even
dent proof trunk covers for many of the Fords built in the 1930’s and 40’s. The original diesel
engine, invented by Rudolph Diesel, actually ran off of peanut oil based on Carver’s research.

Now if we couple this information on how the farmers could have benefited if cars were run off of
ethanol from corn and diesel fuel from soybeans and peanuts with the fact that in the South black
farmers owned almost 16 million acres of land in 1910, now we can really imagine what the economic
condition of the South and black people in general could have been without John D. Rockefeller and
the Dupont family which made their fortunes developing chemicals from petroleum. More recently
imagine what America could have been like if President Jimmy Carter was successful in the late 1970s
in his attempt to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil by utilizing the already existing
technologies on renewable energy. Thirty years later faced with global warming and global warring,
the oil companies are still paying scientists to argue against the effects of automobile emissions
on climate change. The oil companies are also pulling at the heart strings and stomachs of the
consumers by arguing that using feed crops for fuel will starve the poor and increase the price of
meat.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught us that both soybeans and peanuts are not fit for human
consumption, so diversion of these crops to fuel would increase the world’s health. Most of
America’s farm land is not used to grow fruits, vegetables and grains for human consumption, but
is used to produce feed for cattle, hogs and chickens. Cattle and hogs are particularly very
inefficient converters of the sun’s energy into food. It takes ten times more acres of land to
grow feed to produce a pound of meat from animals than it takes to grow a pound of food fed directly
to humans. The stomachs of cows are designed to eat grass, not corn grain, requiring grain fed cows
to be given sodium bicarbonate to stop their stomachs from bloating. And since modern science is
finally bearing witness to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s teachings that meat is not good for us,
using land to produce fuel could help us be healthier by breaking us away from so much meat.

There are other sources of energy that could be used other than our decreasing supply of fossil
fuels such as wind, solar, tidal and hydrogen. The electric car is not a new idea. In fact GM
developed an electric car to be sold in California, but discontinued its production and crushed the
cars after it was able to lobby the California senate to repeal its stringent auto emissions
requirements. Check out the movie, "Who Killed the Electric Car".

However, the history of America and the West has demonstrated that the politically connected and
the wealthy determine what technologies are used. People are not suffering, poor and hungry due to a
lack of the earth’s resources or the dearth of human ingenuity. People are suffering because of
the devious minds and ruthless behavior of those who continue to enslave humanity by controlling
resources. When the majority of people lived on small farms and the technologies of ethanol and
peanut oil as fuel were invented, the people could have been both free and wealthy. However, only a
few people had the resources to find, pump and process fossil fuels and this was the course that the
world was taken on. Now the people locked up in the cities have got to make a decision on their
future. Take on the "bloodsuckers" or continue to be bled to death.

By Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that Agriculture was the root of civilization.
Agriculture and civilization began in Africa. Legends record this development in the form of a story
about a husband and wife team by the names of Ausar and Auset. According to this African legend,
Auset domesticated wild crops and animals so that she could grow the crops near her house and keep
the animals in a corral nearby. Her husband, Ausar, took this technology which became the root of
all civilizations and spread it around the world. Now people would not have to travel long distances
hunting and gathering food. This steady supply of food, close to their homes, allowed humans to pay
attention to other sciences and interests instead of spending most of their day finding food to
survive.

Agriculture has now developed to a point where instead of the food being grown close to home, it
is now being produced on mega-farms or feedlots hundreds and even thousands of miles from the
population centers. Consequently, the quality, safety and with impending gasoline shortages, even
availability of food has been compromised for the convenience of the city dwellers and the pockets
of, what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan describes as, the "merchants of death".
The recent E.coli outbreak in spinach, carrot juice and lettuce is the most recent dramatic example
of the break down of the agricultural system. Some very large "organic" farmers are
suspected of cutting corners to make a profit by growing vegetables using untreated animal waste in
the irrigation water.

Our experience at Muhammad Farms has led us to conclude that a safe and sustainable agricultural
system must include both large scale farms and smaller farms and gardens. This mixed agriculture
system and an emphasis on urban gardening was documented on our recent visit to Cuba as well. Large
farms are good at producing products like wheat, feed corn, dry beans, sugarcane, cotton and
potatoes because they can be grown using large machines for production and harvesting and they store
well for long distance shipping. Other crops like watermelons and tree fruits are also amenable to
large scale production since they require a lot of area to grow and have a long shelf life. On the
other hand produce such as spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and other fresh vegetable crops
should be produced close to the point of consumption using smaller plots of land and more hand labor
to reduce the need for harmful chemicals, and then eaten almost immediately to reduce the need for
lengthy storage. In this article we will highlight the urban garden movement in America and how it
can bring the taste of the country back to our cities.

Rashid Nuri, 58 year old agriculturalist and revolutionary, has come full circle to his first
love. "I have decided that the most revolutionary act that I can perform is to grow healthy,
delicious food right in the city to supply the needs of the people," says Bro. Rashid.

Bro. Rashid earned a B.S. degree in political science from Harvard University in the 60’s but
after studying the life and works of Kwame Nkrumah, he decided to get a master’s degree in
agriculture from the University of Massachusetts. Bro. Rashid analyzed that Nkrumah had made a
mistake by basing his agricultural development strategy on selling raw commodities like cocoa to
Europe instead of further processing these raw materials into products that would bring a higher
price in the world market. Bro. Rashid decided that Black people in America needed to control the
production of food from the seed to the table.

He started his first urban garden project in San Diego, CA before he was drafted to oversee the
management of 13,000 acres of farm land owned by the Nation of Islam in 1975. Included in that farm
acreage was 4,500 acres of land in Terrell County Georgia which was sold off in the late 1970’s,
of which 1600 acres was redeemed by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as he rebuilt the Nation
of Islam according to the vision of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The present writer has been the
farm manager for that farm since 1995.

After the Nation of Islam’s Salaam Agricultural Systems was shut down, Bro. Rashid sought work
elsewhere in the agricultural field. He worked with the USDA under Mike Espy, the first Black
Secretary of Agriculture where he helped Mike Espy develop the first investigation of the systemic
discrimination against Black farmers by the USDA. Being the revolutionary that he was, he also
requested to investigate the hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies handed out by the USDA to
large agribusiness firms on an annual basis which allowed them to make tremendous profits while
Black farmers were being pushed out of business.

Shortly thereafter, Bro. Rashid left the USDA and has worked on agricultural projects in 38
countries including his last assignment in Ghana. He returned to America in 2006 and has come back
to the idea of urban gardening. In April of 2006 Bro. Rashid formed Truly Living Well Natural Urban
Farms (TLW), a community-supported agricultural organization with two farm sites in Atlanta and a
site each in Henry and Clayton counties.

"Our goal is to reach people and give them exceptionally good food," Bro. Rashid said,
"People should get their food from people they know and trust." In discussing the now
infamous E.coli infected spinach and lettuce coming from supposedly "organic" farms in
California, Bro. Rashid points out that the codes for "organic" are too loose for his
standards. For instance he said that one of the regulations reads, "If you can’t get organic
fertilizer from your local supplier, you can use whatever is available locally." This allows
those who want to cheat to do so. Therefore, he keeps his production to a higher standard than the
so-called organic association certifications.

Growing and selling fresh healthy food is just part of the mission of his organization. Eugene
Cooke a young gardener who got his basic farm training from his grandfather and now works with Bro.
Rashid, states that his goal is to get youth in the local communities adjacent to the gardens
involved in the production and distribution process so that food production begins to bind and heal
the communities. Mr. Cooke was greatly influenced by his mentor Master Gardener Adonijah Miyamora El
who set up the Food and Forestry Project at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles under the paradigm
of "guerilla gardening", where you see a vacant piece of land and just go to work without
a bunch of government red tape. Although young, Mr. Cooke loves gardening, however he is concerned
about its ability to sustain himself, his wife and son financially. Love for the people is one thing
but care of his family is another.

The TLW has not taken the complete "guerilla" approach. Bro. Rashid has been given
permission to utilize 4 acres of urban land owned by different land owners. He hopes to expand to 40
acres. He has found that many land owners have idle properties who will buy into this concept of
urban agriculture.

Presently Bro. Rashid has 20 families who purchase their produce in advance for the growing
season and come by on a weekly or monthly basis to pick up their orders depending on what’s in
season. Families can pay $350 for 13 full baskets of produce over the growing season if they pick up
their baskets. They must pay an additional $100 for home deliveries. Bro. Rashid says that
"people must realize that 70 to 80% of the price that they pay for food is eaten up in
transportation costs." Therefore bringing food production closer to the home will become more
of an issue as gasoline prices continue to rise.

He stated that prospective gardeners must pay attention to site location to insure adequate sun
light and the availability of water for irrigation. Ideally one should lay out his rows in the
north-south direction to take full advantage of the sun’s rays.

Bro. Rashid produces his own compost and mulch. Once the raised beds are set up, he uses minimal
tillage to encourage earthworm production which insures the long term fertility of the soil. He is
glade to teach others gardening as they supply volunteer labor for the upkeep of the
organization’s gardens, i.e. knowledge for work programs (smile). You can keep up with the
progress of TLW by visiting them on the web at www.trulylivingwell.com.

Bro. Rashid directed us to another urban gardening project in Atlanta called Gaia Gardens headed
by Daniel Parsons. This project is somewhat different from Bro. Rashid’s in that Gaia Gardens is a
1.5 acre farm operated on a 5 acre plot of land connected to and owned by a co-housing condominium
community called East Lake Commons. The community leases the land and equipment to Mr. Parsons. They
also purchase produce in advance and help with the gardening in their spare time.

Mr. Parsons has noticed an increase in the concern for quality which has increased the demand for
locally grown organic produce. He states that the people who generally support community gardens are
those who are health conscious, concerned about the environment, concerned about the number of miles
food has to travel and he also notices that women in particular when they get pregnant seek him out
as a source of healthy produce. According to Parsons there are about 150 community gardens in the
Atlanta area affiliated with an organization called Atlanta Community Gardens Coalition. The
greatest production challenge in farming and gardening is labor.

Parsons stated that the University of Florida in Gainesville has recently set up a degree program
in organic farming. However, like Bro. Rashid, Parsons suggests that those interested in organic
farming should find a farmer and be prepared to volunteer at the farm to learn techniques. At times,
they do have minimal stipends available to learn the craft on a part-time basis. He obtained an
agricultural degree from Clemson University but had to read between the lines to learn what he
needed to actually be a farmer.

On January 20, 2007 as a part of our annual Ministry of Agriculture Conference held at Muhammad
Farms in Georgia, we will have a special work session on setting up a home or urban garden
facilitated by experts in the field. Once participants return to their respective cities they can
begin preparing to plant their gardens. In most regions of the country planting will begin in March
or April, after the last killing frost and the ground begins to warm up. Other workshops will
include how to develop and sustain food buying clubs and other information on developing a
sustainable and healthy food system. Continue to monitor www.MuhammadFarms.com for more conference
details and information concerning farming, gardening and our food system.

"And (make Him) a messenger to the Children of Israel (saying): I have come
to you with a sign from your Lord, that I determine for you out of dust the form of a bird, then I
breathe into it and it becomes a bird with Allah’s permission, and I heal the blind and the
leprous, and bring the dead to life with Allah’s permission; and I inform you of what you should
eat and what you should store in your houses. Surely there is a sign in this for you, if you are
believers." –Holy Qur’an, Surah 3, verse 48

We who follow the teaching of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and/or we who
understand the wisdom of that teaching know the importance of land and agriculture. As Minister Lee,
of Charlotte NC put it, ‘agriculture is the first culture.’ The Messenger, as the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad was and is presently known, in the book Message to the Black Man taught ‘The
acquisition of land has been the factor for more wars than any other cause. Economists agree that,
in order for any type nation or system, capitalism or communism, democracy or totalitarian or what
have you, to exist and have a degree of independence, there must be ownership of land.’ He gives
us his life, his writings and his students as examples of ‘..what you should eat and what we
should store in our houses.’ Minister Louis Farrakhan is a product of the teachings of the HEM.

Now, if you will, consider the following questions. 1) What conditions would
necessitate a Messenger to his own people ‘..what you should eat and what you should store in your
houses.’ (Necessitate means to require or to make unavoidable; to make compulsory)? 2) What
brought down the ‘great’ Islamic empires like the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals? 3) Are 1 and 2
above connected? The answers lay not in military defeat alone, but in the takeover of the land and
control of its production.

According to The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World the Islamic
countries may be divided into four broad agro-ecological region, each defined principally by
climatic conditions, characteristic systems, and historical development. The Tropical Asia region is
a noncontiguous area comprised of Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The Central Asia region
includes the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan. The West Asia and North Africa region includes Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan,
Turkey, and the Arab countries. The Sub-Saharan region is the belt of countries between Senegal and
Guinea in the west to Somalia in the east, excluding Ethiopia.

The movement began in Tropical Asia, where the English and Dutch established
monopolistic trading companies that evolved into military and political traditional agricultural
sector, either as in-kind taxes or as forced deliveries of produce, but as European economies
expanded during the Industrial Revolution and market demand both grew and deepened in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the old trading companies gave way to direct colonial
administration by European governments, and European capital directly intervened to encourage the
production of crops exclusively for export. This entailed new forms of production, particularly
capital-intensive large plantations specializing in a single crop and using hired or coerced labor.

Russian penetration of Central Asia began in the eighteenth century with military
incursions into the Kazakh khanates. By 1876 the tsar had absorbed the Khanate of Khoqand, and by
1900 the Uzbeks and Turkmens were under imperial protection. Military conquest was followed by
agricultural colonization. Vast areas of grazing land were expropriated from the Kazakh pastoralists
for the purpose of settling peasants from European Russian and the Ukraine. Agricultural settlement
was followed by industrialization under the Soviet regime, and during the same period there was the
almost complete abandonment of nomadic life and individual farming. Both were replaced by forced
state collectivization of animal and crop production.

In the agrarian history of West Asia and North Africa, the first half of the
nineteenth century witnessed European economic penetration of the old Ottoman and Persian Empires
that at least nominally ruled over most of the region, and eventually foreign commercial interest
came to control the majority of the trade with the outside world. In some areas, most notably Egypt
under Muhammad Ali Pasha, local dynasts sought to stave off foreign control by organizing
monopolistic state production, processing, and export enterprises.

In Islamic Africa south of the Sahara, agriculture changed little until the
establishment of European colonial regimes in the last decades of the nineteenth century. In the
Late 1850s, the French began to extend their control up the Senegal River and to foster local
African production of peanuts to help meet the growing European demand for vegetable oils.

So, in my conclusion, until we the Black, Red, Yellow and poor Whites, come into the
proper understanding, so that Matthew 13:16 ‘..blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears,
for they hear’ becomes fulfilled, we must support the Three Year Economic Program set up by the
HEM and the Ministry of Agriculture set up by the Honorable Louis Farrakhan. Let us get some of this
good earth to call our own and put it under cultivation for our needs. More to come, Allah willing.