Dr. Ridgely recently interviewed Bro. Kelvin Muhammad, a small dairy farmer outside of Houston,
TX.

Dr. Ridgely (DR)- We have many people calling the farm here in Georgia about getting a cow. Since
you operate a small dairy farm in Texas, what should people know before they purchase a cow?

Bro Kelvin (BR) – The first thing you should do, if you are thinking about getting a cow, is to
purchase the book "The Family Cow", which deals with all the aspects of owning a dairy cow
on a small farm. They should also go to the website "realmilk.com". It deals with the laws
for each state for raw milk. Everyone needs to understand the laws for individual states. This
website will also give you sources for raw milk.

DR – How much room is needed for each cow and what feed is needed?

BK – You need approximately one acre for a cow. You may be able to put 2 or 3 on an acre. They
need to be fed lactating dairy cow feed along with alfalfa hay, grain and hay when the cow can’t
graze.

DR – How much feed per cow?

BK – Feeding depends on the lactating of the cow which determines how much to feed. Normally it
is about 15# per day.

DR- How often do you milk the cow?

BK- You will need to milk and feed 2 times a day on a regular schedule. My schedule is between 5
am -7 am and again between 5 pm – 7 pm.  A cow needs from 8 to 10 gallons of water each day.
We have water a trough with a float and cut off valve to make sure that our cows have enough water.

DR – How much milk do you get each time you milk a cow?

BK – On average you can expect about 5 gallons of milk per day per cow.

DR – What happens if you can’t get rid of all 5 gallons per cow each day.

BK – Well you still have to milk the cows on schedule. You have to give it to the calf or find
out how to make cheese or other products from the milk, or you just have to pore the extra milk on
the ground.

DR – How long will a cow give milk?

BK – Cows have to first give birth, then they start giving milk and will give milk for 10
months. When the cow gets to the 9^th month you will get less milk, so you reduce the
feed.

DR – How long after giving birth will they start giving milk again?

BK – You stop milking 2 months before they give birth to build up their strength. Once they
give birth you wait 60-90 days before impregnating again. This is done by using a bull or by you
artificially inseminating the cow if you don’t have a bull.

DR – How do you know when to inseminate?

BK – Cows give different signs when they go into heat. They will stand still and moan and
during this time you can go in and plant the semen. Then wait 28 days.

DR – What happens to the cow’s calf after giving birth?

BK – For the first 24 hours the calf must get colostrums from the mother. Then you milk the
mother 24 hours later and save the colostrums in the refrigerator to feed to the calf by bottle.

DR – When do you begin milking again for personal use of the milk.

BK – At least two weeks before the cow gives birth you should began slowly began feeding her
grain and alfalfa, roughly 2 pounds per day until you reach 12 pounds per day. After birth the first
four days the milk the mother produces is colostrums for the calves, you should begin milking the
mother the second day and save the colostrums for the calf. If the calf is a heifer you give it milk
from the bottle for 30 to 60 days, then you begin feeding a high protein feed and free choice
hay. You will need to keep the calf separate from the mother for at least 1 year. After 18 months
you can begin to use the young heifer as a dairy cow.

DR – What do you do if it is a male calf?

BK – If it is a male calf, after feeding it for 30 days you have to get rid of them which is
difficult because no one wants them. We have 4 now that we can’t seem to get rid of.

DR – Say for instance you go a day or two without milking the cow, what happens?

BK – If you do not milk on schedule the cow may get puss in the milk. It is not recommended
that you miss a scheduled milking time. This throws the cow off and she can get mastitis.

DR – What is the life span of the cow giving milk?

BK- They usually can give milk for 10-15 years after they start giving birth.

DR – We would love to have you present information from your experience with dairy cows during
Saviours’ Day.

BK – I can not say for sure that I will be able to make Saviours’ Day, because it is hard to
get people to milk the cows. It is not like getting someone to feed your pet. It is best to have 2
people rotating the feeding schedule. We don’t milk the cows by hand, but use a milking machine,
but it is still hard to get someone to come in and do it. A person must have a lot of discipline if
they want to own a cow. I don’t think that money will be enough motivation to do what we do
here.  We do it because we love our people and want to help the Honorable Minister Louis
Farrakhan make our people healthy.

DR – For those people who are thinking about; purchasing a cow, how much will it cost to
purchase and maintain a cow?

BK – You can get a milk cow starting at $1,000 depending on the area and the breed. The best
breeds are Holsteins and Jerseys. A milk machine costs about $1,600. You need to add another $100 or
so for cleaning equipment, storage containers and filters. We estimate that it cost about $4 per day
to feed a cow. This includes alfalfa hay, mineral supplements, and molasses to make the milk sweet.
If you don’t have a constant supply of water, then you are going to have to put in a well which
could cost $4,000 are more. And you are going to have to heat the water used to wash down the
milking equipment and floor.

DR – How do you distribute the milk?

BK – In Texas you need a permit to distribute the milk and you must own the cow. I have a
select group of customers from the Mosque who get the milk.

DR – What other advice would you give?

BK – You will need a shed, preferably with a concrete floor that can be washed down. The shed
gives protection from the elements during milking. For containers you can call a dairy company to
purchase plastic gallon containers. You need to give the cow good mineral supplements for the cow to
give good milk. You give the molasses with their feed, this keeps the stomach of the cow in good
condition and it also makes the milk sweet.

DR – Would you be willing to train those interesting in purchasing a dairy cow?

BK – Yes, definitely, we can house 2 people at a time and train them for a week at our farm in
Texas. We will be glad to do the training free of charge. You can call us at (713) 261-6409.

DR- Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. May God (Allah) continue to bless you
and your family.

By Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has declared that Black people in America have made a
"covenant with death." He states, "We have already made an agreement with hell and
that is why hell is in our lives. We have made an agreement with death and that is why death is in
our communities."

But how and why would a people make a "covenant with death"? The Honorable Elijah
Muhammad says in his book, "How to Eat to Live", that what we eat keeps us on the planet,
and what we eat could destroy our lives. He also taught 30 years ago that there was little pure food
on the market. He also said that soon there would be "no pure food" on the market.

Today, books like "Fast Food Nation", "Murder by Injection", "Seeds of
Deception" and "The Slow Poisoning of America" bare witness to these words spoken
thirty years ago. Thirty years ago Black people were the healthiest people in America. Today they
suffer from the greatest number of illnesses most of which can be linked to lifestyle choices, food
being the primary culprit.

If you have seen the movie "Supersize Me" and you are still a loyal and frequent
customer of Murder King, MacDeath, Sintucky Fried Chicken, Lurches Fried Chicken, Wind Dies,
Pizza Gut, Awful House, White Casket, Heart Dies and Bo is Still Hanging, you have made a
covenant with death. If you are still a part of the American dreamers who spend billions of dollars
on Fast Foods, you have made a covenant with death. If you are addicted to diet sodas, sodas
sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, soy bean products and micro-waved TV dinners, then you are
on the fast track to the grave.

According to some 1999 data found in a book entitled "Fast Food Nation", Americans
spend over $110 billion on fast foods. This is more than they spend on new cars, higher education,
personal computers, newspapers, records or movies.

In 1980 the farmer received an aggregate of about $81.7 billion of the consumers’ food bill of
$182.7 billion. However, by 1998 the consumer was spending $465.8 billion on food while the farmer’s
portion of that bill was only $118.8 billion. In other words whereas the farmer received close to
half of the consumer’s total food expenditures in 1980, by 1998 he received less than one forth of
the consumer’s food bill.

Where’s the money? Who is getting the bulk of your food dollar? Answer, the processors,
distributors, restaurants and retail stores are getting the bulk of the consumer’s food bill. In
other words the consumer is not necessarily eating more farm products, but more processed and
precooked food from the "merchants of death" that add in chemicals to enhance the taste or
hide the fact that the food lacks substance.

To hide the poor quality of the food they add ingredients like monosodium glutamate (MSG) to
trick the body. MSG is the sodium salt of the amino acid, glutamic acid, and a form of glutamate. It
is sold as a fine white crystal substance, similar in appearance to salt or sugar. It does not have
a distinct taste of its own, and how it adds flavor to other foods is not fully understood. Many
scientists believe that MSG stimulates glutamate receptors in the tongue to augment meat-like
flavors.

So MSG makes food taste good, but that same food may not provide proper nutrition to our cells.
Therefore, our cells are still hungry and tell our brains that we need more food. We therefore
continue to eat more and get fat.

According to "The Slow Poisoning of America", MSG is in almost every processed food
including: potato chips, wieners, canned pastas, vegetable juice, salad dressing, frozen entrees,
seasoned mix, soy sauce, bouillon cubes, nachos, bologna, canned chili, dried sour mix, frozen cured
meats, frozen diet entrees, cheese puffs, ice cream, pasta helpers, flavored crackers, canned soup,
ramen noodles, canned meats, frozen potatoes, gravy, jerky, sour cream and flavored rice.

MSG is extensively used in most of our fast food restaurants. So they keep you coming back for
more junk. We like to call MSG the "nicotine of food" (smile).

Why did we turn away from cooking our food to now allowing others to cook for us? The answer is
"convenience". And the need for such "convenience" is brought on by economic and
social factors which now force the wife/mother to work outside the home. The reduction in real wages
due to inflation plus the desire to live a middle class lifestyle has forced the wife/mother to take
a job and the husband/father to work two jobs just to make "ends meet". Add to this the
increase in the divorce rate which increases the number of cars and residents needed per person, we
have the formula for a culture of running around trying to survive with no time to cook or even to
sit down at the table as a family to eat a decent meal.

Now here comes the fast food industry to the rescue with the quick fix. It is interesting that in
the 1960s Black people marched and staged "sit ins" to force white restaurants to allow
Black people to sit at a lunch counter. Many of these same restaurants in fact did serve Black
people through a slit in the back door which Black folks saw as demeaning. However, today Blacks do
not have the time to sit and eat a meal, they now prefer the "back door" called the
"drive-thru". How things have changed but still remain the same (smile)?

According to "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser, McDonalds is now the largest buyer
of beef in America. She buys her beef from a few beef processing monsters that control the world’s
supply of processed meats. Mr. Schlosser documents the fast food industry’s fight against any
scientific testing of their beef for "E. coli" bacteria that has proven deadly to hundreds
of Americans each year. Of course there are many "body parts" in the ground up beef that
you don’t want to know about, but you should at least know if there are any E-coli.

Mr. Schlosser also points out that the "meat packing system that arose to supply the fast
food chains…has proved to be an extremely efficient system for spreading disease." He further
documents that it is easier to recall an automobile or a defective toy than tainted meat.

Obesity has also been directly related to the rise in fast food consumption. According to Mr.
Schlosser, "severely obese American children, aged six to ten, are now dying from heart attacks
caused by their weight." He states, that "between 1984 and 1993, the number of fast food
restaurants in Great Britain roughly doubled – and so did the obesity rate among adults."

Now they have made death so "convenient" that no one dares to advocate the return to
the "slavery" of the kitchen. So which will you choose, kitchen "slavery" or
fast food death?

The black victims of Hurricane Katrina have continued to be victimized by the US government, now
in the form of discrimination in the implementation of Louisiana’s $11 billion federally funded
recovery program called the "Road Home". On November 12, 2008 fair housing and civil
rights groups filed a lawsuit against HUD and the Louisiana Recovery Authority on behalf of 20,000
African-American homeowners, claiming that Blacks are facing huge gaps between the amount of their
Road Home grant awards versus the cost to rebuild their homes when compared to their White
counterparts.

As much as Katrina has hurt the black population of New Orleans, Katrina’s real devastation may
have to be measured in terms of her overall impact on the American economy in light of the current
financial meltdown. On May 3, 2004 the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan warned the Bush
administration to pull the troops out of Iraq or suffer the plagues of God’s wrath. He told
President Bush and the rest of us to "watch the Weather". These words came to mind as I
watched the hearings leading up to the financial bailout packages for AIG, one of the largest
insurance companies in the world. Immediately, the picture of those Black people on rooftops in New
Orleans in September of 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, flashed to my mind. As a result of the
devastation of Katrina over $40 billion in insurance claims had to be settled by the various
insurance companies of which AIG had to pay out $1.5 billion to policy holders for damages from
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In the weeks after Katrina AIG president, Martin Sullivan, stated: "Although reinsurance
capacity could be constrained in the near future, AIG has the capital and financial resources to
respond to our customers’ needs." However, in 2008 AIG was one of the first in line to receive
federal bailout funds to the tune of $125 billion.

But before the bailout, how did AIG and other insurance companies expect to improve their
"reinsurance capacity"? After Hurricane Katrina, insurers began using a new risk formula
that increased the projected short-term losses in coastal areas such as the Gulf Coast. That meant
higher rates for homeowners.

From 2001 to 2006 home insurance premiums rose by 42.4% in Alabama, 77% in Florida, 65.2% in
Louisiana, 63.3% in Mississippi and 50% in Texas. Since insurance premiums are based on the value of
the home, the higher the value, the higher the premium. This has a deflationary influence on the
overall housing market as people can not afford to buy the higher priced properties. So Katrina
helped to deflate the housing bubble just by increasing insurance premiums.

Then in early December of this year, I watched on C-SPAN a presentation by economists from the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (FRBB) trying to explain the relationship between mortgage
delinquency rates and rates of house-price appreciation. The economists from the FRBB stated that
their study showed a very strong negative correlation between recent rates of house-price
appreciation and the level of the ‘subprime’ delinquency rate in 2006; that is, higher rates of
house-price appreciation are associated with lower rates of delinquencies. Simply stated, as the
value of houses are going up fewer people are delinquent on their payments and there are fewer
mortgage defaults. The economists surmise that if the rate of growth in appreciation slows down or
goes negative, many new mortgage holders will find that the value of their home has depreciated to a
point that they owe more on the home than the home is worth, therefore they allow the home to go
into foreclosure.

The economists stated, that based on the data that bankers and investors had prior to 2006, there
was no way to predict that home values would stop climbing. However, I remember what my pocket felt
like in September of 2005 after gas rose from $2.00 per gallon in the spring of 2005 to over $3.00
per gallon after Katrina.

70% of the American workforce use cars and trucks to get to work. America runs on oil. Food,
parts and other goods are hauled by trucks which get only 7 miles to the gallon. As fuel prices go
up, the price of these other items eventually rise as well, which has a negative impact on the
consumers’ purchasing power, therefore they have less money to pay on their mortgage.
Interestingly, the Federal Reserve System economists do not include energy costs and food prices
into their measure of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which they use to monitor inflation.
Therefore, the data was there for them to see the impending storm that a severe rise in fuel prices
would cause in the housing market, but they just refused to look.

In a May 2008 study entitled "Driven to the Brink: How the Gas Price Spike Popped the
Housing Bubble and Devalued the Suburbs," economist Joe Cortright states: "The rise in gas
prices from less than $1.10 in early 2002 to more than $3 today has dealt a major blow to consumer
purchasing power and weighs most heavily on those metropolitan areas and those suburbs where people
have to drive the farthest."

He pointed out that in metropolitan areas like Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland and
Tampa, home prices have fallen more in farther-flung ZIP codes than in close-in neighborhoods. For
instance, in Chicago, while housing prices have remained stable in close-in neighborhoods within
three miles of the city’s central business district over the past 12 months, home prices have
fallen 4% in "distant" neighborhoods 13 miles from the central business district. And in
Los Angeles, while home prices have dropped 6% in close-in neighborhoods, they have decreased 10% in
distant neighborhoods, according to the report.

I went to the Internet and pulled down historical data on crude oil prices from 1973 to 2007 and
on the year to year percentage change in the median price of family homes from 1970 to 2008. In the
early 1970s oil was relatively cheap, less than $10 per barrel. Home prices in the 70s appreciated
at about 8% per year. However, the Iran-Iraq war started in September of 1980 and oil prices shot up
in 1981 to over $30 per barrel and stayed there through 1985. Home price increases dropped to almost
0% in 1981 and stayed below 4% until 1986 when oil prices dropped to $11 per barrel. Home price
increases fluctuated between 4% and 8% from 1986 to 1990, but when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of
1990 and oil prices jumped up to over $30 per barrel, home prices decreased by a negative 2% by the
end of the year.

The Federal Reserve economists knew that the Federal government had relaxed its control over oil
price speculation as a result of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Therefore any jolt
to the flow of oil due to wars, accidents or weather could cause wide swings in oil prices.

What should the economists at the Federal Reserve have expected when oil reached $45 per barrel
after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 tore up the Gulf of Mexico’s oil rigs and refineries? Then the soft,
oil rich, underbelly of America was hit again when Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf
of Mexico in 2005. The speculators drove the price of oil up to near $70 per barrel.

In the beginning of 2005 housing prices were accelerating at a national rate of 16%, but by 2006
had fallen to -1.5%. In 2007 housing prices fell by an unprecedented -4% and still worse in 2008 by
-8%. And since the Federal Reserve economists did not include energy costs in their predictive
models, they were either flying blind to the impending collapse of the housing market or fooling the
government officials and the public. This collapse had a ripple affect on financial markets,
precipitating the collapse of America’s financial system and caused the American people to lose
over $13 trillion in wealth.

FEMA found it difficult to save the poor victims of Katrina in New Orleans. Insurance companies
found it difficult to pay the poor a fair price for their destroyed homes. The recovery agencies
found it difficult to restore the lives of those refugees from Katrina, but it seems that Katrina
has washed away the foundation on which the financial giants of America built their fortunes at the
expense of the working poor. Now, the blinded giants of financial wealth are falling into a dark,
seemingly, bottomless pit, dragging America down with them.

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

John Erb wondered if there could be an actual chemical causing the massive obesity epidemic.
He was a research assistant at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and spent years
working for the government.

He made an amazing discovery while going through scientific journals for a book he was writing
called "The Slow Poisoning of America". In hundreds of studies around the world,
scientists were creating obese mice and rats to use in diet or diabetes test studies. No strain of
rat or mice is naturally obese, so the scientists have to create them. They make these morbidly
obese creatures by injecting them with MSG when they are first born.

MSG is the sodium salt of the amino acid glutamic acid and a form of glutamate. It is sold as a
fine white crystal substance, similar in appearance to salt or sugar. It does not have a distinct
taste of its own, and how it adds flavor to other foods is not fully understood. Many scientists
believe that MSG stimulates glutamate receptors in the tongue to augment meat-like flavors.

Glutamate is derived from glutamic acid, a major building block for proteins. It is found
naturally in our bodies and in protein-containing foods, such as cheese, milk, meat, peas, and
mushrooms. MSG is one of several types of glutamate. When glutamate is released during breakdown of
the protein molecule, "free glutamate" is formed. It is only in this free form that
glutamate can enhance a food’s flavor.

The flavor enhancing effect of hydrolyzed protein products, including soy sauce, is due to the
presence of free glutamate. Hydrolyzed proteins, or protein hydrolysates, are prepared by using food
grade acid or enzymes to chemically digest proteins from soy meal, wheat gluten, corn gluten, edible
strains of yeast, or other food sources. These protein foods are rich sources of glutamate. When
proteins are broken down, bound glutamate is converted into free glutamate.  Therefore, when
you read "hydrolyzed protein" on the label, think MSG.

The key here is that MSG makes food with low nutritional value taste satisfying to the consumer.
When our customers receive crops from Muhammad Farms they tell us how much better our produce tastes
than those bought at the store. We know why our produce tastes better. We grow it without using high
doses of fertilizer, pesticides or irrigation water. Therefore our crops have a chance to grow
normally. We may not get as much volume per acre or the size of our vegetables may not be as large,
but they are good representatives of their species.

Each crop has its own distinct flavor because it pulls up different minerals from the ground and
combines them with water, air and sunlight in slightly different ways to form specific amino acids
and vitamins for our bodies. Taste is a side-affect of these differences and helps our bodies
distinguish between these crops to satisfy a specific need of the cells in our bodies.

However when food is grown fast and then is further denatured by over-processing, it has less
nutritional value and less taste. To hide these loses they add stuff like MSG to trick the body. So
it tastes good, but provides no nutrition to our cells. Our cells are still hungry and tell our
brains that we need more food. We therefore continue to eat more and get fat.

MSG is in almost every processed food including: potato chips, wieners, canned pastas, vegetable
juice, salad dressing, frozen entrees, seasoned mix, soy sauce, bouillon cubes, nachos, bologna,
canned chili, dried sour mix, frozen cured meats, frozen diet entrees, cheese puffs, ice cream,
pasta helpers, flavored crackers, canned soup, ramen noodles, canned meats, frozen potatoes, gravy,
jerky, sour cream and flavored rice.

MSG is extensively used in most of our fast food restaurants. So they keep you coming back for
more junk. We like to call MSG the "nicotine of food" (smile).

As we travel on the highways it amazes me how much positive attention we get when people see our
trailer loaded with juicy, sweet watermelons. When we stop to get gas we have to rush so that people
won’t rush us and buy all of our melons before we get them to our customers.

We at Muhammad Farms over the years have developed a good reputation for producing sweet
watermelons. I have wondered why we get so many compliments about the taste of our melons. Of course
we must thank Almighty God (Allah) for the seed, the land and the water that produces the melon. We
are just caretakers. However, we have investigated how we grow our melons in comparison to the large
commercial farmers.

We know that we do not get the volume of melons per acre that large commercial farms do because
we refuse to use the amount of artificial fertilizers, excessive irrigation water and the laundry
list of chemicals that they use to protect their weak melons from diseases. A watermelon is a very
unique crop in how it sucks up water. A watermelon has a lot more water content than most other
crops. It is designed to suck water from the atmosphere even if it does not rain. It has a large
root system and a tap root that burrows deep into the earth in search of water. It also has little
suckers on its vines that will attach themselves to any other plant in its nine foot reach and suck
the water out of them.

Therefore whatever you put on it or in its reach will be drawn into itself and stored within its
thick skin or rind. Many chemicals have a distinct taste. So when people eat a watermelon that has
been doctored up, they taste a little of those chemicals which leaves and after taste in their
mouths. So when they eat a Muhammad Farms watermelon they taste the pure naturally made sugar of the
plant without enhancers. Thank you for your support and continue to enjoy Muhammad Farms sweet
watermelons. Eat to live and let your taste buds be fulfilled with the natural flavors of healthy
food.

A few weeks ago I delivered a load of watermelons to one of our buying clubs in Virginia. One of
our brothers referred to me as the "farm god". It was a good compliment but it made me
feel a little uneasy, because I do not feel that I have grown to the point of being a
"god" yet. "God" means possessor of power and force. By that definition, we as
humans all have a little "god" in us, but that is counteracted by the god in others.
Therefore, although you may will a thing and desire to put it in action, you might be going against
the will of others, and their power and force may reduce the effectiveness of your efforts.

When we who are parents take our young children on a long journey, they show their lack of
patience by asking every hour or so, "Are we there yet?" We are God’s children and on
our journey to become one with Him, we may become a little impatient as well. And in our quest to be
an independent nation of gods we sometimes show our misunderstanding of what a nation is and what it
means to be a "god" by overstating the level of each other’s development.

At Muhammad Farms I am just getting to the point that I might consider myself a good or decent
farmer. I do not make plants grow. I simply obey the laws of nature and try to plant my seeds on
time and then fight the weeds to protect them. I pray for the proper amount of rain and wait for the
right time to harvest the crop. I gather the labor and equipment to pick the crop before it spoils
or drops to the ground. I spend a lot of time just fixing equipment when it breaks. As a farmer I
must be obedient to the laws of nature and demands of my crop, hardworking and prayerful. However, I
am only doing what hundreds of thousands of other farmers are doing all across America and what
millions are doing across the globe.

The setting up of buying clubs is a precursor to establishing cooperatively owned grocery stores
in black communities across the country. It is a monumental task taken on by the Ministry of
Agriculture, but not that unusual. Every nation of people or ethnic community, outside of the black
community in America, has grocery stores, warehouses and trucks. The fact that it is newsworthy to
report on the opening of a black owned grocery store in America should seem strange. Why is it
newsworthy to report on something that should be as normal as going to the store to buy groceries?
The fact that we have been destroyed as a people and do not do what is normal to other human beings
makes small accomplishments newsworthy, just as the first steps of your infant was big news to the
family. So if you have set up a black owned grocery store please send us an article and pictures, so
that we can show the family that the "baby" is taking its first steps.

A "god" possesses power and force. Now on these lines I would include companies like
ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), Monsanto, Dow Chemicals, John Deere, Krogers, Safeway, Kelloggs,
ConAgra, Dupont, Cargil, General Mills and many others as "gods" in the food industry.
They determine what types of crops farmers will grow, the type of seed that they will use and the
methods by which farmers protect their crops. They determine the price the farmer will receive and
how he will get his product to market. They have the power to influence Congress in the
determination of laws that effect farmers and the whole food industry.

So what are our qualifications for a "farm god"? At a minimum the Ministry of
Agriculture should have: 1. at least 100,000 acres of farm land under cultivation, 2.food processing
plants and textile mills, 3. at least 80 grocery stores, along with a chain of warehouses and
trucks, 4. hundreds, if not thousands of happy, productive and well compensated workers, and 5.
hundreds of thousands of satisfied customers who stand in line to come to our stores. Then, whoever
is at the head of such a large and smooth running organization could justifiably be called a
"farm god". But right now I am just your brother striving to be a good farmer, motivator
and facilitator for others to get busy, unite and do something for ourselves.

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

On August 18^th and 19^th 2006 Min. Lee Muhammad of Charlotte, NC, Barry
Crumbley, BFAA member from NY and myself attended the National Bio-Dynamic Agriculture Conference
held at Hawthorne Valley Farm in upstate New York. The theme of this year’s conference was
"Building Sustainable Communities: Agriculture as Foundation for Social Change". As a
student of The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad the title of this conference resonated with my
consciousness since he taught us that "Agriculture is the Root of Civilization." The title
and the subject matter also reminded me of the African village concept of communal work, communal
ownership, mixed agriculture and connectedness between the soul and the land.

In listening to the various speakers at the workshops it became apparent that these white people
were trying to become more "spiritual" and get back to "nature". On the other
hand Black people in the cities have totally bought into the western value system and are becoming
more "materialistic" and artificial. While the host group was trying to grow food without
chemicals and artificial fertilizers, Black people were dying their hair, putting in colored eyes
and eating as much fast food as they could "super swallow". These white people were trying
to understand how they fit into the cosmos, while Black people are trying to adapt their behavior
and even appearance to fit into the artificial world set up by their conquerors, the white people.

The concept of Bio-Dynamics is based on a series of lectures given by Rudolph Steiner in 1924 in
Austria. He introduced an idea for "a farming system based upon on-farm biological cycling
through mixing crops and livestock. …This philosophy suggests that humans, animals, plants,
minerals and the cosmic periphery form a whole system, or organism." This sounds like
traditional agriculture developed by Africans thousands of years ago but destroyed by Europeans.

As we listened to the presenters at the various workshops the similarities became more apparent
between this "new" concept of Bio-Dynamics and the African culture which was based on a
continuous flow of energy from the spiritual world into the physical world. It is man’s
responsibility to balance these energies to maintain an environment of health and peace.

We remembered the African story of Osiris (Ausar) and Isis (Auset). Isis is given credit for
developing domesticated animals and crops while Oisiris is said to have taken this agricultural
system of ancient Kemit to other parts of the world, thereby fostering the development of
civilization throughout the world. It seems that Seth has temporarily won the struggle against his
brother Osiris. Seth represents the hot, dry, selfish, destructive, nomadic, male principle
represented by Western warrior exploitative society, while Osiris represents the wet, sedentary,
harmonic, female principle represented by many now destroyed indigenous cultures of the planet. Now
it seems that whites are trying to resurrect the principles of ancient African culture by another
name.

Gary Lamb, Director of the Center for Social and Environmental Responsibility at Hawthorne
Valley, laid out a new paradigm for economic development based on "working together"
instead of the competitive profit making model. He quoted David Corten who made many attempts to use
western economic development models with indigenous people but found that "…no development
theory embraced all peoples." Mr. Lamb opined that for sustainable development, people must
"…break from money to community." Any attempts of development must work with the
"whole view of reality" instead of the "excessively partial view of reality"
that under girds the thinking of western economic and agricultural thought.

He continued by asserting that man must understand how he fits into the cosmos. The basic
relationships are between the earth, man and God. This goes back to the indigenous inhabitants of
the America’s concept of the three tiered world with earth as the foundation, man in the middle
and God on top.

Let us highlight a few other comments from various speakers to get to our conclusions:
"Productivity should be connected to furthering the spiritual development of the human being.
It should increase the vitality of the individual and society." (Gary Lamb)

"Food carries the energies of he who handles it…People should be connected to the source
of their nourishment." (Jessica Prentice)

"Researchers had told the Congress in the 1950’s that reliance upon artificial fertilizers
would decrease the vitality of our commercial crops and increase the strength of competing weeds
forcing the utilization of herbicides and pesticides. It seems that the USDA and the chemical
industry understood the value of this information and pushed through this concept of mono-culture
(growing one crop year after year) supported by artificial fertilizers and chemicals which the
chemical firms produced and the USDA loaned money to the farmers to consume…Black farmers carry a
wealth of information on how to handle soil without chemicals. We should visit these older farmers
who now may be located in the cities and get as much experiential information as possible especially
from those farmers that used to farm in the areas where you may have your farm." (Klaas Martin)

Mr. Martin went on to describe the form of sustainable agriculture once practiced by Black
farmers in the South which included crop rotations, livestock grazing, recording and paying
attention to natural rhythms of their environment, and a deep spiritual connection to their crops,
livestock, land and family. Of course, this tradition would have naturally been passed on to the
children of theses farmers if their land was not taken from them.

White people have now "rediscovered" this more sustainable way to produce food and
fiber. They have also rediscovered the "neters" or "Orisas" which are the
governing forces of nature that all African cultures knew had to be properly "appeased"
through prayer, song, dance and obedience. The Africans never tried to "conquer" nature
but worked with the forces of nature to justify their existence in harmony with nature.

However Africans who were practicing this form of interdependence and harmony with nature were
captured by European slave traders and brought to America to teach white people how to farm,
"Bio-Dynamically". After slavery even though they were never given their promised "40
acres and a mule", they bought 16 millions acres of land by 1910 and continued this mixed
farming approach. However, Black farmers were forced out of this traditional style of mixing crops
and livestock by the USDA which forced them to grow a limited number of crops and give up their
small livestock operations if they were to get government loans and assistance.

As members of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association we were allowed to give a
presentation about the state of Black farming. It was interesting to see the incredulous looks on
some of the whites in attendance as we described how the US government succeeded in destroying Black
agriculture in the South. Now that they are gone another set of white people, the Bio-Dynamic types,
are looking for these same farmers to help them understand how to farm in a sustainable manner.

Our two days and registration fees were well spent to learn that our Black farmers in America and
in Africa had it right. Maybe more Blacks will listen to this new breed of white experts and go back
to their African culture of communal land ownership, food security, working together and respect for
the land. However, it may be almost impossible to buy land if the trend continues of increasing land
values. The 1600 acres of land now called Muhammad Farms was purchased in 1995 at a price of $1,000
per acre. This past week two farms were put up for sale in our area: one was 650 acres and the other
was 1,500 acres. Each is selling for $3,500 per acre.

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

From the end of June to the first of August Muhammad Farms sponsored its first farm camp for
young men. The participants included Emil Reeves, a college student from Florida A&M University
and three teenagers from Newark, N.J.: Kwame Amparbin (14), Kodwo Amparbin (16) and Malachi Worsly
(15). Our goal was to give these young men a taste of farm life and some of the responsibilities of
running a household.

Over the years we have had frequent visitors to Muhammad Farms including school aged children. On
these visits we try to give a brief experience of farm life by placing them in the fields to fight
weeds or pick produce. However, most of these visits last only a few hours and did not give the full
flavor of farm life. So this year we experimented with a longer program of work and training.

We stressed to our first four young men that agriculture is the root of civilization. We did not
expect them necessarily to become farmers, but the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad has taught us that
"the farm is the engine for our national life". The farm provides the raw materials such
as food, fiber, lumber and minerals that feed into the processing, manufacturing and distribution
industries. The hard work put in by the farmer produces the opportunity for jobs off of the farm.

One question that we like to ask visitors, "Have you ever heard of a ‘bean counter’?"
Some would get it and say, "You mean an accountant?" That’s right. In Ancient Egypt (Kemet)
they had an over abundance of food produced including beans. They also had a large population.
Therefore, to insure a proper distribution of the "beans" someone had to count the beans
or weigh them, count the people, then make a fair distribution, so the accountant was born.

We also stress how astronomy was necessary to keep up with the seasons so that the farmers would
plant on time. Surveyors were necessary to keep up with property borders. Mechanics and blacksmiths
were required to keep the equipment going. When the Arabs invaded Egypt thirteen hundred years ago,
they found the Egyptians practicing a science of manipulating the elements. Since the people of
Egypt at that time were black, the Arabs called that science the "science of the blacks".
And since the Egyptian word for "black" was "kem" or "chem.", the word
was translated "chemistry". A farmer must keep his soil properly balanced between acidity
and alkalinity. He must also test the quality of his product and know when the product takes on
decay. Therefore, he must learn some aspects of chemistry or go broke.

We at Muhammad Farms appreciate the effort of these young men in the various tasks that we had
them to experience. They picked watermelons, cantaloupes, eggplant, sweet corn and squash. They hoed
weeds. They helped repair equipment and grounds. They even traveled with us as we made produce
deliveries to Atlanta, D.C., Newark, Philadelphia, Greensboro, Durham, Vicksburg, Birmingham,
Memphis and Monroe.

We enjoyed watching these young men grow stronger, wiser and more mature during their stay. We
also learned that they worked a lot better when working directly beside a grown man. They wanted to
prove their manhood by doing the same work that grown men did. It seems that during the teenage
years when a young man or woman is between being a child and a grown up, they learn more by being
shown what to do than told what to do. This is a difficult age for them when most grown ups work
outside the home where children are not allowed. Therefore work is a "mystery" to them at
a time when they need training the most.

We asked these young men to write a report of their experience. Please take the time to read
exerts from two of them.

Kwame Amparbin wrote:

"…I was taught many things about a farmer’s life and how hard they work. No matter what
the degrees are outside or how tired they are from the previous day they worked. What really got me
one day was while working, I was told to pick watermelons and I was being lazy. Dr. Ridgely came to
me and said why be lazy when working for a black man and especially a Muslim black man doing right.
He told me if I was working for a white man I would be working hard trying not to mess up and get
fired… I appreciate Dr. Ridgely and Sister Ann helping us, so that if one day we would be
instructed to lead our nation we would have the tools to do so."

Emil Reeves wrote:

"I decided to major in the Agricultural engineering sciences before going to college due to
the inspiration of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. However, the need to study in
this field became more apparent after observing the behavior of the young children in the Mosque
especially the males… After Minister Farrakhan had asked us to fast from meat, I began to do some
research and the only thing I could link between the believers and this behavior were our diets. I
began to truly see how dependent we have become of the enemy and his food supply.

…I have witnessed how believers have lost discipline in order to get their produce during
deliveries to the different cities and during the "Founder’s Day Celebration" at
"Muhammad Farms". The believers questioned the quality and other aspects of the produce,
however they eat the enemies produce. Some believers criticized the produce harvested by other
believers even though they did not go into the fields and harvest any crops for themselves.

…I would strongly recommend the creation of a work, training and civilization program here at
Muhammad Farms for all men, women and children. While here they can be "detoxed" from the
mindset of this world by removing distractions such as television, computers, radios, cars, clothing
etc. and putting them in an environment where they must live and work together, giving us as
believers the opportunity to "hear" ourselves think and experience freedom through working
in the fields, while here the open space and fresh diet should allow us to maximize our thinking
ability letting our thoughts travel twenty-four billion miles per second…

In conclusion, the experience I have gained at "Muhammad Farms" will continue to guide
my physical, spiritual and intellectual development. Not only did I learn about the harvesting and
production aspect of agriculture but I learned more about myself whether strengths or weaknesses.
Most importantly after residing at "Muhammad Farms" I bear witness to the urgency of
"Accepting our own" and "doing for self". I definitely believe we as a people
have an enemy who destroys our mind and bodies through food. So we will continue to suffer until we
have our own land. Consequently, without farmland you cannot build a "nation". Little do
we know that the "land" which our people have run away from provides everything we will
ever need to ‘do for ourselves’."

by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad

Scientists and food companies that brought you “Frankenfood” also introduced “mad
cow disease” to the world by feeding cows to cows then to you. Cows naturally get their protein
and energy from eating vegetation and not meat, unless force-fed by the merchants of death. Nature
rebelled against this new practice of humans forcing cows to break nature’s laws by making humans
taste a portion of what they have earned, “mad cow disease”. Now scientists are adding
“human genes” to our rice diet.

One set of scientists in California are field testing rice modified with human lactoferrin and
human lysozyme, commonly found in breast milk, bile and tears. Lactoferrin is thought to be able to
boost the immune system while other proteins can be used to treat cystic fibrosis and the lung
disease emphysema. However, these same scientists cannot guarantee that the “experimental”
crops will not spread to the rice that we eat everyday.

Rice is the staple for billions of people on our planet. Why play around with rice instead of
some exotic type of plant that can only survive in the greenhouse and is of no real value to humans?

In a 2002 “Farmer Newsletter” article called “Who is Poisoning the Homeland?”
we wrote that Mr. Tony Laos’, the CEO of Prodigene, a biotech company in the business to grow
drugs in crops, assured the world that his drugs would not contaminate non-pharmaceutical corn.
However, one month after his “assurance” the impossible happened. Interestingly, a week
later the Homeland Security Bill was passed that would protect companies like ProdiGene and Epicyte
from any liabilities with experimenting and producing vaccines in corn, even though these genes may
cross over into the general food supply. Add to this that Epicyte is “experimenting” with
“spermicides” produced in corn, then what we have here is a formula for mass sterilization
and you won’t be able to sue for damages.

Another group of scientist in Japan are adding human genes to rice so that the rice crop will
tolerate more doses of herbicides. We quote from the article “GM industry puts human gene into
rice” by Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

Independent on Sunday, 24 April 2005:

“Present GM (genetically modified) crops are modified with genes from bacteria to make them
tolerate herbicides, so that they are not harmed when fields are sprayed to kill weeds.

But the researchers at the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in

Again, the side effects of adding human genes to the food supply has not been tested nor has the
moral issue of humans eating humans, cannibalism, been addressed. Why is it so important to add the
human gene to rice to reduce the labor in controlling weeds by making the crop more tolerant for
herbicides? The labor supply to rice production at the same time is being cut back as China reduces
her farm population by 20 million so that she can participate in the international trade of
manufactured products as ordained by the World Trade Organization. Now China is flooding America
with cheap manufactured goods while she is becoming more dependent on the West for food and
chemicals to grow food.

What are they up to? In another “Farmer Newsletter” article called “Life in the
Balance” we brought forward documents that might help explain “their” motives. One of
the documents is “Global 2000” by Cyrus Vance, adviser to President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
This document stated that the world needs to reduce its projected population growth by 4 billion
people. Also look up “Georgia Guidestones” that were erected in Elberton, GA in 1979.
Guiding principle number one was to keep world population at a steady 500 million people. However,
in 1979 there were at least 5 billion people already here. What’s up? Can you spell
“g-e-n-o-c-i-d-e”?

But how can someone produce death in such large numbers without the people catching on? One way
is by putting the economic system completely out of line with our life-support-system, causing man
to act in his own short term economic interests, while tricking him to dig his own grave in the long
term. Another way to put it is that you put man on a fast track to hell with the carrot of cheap
food and less labor.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. The Ancient Egyptians had a name for these strange
white people from the Greek islands in the Aegean sea which the Bible in Genesis chapter 10 called
“Gentiles”. They called them the “Khefti” and described them with a
determinative of a man on one knee with an axe to his head. In other words these Greek people were
believed by the Ancient Egyptians to be suicidal. Therefore it is no wonder that they are so reckless
with the environment or the sustaining factors of human life, the food supply.

And since according to Herodotus the ancestors of modern whites, the Scythians, did not mind
drinking from the skull of their defeated enemies, the next step of mixing human genes with
vegetables and eating them does not seem much of a stretch. So where is the “West” headed?
Maybe we are being led into the world of the movie “Solent Green”, where eating human
wafers will be a major part of our diet in this “Brave new world”. Or maybe the taste of
humans in our “fried rice” will be a new gift from the Greek goddess, Aphrodite, as we eat
our way to hell?