Jovan Sage: Embracing Her Call

Jovan Sage: embracing the call to heal

by LeeAnna Tatum

Jovan Sage is a woman of many talents. She is an herbalist, wellness coach, entrepreneur, restaurateur, food justice activist, community organizer, and most recently has added farmer to the list. But at the heart of it all is her belief in the healing power of food.

Through the many changes in Jovan’s life, one thing has always remained remarkably consistent. Weaving like an unbroken strand through the tapestry of her life has been her strong connection to food.

This past year has been one of transition for Jovan as she and her partner Matthew Raiford recently closed their brick and mortar restaurant The Farmer and the Larder that was located in downtown Brunswick for approximately four years. The couple have been feeling a call to return to the land that has been farmed by Matthew’s family for generations and have chosen to focus their attention on the farm.

“The land here kept calling us back... it’s hard to balance living in the city and coming out to the farm,” Jovan explained. “We saw what we were trying to do out here (on the farm) was suffering, so it was time for us to let go of that brick and mortar restaurant.”

“I think everything happened for a reason,” she continued, “to bring us back to this space and to this grounding - the work that we’re meant to do here... Even though it was a tough decision, it was the right decision … We’re excited to make that move and to really reorient our work in a way that feeds us and feeds the work that we’re here to do.”

It’s a new beginning for Jovan, yet in many ways it is simply the next step in the journey she began as a child growing up in the farmers market in Kansas City where she learned to appreciate foods from all over the world and formed an understanding of where ingredients came from and how they could come together to create something delicious to nourish and even heal the body.

That journey continued throughout her schoolyears in an academic setting that incorporatedagricultural education with traditional subjects.

“Having those kinds of experiences where my education was very hands-on and multicultural and interactive, to growing up in the farmers market … working in my grandfather’s shop and seeing the fresh watermelon come in and the corn, and talking to the farmers. Tasting the international spices then going home, taking that produce and cooking it … even though I didn’t live in the country, I had very deep roots connected to the country and to agriculture.”

Jovan continued her connection to agriculture throughout her career as she worked first as an activist as Director of Network Engagement for Slow Food USA. And then again as she transitioned into managing cafes in New York. It was during this period in her life that she felt a yearning to connect with the soil … any soil … to put hand in dirt and cultivate her own food.

Living in New York City didn’t afford many opportunities for gardening, so she created her own garden space on the rooftop of the building where she lived. She was also introduced to keeping chickens during this time and found the experience to be more rewarding than she could have imagined.

As she began to do more in her own kitchen, experimenting with flavor combinations and preserving fresh fruits through her jams. She found the creative outlet was empowering and that food could be healing. This was the starting point for Sage’s Larder.

“Part of my New York City roots was learning how to heal myself through food,” Jovan recalled. “Getting my hands in the dirt. I did my own rooftop garden, I learned how to cook from scratch and became an urban chicken keeping apprentice.”

Jovan had met Matthew at an international Slow Food conference in Italy. Jovan was there as part of her duties with the organization and Matthew was attending as a representative of African American farmers in the South. The two hit it off and began a long distance relationship that lasted for a couple of years until Matthew was able to convince Jovan to join him in Brunswick.

The couple successfully started and ran their restaurant The Farmer and The Larder in downtown Brunswick until answering the call to return to Matthew’s family farm, Gilliard Farms, full time.

It’s a return to the land that many African Americans are making, especially here in the South. As with women farmers, it is a growing trend in agriculture and one I asked Jovan to address from her own unique perspective.

For Jovan and Matthew part of what compelled them to return to farming was knowing that the land was there and it was being underutilized and a feeling of responsibility to make it productive again.

Jovan speculated that a lot of family farms are lost because the connection to the land gets lost. “That’s how people end up losing their land … you get this parcel from your grandmother and you have these memories (of growing up on the farm or visiting the farm), but you don’t use it and you don’t bring your kids to create their own memories, so they have no connection to the land.”

“...there are folks who want to farm who are so excited to get back to the land and get their hands in the dirt and steward land - but they don’t have land … The idea that you would have land and not have people on it, working it and living on it, you can’t disconnect the two.”

“For us to be here in the space right now, it’s nothing short of amazing and there’s a lot of pressure that goes with that as well. how do we properly steward this land and how do we ... if we’re looking to make a living on this land. how do we do that in a way that is responsible, sustainable - not just for the land but also for ourselves - and really keep up that long-term legacy.”

“I think that’s the question before us right now … we’re wanting to make this work. So how do we do that in a rural setting... using our talents and using our experience, using the work that we’ve done nationally and internationally - how do we make it work right here in Brunswick Georgia?”

Although Matthew’s family has kept their farm for multiple generations, Jovan’s family history with the land was more representative of the larger African

American population. Continuing to live through farming was not always an option and many were forced to move to more urban areas and further North to find opportunities for supporting their families.

“A lot of conversations I’ve had over the years,” Jovan said, “are that folks want to work the land, folks want to return to the land. It wasn’t that we - and I can speak from my family lineage - didn’t want to work the land, it was that the conditions, especially here in the South, were hostile.”

‘It was hostile for us to try to make a living on the land that we had,” she continued. “There were so many barriers from farm services to markets - that’s part of why Southern Federation Cooperative - was created was specifically because black farmers … people didn’t want to pay us what white farmers were paid. Farming is already tough as it is, so the idea that you’re not getting the same price for the same work, it’s just criminal.”

“So you can see that migration, my grandfather was part of that, he was on family land in Mississippi and then moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where my mom was born. To leaving her behind when she was less than a year, because it was tough to get and keep work, so he ended up moving to Chicago.”

“That’s how a lot of folks ended up in Chicago (and other urban areas) was because of that migration. This idea of we can’t make a living here so we have to go where we can find jobs. You’ll find so many black folks concentrated in cities, but not everybody wants to be a city mouse! So, many of us spent summers and holidays coming to the country and spending time with family and learning about chickens and about grandma’s canning.”

“There’s this idea of how do we feed ourselves, how do we take care of ourselves? Some people just want to farm, to get their hands in the dirt. There’s this back to the land idea - how do we heal ourselves? How do we feed ourselves? And how do we get some elbow room?”, Jovan said with a laugh.

“And people are growing where they are. I was living in New York City and I was just like, I’ve got to get my hands in the dirt! So, I threw bags of dirt on my shoulder, went up my 3 story walk up and climbed up the fire escape to the rooftop. I think that for me and for other people, it’s like how to we get to this deeper sense of self?”

“For us, it’s this idea of how do we fully express the human experience? Some people just want to farm and I think we’re starting to hear more of those voices of individuals who want to farm. As we look at the food industry and look at all the food recalls and what’s going on with GMOs and with pesticides. I think people are trying to figure out how do we go about doing this for ourselves so we’re not afraid of what’s on our plate?”

“I think that’s a really big thing working through other folks as well. Is fearing what’s on our plate - we shouldn’t be afraid of our food. It’s supposed to feed us, it’s supposed to heal us - all of these things. so I think people are trying to figure out how do we assert sovereignty over our own lives. Part of that has to do with the soil.”

As Jovan returns to the land, she is also stepping more fully into her own calling as a healer and wellness coach.

“It took me a long time to really lean into the fact that part of what I’m here to do is to help people heal. And I resisted it for a long time. Because who makes money doing that?” Jovan laughingly questioned.

“For me as a healer, it’s not that I’m going out and healing people ... it’s this idea of going out and empowering people to take ownership of their own healing, to take ownership of what’s on their plate, to take ownership of how mindful they are of what information they are putting in their body.”

“I still resist in some ways, getting over that battle with self over what we’re put on this earth to do. I think what the world needs right now is more people who can help guide people to greater balance and healing within themselves - there just needs to be more of us.”

Jovan is looking forward to being able to incorporate the farm into work and bring the two separate entities into a functioning symbiotic relationship.

“For me as a healer, as an herbalist as a wellness coach, I want to do smaller events geared toward the wellness industry and healing … pulling back to organized retreats and bringing some of that energy to the farm.”

“And connecting people to the land through agritourism. We’re working with the Hostel in the Forest (a nearby hostel where guests can have overnight stays) and then they come to the farm and do hands on food work. We create foods that are healing - fermented foods, fresh foods. And really center ourselves in a different way. I think that’s the great thing about land, it’s that space to dive deep and to work on your own healing.”

“Whether you’re buying my teas or signing up for me to be your health and wellness coach or I’m putting together some tinctures for you - it’s this idea of how can we work together to get you to a better place. Whatever that looks like.”

“For me as an herbalist, as a wellness coach and as an educator - how can I use this space in order to do that education, to do that healing work in a way that reaches as many people as possible but also brings people here to this space to do that kind of work.”

Her new role as farmer and this new opportunity to have a very real connection with the land will be a new challenge for Jovan but one for which she has had a lifetime of preparation.

Jovan is a certified health coach through the Institute for Integrated Nutrition. A lifetime of interest in herbal teas and natural medicines was fortified through her studies at North Florida School of Herbalism and she continues to build on her knowledge through work with the Herbal Academy.

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