How Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian American farmers are reviving their ancestors’ methods of growing food—and fighting climate change in the process

A powerful movement is happening in farming today—farmers are reconnecting with their roots to fight climate change. For one woman, that’s meant learning her tribe’s history to help bring back the buffalo. For another, it’s meant preserving forest purchased by her great-great-uncle, among the first wave of African Americans to buy land. Others are rejecting monoculture to grow corn, beans, and squash the way farmers in Mexico have done for centuries. Still others are rotating crops for the native cuisines of those who fled the “American wars” in Southeast Asia.

In Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian American farmers who are reviving their ancestors’ methods of growing food—techniques long suppressed by the industrial food system. These farmers are restoring native prairies, nurturing beneficial fungi, and enriching soil health. While feeding their communities and revitalizing cultural ties to land, they are steadily stitching ecosystems back together and repairing the natural carbon cycle. This, Carlisle shows, is the true regenerative agriculture—not merely a set of technical tricks for storing carbon dioxide in the ground, but a holistic approach that values diversity in both plants and people.

Cultivating this kind of regenerative farming will require reckoning with our nation’s agricultural history—a history marked by discrimination and displacement. And it will ultimately require dismantling power structures that have blocked many farmers of color from owning land or building wealth.

The task is great, but so is its promise. By coming together to restore these farmlands, we can heal not only our planet but also our communities and ourselves.

"Climate change is perceived to be a threat that emanates from the sky above, through holes in the ozone, or via century-defining storms. . . . A professor of environmental studies specializing in food and farming, Carlisle illustrates the confluence between agriculture and climate change as she shares the personal stories of Indigenous, Black, Latino, Asian, and other immigrant populations committed to the practice of regenerative farming. . . . [She] offers restorative hope and practical help for this existential crisis." - Booklist

"Carlisle’s Healing Grounds is worthy of your time and attention. . . . Her work seeks to revive the spirit of POC farmers wounded on a bloodied battleground. To plead with non-POC RA [regenerative agriculture] leaders to stop and think about their role in US agricultural history and to curb their current cooption. To urge for rapid political support. We RA advocates must listen to POC farmers’ stories of resistance and respect the sacredness of their healing grounds." - Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

"While agriculture is central to the narrative, what is fascinating about Healing Grounds is the vignettes on social justice that show how difficult it has been for peoples to maintain their way of raising food in the face of more dominant European input-intensive systems. This book will interest those who wish to better understand the diversity of agricultural practices and their basis within the cultures of the world, and the links between social justice and the way our food is grown." - Biologist

"Healing Grounds makes a timely and critical intervention, particularly given regenerative agriculture’s recent rise in popularity and concerns about its dilution and greenwashing. Carlisle charts a clear, challenging, yet hopeful path forward for regenerative agriculture and food systems justice, one that requires deep systemic change, racial justice, and BIPOC leadership." - Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development

"Carlisle's nontechnical writing style makes the book accessible to the general public as well as undergraduate university and college students. The book will interest all students engaging with the qualitative and social science components of environmental studies, including those focusing on environmental sciences, anthropology, sociology, or geography. The simplicity of each case study narrative makes this an especially appropriate text for undergraduate and community readerships." - Choice