About this episode

Lana Mustafa discusses her work in urban agriculture and mutual aid for farmers in Palestine and the diaspora.

Lana is a Palestinian-American farmer and the Executive Director of Montclair Community Farms, where she leads urban agriculture, food access, and environmental education initiatives in northern New Jersey, and she is the founder of Roots Of Resilience, a Mutual Aid organization dedicated to supporting farmers in the West Bank. A lifelong grower, Lana began gardening at the age of seven and now stewards a homestead in Clifton with her 3 children, where she grows food, saves seeds, keeps bees, and raises backyard chickens. Her work centers seed sovereignty, land justice, and preserving culturally significant crops, with a deep commitment to supporting farmers and all land workers. Lana and I met at the Making Brooklyn Bloom conference in 2018 where Chris and I were presenting a couple workshops on seeds focused on stories of liberation. We became friends and collaborators, and I’m excited to say Lana and I will be presenting together tomorrow morning, January 31st, at the NOFA-NJ winter conference in Asbury Park about Truelove Seeds, thanks to Lana’s invitation as both a NOFA-NJ board member and grower for the Truelove Seeds catalog. We conducted this interview on November 19th…

People in this episode

Hosts: Owen Taylor, Chris Bolden-Newsome

Guest: Lana Mustafa

Topics covered

• Palestine
• urban agriculture
• food access
• environmental education
• seed sovereignty
• land justice

Keywords

• community farming
• culturally significant crops
• mutual aid
• Truelove Seeds

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Truelove Seeds

Books & works: Palestinian Seeds, Longing, and Love Seeds, Preserving Seeds, Culture, and Farming Traditions of Battir, Palestine Seeds and Their People EP, Seeds And Their People

Places: Palestine, New Jersey, the West Bank, Clifton, Asbury Park, Little Palestine

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• EP. 38: Vivien Sansour on Palestinian Seeds, Longing, and Love · December 4, 2025 · 1h 6m
• EP. 37: Cempaxochitl, Papalo, and more tastes of Mexico with Maria Hernandez of Cruz Family Little Farm · November 14, 2025 · 1h 9m
• EP. 36: Preserving Seeds, Culture, and Farming Traditions of Battir, Palestine · October 27, 2025 · 1h 11m
• EP. 35: Growing Sabzi from Iran in the San Francisco Bay Area with Reyhan Herb Farm · August 27, 2025 · 1h 4m
• EP. 34: Sankofa Community Farm and the African Diaspora - Go Back and Bring Forward What You Left Behind · March 28, 2025 · 1h 2m

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