By Regina Martinez
In the summer of 2007, Farmer Jack, a Detroit-based supermarket chain, closed its last store in the city. The departure followed decades of de-industrialization, outsourcing and population decline that already had seen other grocery chains abandon the metro area.
That left mainly convenience stores and small grocers, which found it uneconomical to carry a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Detroit, 80 percent Black, saw itself with little access to fresh produce and other vital provisions.
In 2006, lifelong Detroiter Malik Yakini began guerrilla farming — the gardening equivalent of squatting — on a small plot of land in Detroit’s Rouge Park. “Instead of us just complaining that there’s not good access to food in Detroit,” said Yakini, he was determined to see if a guerrilla garden could be used “to transform ourselves and transform our conditions.”
Yakini’s garden grew into Detroit’s largest urban farm, D-Town Farm, occupying more than seven acres. Using regenerative methods like large-scale composting, rainwater retention, solar energy and beekeeping, the farm grows more than 30 varieties of fruits, vegetables and herbs each year. D-Town focuses on growing relationships as well. By working with volunteer groups, college students and community members, the farm maintains its hoop houses, which extend the growing season in a city where freezing temperatures can last from November to March, as well as a children’s area and a public event space.
Now, at 68, Yakini is the executive director of Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network (DBCFSN). A nonprofit organization he founded in 2008 to combat food insecurity, DBCFSN is a wide-ranging Black-owned food enterprise aimed at building “self-reliance in Detroit’s Black community.”
In May, DBCFSN opened The Detroit Food Commons, a two-story, 31,000-square-foot project in partnership with Develop Detroit Inc., a full-service, non-profit real estate development company. On the first floor, The Detroit People’s Food Co-op is a community owned grocery store that sells fresh produce from D-Town Farms, local vendors and commercial distributors. The second floor includes DBCFSN’s offices, four culinary grade kitchens and a banquet hall.
To finance the co-op, Yakini had to reevaluate his core beliefs. Yakini’s first exposure to gardening was in his grandfather Austin W. Burton Sr.’s backyard garden; Burton had moved from Georgia to Detroit like many other African Americans during the Great Migration. Yakini learned to value the earth and, conversely, to hate capitalism, which he saw as exploitative of the Black community.
However, as the Food Commons start-up costs rose to $22 million, Yakini began to adapt his thinking. “I realize that we live in the United States of America in 2024, and if you want to do some things, you have to have money,” he said.
Partnering with the non-profit Develop Detroit in 2017 “brought additional contacts and credibility,” Yakini said, which, in turn, attracted investors, donations, grants and loans. That partnership gave Yakini the legitimacy that a “crazy dude with dreadlocks always talking about how much he hates capitalism,” might not otherwise have had, he said.
Still, financing the project took over a decade.
Indeed, the biggest challenge facing Black entrepreneurs is acquiring capital. “Detroit was one of the most red-lined cities in the country,” said Brandon Reed, director of external affairs at the Michigan Black Business Alliance, an organization devoted to creating profitable Black-owned businesses and closing the racial wealth gap. According to a 2020 report by the Brookings Institution, Black entrepreneurs are denied or given lower bank loans at more than twice the rate of their white peers, and when they do get loans, people of color pay higher interest rates on average than their white counterparts.
Racial uprising and white flight
To hear Yakini tell it, the seeds of DBCFSN grew out of turmoil in the 1960s, as he witnessed Detroit beset by police brutality and racial uprisings. “You had many white people fleeing Detroit,” said Yakini. Supermarket chains fled with them to the suburbs. Today, all local Sam’s Clubs are outside of the city.
For Yakini, establishing DBCFSN was about promoting self-reliance in the metro area. “We shouldn’t put a lot of energy into trying to convince the government to change, but we should put more energy into galvanizing and mobilizing our own energies,” he said.
In 2009, DBCFSN helped create the Detroit Food Policy Council, an organization committed to advocating for, and educating people about, food sovereignty. Yakini defined food sovereignty as a model that consumers control and benefit from, instead of large corporations. Along with community members like Kami Pothukuchi, an urban planner at Wayne State University, and Ashley Atkinson, co-director of Keep Growing Detroit, Yakini held public listening sessions where community members could voice their concerns and suggest additions to the policy. Today the council produces Food System Reports; its most recent data shows that nearly 70 percent of Detroit are food insecure – meaning they don’t know where their next meal will come from.
In 2007, a statistic like this might have been attributed to the lack of supermarkets, but today residents are being priced out. “Groceries are expensive,” said Nadia Nijimbere, a Detroit resident and co-owner of the East African restaurant Baobab Fare. “One of the reasons we opened a restaurant is so people can come and eat real food.”
As gentrification raises property values and attracts new businesses, residents travel outside the metro area to shop. “When Farmer Jack closed, that’s when we all started grocery shopping in the suburbs,” said Jonathan Jenkins, a lifelong Detroiter and executive assistant at Detroit Future City. “And I still do today. It’s cheaper than going downtown.”
Challenging this reality, the new co-op is located in Metro Detroit’s North End, a majority Black, low-income neighborhood. “We want to ensure that longtime Detroiters have access to everything that we’re doing,” said Yakini.
For the 43 percent of Detroiters who don’t own a car, the Food Commons will be accessible via the Woodward and East Euclid bus station across the street, which extends ten miles down the center of Detroit. For the 33 percent of Detroiters who are using SNAP, the store will accept EBT cards. For local organizations that might not be able to afford an event space, the communal banquet hall will be priced at four different levels. The Food Commons aims to be a hub for all community members.
According to the co-op’s website, any resident of Michigan over 21 can become a “member/owner.” It already boasts 2,300 members. A lifetime membership costs $200, which can be paid in one lump sum or spread out over ten monthly installments and comes with multiple benefits. Members vote in elections for the co-op board of directors, have a say in co-op activities and future projects, approve paying a share of profits to member/owners and receive discounts on select products. By contrast, a membership in Sam’s Club Plus, which is owned by Walmart, costs $110 per year and confers no decision-making power.
Located near the city’s rapidly gentrifying downtown, the Food Commons’ challenge is to serve a broad customer base. “There are going to be people looking for five-dollar local kale,” while others will want “a two-dollar loaf of bread,” explained Chris Dilly, the interim general manager. “We’re trying to find a happy medium that gives people an option.”
Yakini brought Dilly to the operation because of his nearly 30 years of experience in co-op management, chiefly at the highly successful People’s Food Co-op of Kalamazoo.
“We’re trying to create a sense of place here, tying the grocery store to the community directly,” said Dilly, echoing Yakini’s vision. In addition to produce from D-Town Farms, the co-op will sell fruits and vegetables from mainly local black-owned farms, including Oakland Avenue Farm, Project Green, Nurturing Our Seeds, and Black Farmer Land Fund. By sourcing from local farms, the co-op is aiming to establish a circular economy — for the people and the product. The co-op will also compost and recycle waste products and try to avoid over-purchasing.
The co-op will take three-to-four years to generate about $6 million in sales — the level it needs to turn a profit, according to Dilly. While inflation has set back the co-op’s profitability projections, Dilly noted that Yakini has created a financial cushion that will allow time for the store to reach profitability. “You have to be a genius like Malik and build in the room for losses,” he said.
But, by then, Yakini will be long gone.
On June 1, Yakini will step down as executive director and begin a year-long sabbatical to work on a memoir of his life.
A year later, he will retire — presenting the ultimate challenge for his food enterprise. “We’re in a baton-passing process here,” said Yakini. Recognizing that succession planning is one of the biggest challenges for any business, DBCFSN hired a consultant to walk the organization through the process. In keeping with Yakini’s penchant for innovation, he is changing DBCFSN’s leadership model from an executive directorship to a co-directorship — one that is only now beginning to catch on among a number of organizations. Yakini will be replaced by Shakara Tyler, DBCFSNs’ fund development director, and Gi’anna Chears, the chief financial officer.
This is a “less patriarchal, more cooperative form,” Yakini said.
That said, Tyler and Chears will have big shoes to fill if they are to realize Yakini’s vision for food sovereignty.