What is “paradise” and what is a “garden”? According to Webster’s Dictionary, “paradise” is “The Garden of Eden.” Therefore, when we say “paradise is a garden,” we are 100 percent correct according to the meaning of the words.
“Garden,” according to Webster, is a “plot of aground where herbs, fruits, flowers, or vegetables are cultivated.” “Cultivate” means “to prepare or prepare and use for the raising of crops.”
With all these definitions under our belt and the planting season just around the block, let’s prepare, or “cultivate,” our minds towards the making of a Heaven for ourselves on earth. If paradise is a garden, and you can set up and cultivate a garden while you live, why wait to die to go to “paradise” when you can have it–and eat it too–on earth? However, to have a successful “garden” requires proper planning, preparation and follow through. In other words, a garden or paradise requires a lot of work.
And this is where the problem resides: We have become fat, lazy, spoiled and taken over by both the cares of this world and “sport and play.” Therefore, we don’t have the time, nor take the time to do what is necessary to survive on this planet, as we strive to do what is expedient to “get ahead” in the artificial world of our open enemy. As a result, we have placed our stomachs in the kitchen of that same open enemy, instead of growing, processing and cooking our own food.
If I were Satan and wanted to eliminate the people on earth, I would strive to make them disrespect work and disrespect the earth. Then, I would get them to depend on me for their food and slowly poison them.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has warned us that death has entered America and that practicing the tenants of “How To Eat To Live” is the only way to survive as the food and water of America becomes what we call the “new weapons of mass destruction.” In 1991, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan reinstituted the Three Year Economic Savings Program of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. In November 1994, from the donations to this program he redeemed 1,600 acres of the 4,500-acre farm in Georgia previously owned by the Nation of Islam until the departure of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
I have been working on this farm in Georgia, which we call Muhammad Farms, since February of 1995. We can bear witness that a seed planted by a Black man has as much chance of producing a crop as one planted by a White man. Therefore, we do not need the White man to produce food for us; Mother Nature will give us her fruits as long as we abide by her laws and work.
Each year we have been blessed to produce beautiful, wholesome, tasty, holistically-grown crops at Muhammad Farms. However, our people are spread out all over America and the logistical and economic problem of getting our produce to all corners of America has meant that only a few people have been able to benefit.
We were blessed to be on a fact finding trip to Cuba in March of 2006, sponsored by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. On that trip, we learned that Cuba had a different approach to feeding her people than America. On her large farms, Cuba grows such staples as corn, rice, potatoes, and black beans. However, she grew her vegetables right in the middle of her cities in urban gardens. Most of the gardens that we saw were done on raised beds.
Minister Farrakhan has his own personal farm where he grows navy beans, but also has a small personal garden to produce his own vegetables. However, his garden, like many small gardens, gets taken over by weeds in the middle of the season. Since the Ministry of Agriculture is pushing the concept of urban gardens, and we understand that the weed problem is a major concern for all farmers and gardeners, we offered to put in a set of raised bed gardens at Minister Farrakhan’s farm as a demonstration of the latest techniques in bed preparation, fertilization, irrigation, weed control and greenhouse construction as was demonstrated at the 2007 Ministry of Agriculture Conference held in January in Bronwood, Ga.
Recently I, along with three other members of the Ministry of Agriculture–Brothers Earl Muhammad, Frank Muhammad and Gerald Muhammad–traveled to Minister Farrakhan’s farm and put in a set of raised beds in his garden. The information gained from this demonstration will provide a blueprint for other individuals, mosques and churches who wish to survive the “Fall of America” and the “Slow poisoning of America.” In future articles, we will go into more detail about why you should set up your own garden and how to grow, process and store your own food. In the course of these studies we will introduce you to the Science of Agriculture and the Economics of Food Production and Wealth Building, because it is “Nation Time.”
We must “Do for self or die a slave” and build a Heaven (Paradise) for ourselves while we still live.
(Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad is the Nation of Islam’s Minister of Agriculture, who serves as farm manager of a 1,600-acre farm in southwest Georgia owned by the Nation of Islam. Visit www.muhammadfarms.com or email [email protected].)
