Black Voices: News, Culture & Community from Across the Nation
- Thelonious Cook emphasizes making Black farmers visible so communities can meet producers and recognize their crops.
- Mid-Atlantic Black Farmers Caucus is a network of about 100 members operating farms and markets across the mid-Atlantic.
- The market anchors neighborhoods, empowering residents by circulating dollars, supporting local businesses, and improving community health.
- Thelonious Cook and Navi Johnson launched markets amid a resurgence of younger Black farmers practicing sustainable, regenerative agriculture; Cook earned 2022 Farmer of the Year.
By Rosaland Tyler
Associate EditorNew Journal and Guide
On the first and third Saturday of each month through November in Norfolk’s Berkeley community, shoppers can squeeze tomatoes, bag up collards, pluck watermelons and buy other types of ripe produce at a farmers market located outside Black-owned E. Palmer Supermarket on Berkley Avenue.
The Mid-Atlantic Black Farmers Market launched the now-bustling farmers market that also offers cold-pressed juices, natural sea moss, handmade skin care products and other products made by local vendors.
“It’s still not known that Black farmers exist,” said Thelonious Cook, one of the founders while weighing homegrown tomatoes on a scale. “So we wanted to come out and allow the community to meet us and see some of the things that we’re producing.”
Cook is the president of the Mid-Atlantic Black Farmers Caucus, which is operated by a network of regional Black farmers. It has about 100 members who operate farms and farmers markets throughout the mid-Atlantic.
Most farmers join the Mid-Atlantic Black Farmers Market because they value community involvement.
“It’s the main reason why they join the caucus,” said Cook, who has become a seasoned farmer in the past decade. Cook grew up in Hampton, studied IT and worked in the field before he returned to farming about a decade ago on his family’s land located on a plot in Virginia’s Northampton County, on the lower Eastern Shore. Through the years, he has upgraded the family farm and launched farmers markets that run from Newport News, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, the Eastern Shore and Richmond.
Cook’s 7.5 acre spread is located near Birdsnest, above Cape Charles. In 2015, Cook began working toward a master’s degree in sustainable development. In 2022, he was named as a Farmer of the Year in Virginia for his sustainable, regenerative practices.
“In the beginning, there weren’t a lot of Black farmers that were younger than 70 that I knew,” Cook said in a Feb. 18, 2026 interview with WHRO-TV. “But then I started to meet [more and go to] regional conferences. I would meet four or five from different areas. In the last four or five years, there’s been a huge resurgence.”
Cook launched Berkeley’s Farmers market with Navi Johnson, the market manager of the Mid-Atlantic Black Farmers Market. They are among a growing generation of Black farmers who are developing small-scale, eco-friendly farming, a concept that stretches back to Africa.
The farmers market serves as an anchor in the community. “People know that they can get food that they can trust,” Cook said. “They know their farmer. They can get things that are in season, and we can all get healthy together.”
“We’re empowering our community,” Cook said. “We’re circulating our dollars, investing back into local businesses, and if our farmers and our producers are successful, then again, they’re the bedrock of our communities, and that keeps our communities safe and healthy and resilient.”
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