(Atlanta, Georgia) He's known as the Principal Farmer--Patrick Muhammad and his family are the owners of a 31-acre farm and Patrick also happens to be the principal of Chattahoochee Hills Charter School in Fulton County, Georgia.
K-LOVE's Monika Kelly sat down with Patrick to talk about his journey from the inner city to an incredibly beautiful oasis.
Rather hear the conversation?
Monika Kelly: I'm very excited to have as my guest today, Patrick Muhammad. He is an educator, a leader, a scholar, an author, the owner of Your Faith Farms. He's also the principal of Chattahoochee Hills Charter School. So good to have you.
Patrick Muhammad: Oh, it's so good to be on with you, Monika.
Monika Kelly: I'm excited to get a chance to talk with you today. Now, you have an incredible background. You come from East St. Louis. You were an athlete. Tell me a little bit about your background, your story.
Patrick: Born and raised in East St. Louis, Missouri. My upbringing was as perfect as a child would believe it should be. We were filled with the challenge that we had to beat the age 18. That was just drilled in us as young men that you have to make it past 18. And it wasn't until I got to college that I would introduce myself to people and say, I'm from East St. Louis, and I would kind of look at the look on their face and, you know, not sure why. Our city had a stigma attached to it that was really unfair. Yes, our city is the residue of the race riots and white flight, but it was the best option for us. And it instilled in us the wherewithal that you can meet and overcome any obstacle in your path. And so I transitioned, I played basketball in high school, and I transitioned to Kentucky State University, where I pursued my first college degree.
Monika: You had your first college degree there. What happened that sort of changed your entire path in life?
Patrick: Being in Kentucky and seeing the blue grass was like a shock to me, the openness and the vast land and the fresh air, it really began to put a seed inside of me that I wasn't really aware of at that moment. I finished my degree and came to Atlanta into the education profession and rose up the ranks pretty quickly from teacher to assistant principal and principal.
As a father, I began to see and to look, what am I going to leave my children? And that's when the quest came to begin to look at land. Because when you look at families of wealth, they all have land somewhere in their portfolio. My family from East St. Louis, my parents did a wonderful job, but they don't have anything to pass on to me. I didn't want to continue that legacy of loving very well, raising very well, but not having something to pass on to the next generation.
Monika: When you took that idea, you really went all out. You have a 31-acre farm. It wasn't just a couple acres. Tell me about Your Faith Farms.
Patrick: Well, you know what they say, go big or go home, right? So I remember telling my wife, like, oh, let's get a farm, right? This is before GPS. I would literally print out, I think it was MapQuest back then, I would print out all these forms and drive all around Georgia looking for a farm. When we landed on just the potential farm that we're on, our subdivision home was 30 feet front and 15 feet in the back. To go from that to 31 acres, it was crazy as I think back on it. I didn't even have a lawnmower, Monika. I had a lawn company that would keep up with my grass.
We moved with zero experience and it's truly we move based on faith. If we are submissive to the process, we know that God will bless us. And that's literally, the only thread that held us from not facing our own real realities. It was just faith that it will happen.
Monika: Tell me about what you have on that farm.
Patrick: Oh, from Piney Wood cattle. We raise a heritage breed, Pineywoods cattle. We have Katahdin sheep, which is another heritage breed sheep. We have right about a hundred plus chickens right now. We have horses. We raise Great Pyrenees, that's a sheep dog.
We've planted probably over 60 fruit trees since we've been there. And then we have right about a one and a half acre vegetable garden.
Monika: Do you and your wife and kids sort of manage all of this on your own?
Patrick: Yes. I mean, again, coming from no experience, you know, it's watch a YouTube clip, go try something. Or literally like the first year I literally just bought seeds and put them in the ground to see what happened. And so over the years, of course, we have failed, but failed forward. And we've learned how best to do the process. You know, less is best. At some point I had 40 cows, you know, and 80 sheep. That was too much. So we had to learn how to scale back on that. At one point I probably had 500 chickens. That was too many chickens. So we had to scale back. And so now we are fine tuning what we can do well and consistently. And we're beginning to see the fruits of our labor.
Monika: You are the principal of Chattahoochee Hills Charter School. And it's fascinating to see all of the different ways that you implement things like farming into your school.
What's that like being a principal? And tell me a little bit about the charter school.
Patrick: Oh, it's just so amazing to have this opportunity to lead such an amazing school and concept. And so similar to the same year I purchased my farm in 2014, this school was founded in 2014. And neither one of us knew of each other. But we're literally five minutes apart. In 2018, I was transitioning from the public school and looking for a different option that fit the mode of where my leadership and mindset was at that time, which was farming.And lo and behold, five minutes from my farm is this 11-acre campus. We're nestled out in the woods. We have individual buildings. We have access to 820 acres of hiking trails. And this school was looking for a principal with educational experience and had some connection to farming, right? And so it was a match made in heaven and the birth of the principal farmer.
I have 540 children that come from Fulton County. We teach them sustainable agriculture, environmental awareness, and the appreciation of the arts. So our children are taking seeds that they plant at the beginning of the year. They nurse them all the way to seedlings.They transplant them into our larger garden and then they harvest what they planted. They do that twice a year.
We have goats on campus, miniature ponies, alpacas and they're hatching baby chickens. I get a chance and the blessing to do what I do personally that I love. I get a chance to do that professionally every day and influence the next generation.
Monika: That's so perfect. And are kids coming in from Atlanta?
Patrick: Yes. So we pull from about a 30 mile radius of the campus, which takes us all the way to downtown Atlanta.
Monika: That's incredible. Speaking of Atlanta, how has the city come alongside of you in what you've been doing?
Patrick: Atlanta has embraced me. I guess it is my second home, but I've been here longer now that I was in East St. Louis. I just received the 404 Day Award for Atlanta residents that are doing great things. And they recognize us in the agriculture space. The city has embraced it.
Atlanta is really, you know, a forest. Georgia is a forest. And so the city kind of, you know, camouflages sometimes that it's not really an agriculture place. Georgia has an 86 billion dollar agriculture industry. Unfortunately for the African-American community, that large dollar amount is not really inside of the African-American community. So with our school and our partnership with the 1890 land grant scholarships, we are introducing the next generation to the benefits of agriculture.
No matter what career choice you have, agriculture touches every career every day because everyone has to eat. So the city has embraced us. They are supporting us in our efforts. And we just look forward to growing this model.
Monika: I am so inspired by you. It's amazing to think, going back to East St. Louis, you talked about the real goal being to make it to 18 so that God can do whatever he's going to do with you. How has your faith played a part in all that's happened over your entire life?
Patrick: I remember as a child, Monika, my mom saying,
'Son, the only way you can walk on the water, you got to get out the boat.'
You know, and you hear that as a child. I didn't know what mommy is talking about. But she kept saying 'you got to have faith and you got to believe in the unseen, son. It doesn't matter if no one else has gone down that path that you're about to choose. It doesn't matter if the road map is not clear. As long as you have faith, God will answer you if you're sincere and pure.
And Monika, that is just a testimony to my life. I never meet a stranger. I always meet a friend. And I believe that if you desire to do good, good will come your way. And when anything outside of that enters into your atmosphere, into your presence, God will protect you, put the shield around you, and it will not damage you. It only will give you a boost.
Monika: Okay, that'll preach. How has this all affected your kids? You've got three beautiful children.
Patrick: When we first got the farm, I used to tease my daughter because her high school actually is behind our farm. I say, hey, sweetie, I'll send the donkey to the school to pick you up, right? So they went from like the laughing stock, you know, 11 years ago, like, oh, God, you guys live on a farm, to where all of her friends want to tour.
She's graduated from Spelman. She's a second year law school student. My middle son is a second year student at Morehouse. He's on the Morehouse polo team. Why? Because he's been riding horses for the last year. So it's a perfect match. My youngest son actually goes to school with me here. And then my wife teaches not too far. And she has added a certificate of agriculture to her teaching certificate. Our children have seen mom and dad step out on something that they weren't sure about. And to see the success that has happened from their parents, they really embrace it.
We see a path for each one of them now. My daughter's studying agricultural law because she's like, 'Dad, someone has to protect you and these farmers, you know, as they continue to grow in safety. So that's her focus in law. And then my youngest son, as I mentioned, he's pursuing agriculture on the business side at Morehouse. And then baby boy, right now, he's talking about architecture. He wants to design the next farm set a little more fancy than our farm.
Monika: Wow. You must be so proud of your kids.
Patrick: I'm proud of my kids. And that is because I have a phenomenal wife. You know, when someone loves you, they shape the mind of your children based off of your goals. I have a saying that her needs become my goals. She has been the best friend that I could ever have imagined to go on this crazy journey with this guy that she married 26 years ago. And to, you know, be there to say, think this through.
I attribute so much of the success we've had to my wife Ishtar.
Monika: That's so beautiful. You also have written a book and it's called Farming by Faith.
Patrick: Yes, yes. And so the book is, you know, it's our story about how we stepped out on faith and some of the trials and tribulations we've had because everything's not perfect. But also the successes that we are experiencing.
And it's applicable to everyone's story There's something right now in your life that you're unsure if they should try. And so this book just guides you in. Try it. You know, even if you are not what we believe is successful, you have to meet and overcome all obstacles in your path, because if not, you're going to get the same obstacle again. And so it just shows through our stories of how we met an obstacle. And instead of turning around and giving up, we just pursued it.
It's just our story to help you do what you want to do in your life.
Monika: Thank you again, Patrick, for your time today.
Patrick: Oh, thank you. If you ever visit Atlanta, stop on by the farm. We would love to have you.
Monika: Oh, I would love to visit. What is your website?
Patrick: www.patrickmuhammad.com