- [Narrator] Millard and Connie Locklear are farming on land that's been with their family for a very long time.

- [Millard] Well, this land here, what we're sitting on, is ancestral land that I inherited from my father, which he inherited from them, So we're the fifth generation living on this land.

- [Narrator] Lumbee people have a long history of farming in Robeson County.

Until the early to mid-1900s, many worked as sharecroppers for white farmers.

For their labor, the Lumbee sharecroppers received a small portion of the crops they produced.

As a result, many Lumbee people turned away from farming, but not the Locklears.

- [Millard] When Daddy was in the hospital and the doctor was talking to him, and he told me and him we should be super healthy men since we till our own land on our own land, so we knew everything about our land, and that really struck a chord in me that we control ourselves and our health by what we eat.

- [Narrator] Locklear's used traditional indigenous farming practices to grow crops on their new ground family farm.

They sell their produce locally to restaurants, grocery stores, and the UNC Pembroke cafeteria.

- We have mustard greens, Easter egg radish, watermelon radish, turnips, mustard, kale, cabbage, collards, broccoli.

That's what we're growing right now on the farm.

- [Narrator] In addition, Locklear there is reviving an old collared variety that dates to the pre-civil war era.

- This variety of collard is called a Lottie collard.

We were told that it was named Lottie because almost everybody's got an Aunt Lottie.

So an Aunt Lottie always grew those collards.

- [Narrator] Connie says her farming experience tells her that Lottie collards will adapt better to climate change than other varieties.

Locklear has also adopted indigenous farming practices like companion planting, growing different plants in the same area.

That helps with pest control and adds nutrients to the soil, increasing crop yield.

- And on this particular apple tree, I have planted comfrey.

This is the comfrey.

And I've planted chives.

The comfrey's gonna help add nitrogen to the soil and aerate the soil because it has a huge root system.

And the chives is to deter insects from coming to the tree and going to your fruit.

- [Narrator] Locklear also grows herbs for her medicinal use.

She keeps a fully stocked medicine cabinet with jars of ground herbs, tinctures, and salves, all of which she prepares herself.

- I grew up with a grandmother who taught us a little bit about herbs, and I've been studying on my own for the last 35 years.

God gave us a brain, he gave us plants to use, and I started really digging in and studying.

And today, I'm 64 years old on no medication whatsoever.

- [Narrator] One herb that Connie uses is mullein from the snapdragon family.

Ethnopharmacologists say the herb has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.

- And this is another thing that we can use mullein for, and it's for atopic arthritis pain medicine.

- [Narrator] Locklear shares her knowledge about herbs with community members and students at UNC Pembroke.

The University Agriculture Program partners with new ground farms to teach students about sustainable farming practices and indigenous plants.

- [laughs] Wow, this looks like eyes on the top too.

- [Narrator] UNC Pembroke Junior Umay Aroki-Asami says visiting new ground farms has cemented a connection to Lumbee farming.

- The diet that people have in Robeson County because of what's accessible to us is not as good as it was whenever we were farming and we were eating straight from the land, and we were producing our own meat straight from the land.

Especially for me, growing up, I jut didn't have the opportunities to know about my culture in the way I should have been able to, and so, having partnerships like this just give that specific kind of connection, where the younger generation can see what the older generation is doing.

- [Narrator] Tutoring future farmers like Marleena Chifo helps pass on the knowledge to younger folks.

- If you get in a situation where you can't go to the grocery store and buy stuff, you know, you know how to grow your own food.

You'll be okay.

And then you can pass that on to your kids, and then they can pass it on to their kids, and you just keep it going.

So, it's generational.

- Take 'em and leave them.

- [Narrator] For the Locklear's, community is everything.

- We're Asian, and we need to pass this knowledge down to our younger farmers.

And hopefully, they'll come on in to the field of farming because there's a lot to be learned.

What I love about this farm is the heritage, the lineage from one generation to the next, And I hope, in my lifetime, that I see one of my children step up and take on the legacy.

[soft acoustic guitar plays]