The Fresno-based African American Farmers of California organization has doubled its membership since it opened a 16-acre demonstration farm, which serves as a testing area where new farmers can get hands-on experience growing a variety of produce.

At the Central Valley training farm, newbies learn everything from how to drive a tractor to how to irrigate their crops.

Many of them are now selling their own produce at farmers' markets from the Bay Area to Los Angeles.

"We bring in new farmers and existing farmers and we do all sorts of training. They can lease an acre or two and grow something and then they take the technology back to their farms."

One of Scott Family Farms primary goals is to reintroduce Southern specialty crops, part of the traditional African American diet, into black communities, to help stop the obesity and diabetes epidemics.

"The nutritional value of this food was passed down the generations. It helped build our immune system; kept us healthy and strong. We hope to pass it on to sustain the next generation."

Will Scott Jr.

Will Scott Jr.'s efforts have been assisted by U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama's interest in farming. Seeing the first lady on her hands and knees, working in her garden, changes the concept of farming that many black people have.

Black farming had carried negative connotations for many African Americans due to the legacies of slavery, sharecropping and past discriminatory government policies, but Scott urges California's black farmers to rise above.