Savonala Horne became interested in what it meant to be a smallholder farmer on contested land when she worked in Zimbabwe for a year with one of the most prominent African American NGOs in southern Africa, Africare. She would then move down to North Carolina and begin to work for the Land Loss Prevention Project, an organization that works to stop land loss in African-American communities throughout North Carolina. She leads an organization that provides assistance to all financially distressed and limited resource farmers and landowners through the use of litigation, public policy, and promoting sustainable agriculture and environment.