The ever-growing obstacles farmers of color have to contend with in order to survive
25th April 2022 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
Bruce Harrell inherited the farming lifestyle from his father, and today Harrell and his family raise vegetables and grains on their central Louisiana farm near Alexandria.
There’s just one problem. The Harrells are African American, and Bruce Harrell believes that fact has significantly hampered his ability to make a living feeding America.
Harrell said government bureaucracies, particularly the U.S. Department of Agriculture, have shown apathy toward farmers of color, who often face difficulties receiving credit from financing institutions based on their race. Many Black farmers often get the runaround from the federal government.
“It’s hard getting credit with the USDA in a timely manner,” Harrell told The Louisiana Weekly. “We’ve had to put our crops in late, and that affects our yield, especially for my dad. I’ve seen him go through this.”
Despite these race-driven financial barriers, Harrell said, the USDA has been little help in Black farmers struggles to keep their farms afloat.
“It’s our race,” he said. “They just don’t like the color of our skin.”
And when the federal government does get around to providing assistance to Black, Latino and Native-American farmers, that help gets held up in other ways, including in the court system.
Such was the case recently.
When Congress passed and President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 to combat the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the legislation included $4 billion in debt relief for Black farmers. However, a group of white farmers from Texas sued to block the disbursement of the ARPA relief to African-American farmers, asserting that the debt relief program violates the U.S. Constitution.
A U.S. District Court sided with the white Texans and issued an injunction blocking the release of funds to Black farmers and barring farmers of color from intervening in the case on their own behalf, pressing thousands of Black farmers perilously close to foreclosure. With the loss of their businesses, farmers also lose a lifestyle and tradition that has given farmers an identity while also providing food for the United States and beyond.
But farmers of color received desperately needed good news last month, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed the District Court decision, ruling that Black farmers can intervene in the Texans’ lawsuit to fight for crucial debt relief that has been earmarked for them.
The African-American farmers case is being argued in court by the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, an association of Black farmers, landowners and cooperatives founded in 1967. The regional co-op, based in East Point, Ga., works to preserve family farms, boost the profitability of agricultural entrepreneurship, and create and nurture self-sustaining farm communities.
Dania Davy, director of land retention and advocacy for the FSC/LAF, said the court ruling in March allows Black farmers to present evidence in court of the race-based discrimination that has hampered farming members of the FSC/LAF in their efforts to create and operate sustaining agricultural businesses.
She said the recent ruling represents the American legal system finally admitting that racism and race-based prejudices have traditionally faced farmers of color.
“This is affirmation of what our farmers have been expressing to our staff since we began,” Davy said. “It’s an acknowledgement of the ongoing challenges they continue to face.”
Also assisting in representing Black farmers has been the Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Dorian Spence, the director of special litigation and advocacy for the LCCRUL, said such legal recognition of the barriers farmers of color face is more than overdue, especially as many farmers are on the edge of foreclosure.
“Black farmers have needed some level of assurance that the playing will be level,” he said. “They needed some level of relief [with the court ruling] yesterday, and yesterday is too late.” Spence added that the ruling will finally provide Black farmers access to a court system that for decades has shut them out.
“There were no farmers of color at the table,” he said. “What you had was conversations about justice and equity without the presence of the people these programs were designed to support.
“We know this is not the final step,” he added, “but it’s a necessary step.”
According to USDA statistics from its 2017 Census of Agriculture, there are more than 48,000 Black farm producers in the country (accounting for 1.4 percent of the country’s 3.4 million producers), totaling 4.7 million acres of land and agricultural sales of $1.4 billion.
That’s less than one and a half percent of the overall number of producers in the nation, although that 48,000-plus represents a five-percent increase from the previous census of 2012. Of those current producers, 3,222 are in Louisiana.
However, despite the recent, slight increase, there were nearly one million Black farmers in 1920, a precipitous drop that symbolizes the precarious place farmers of color hold in society. In addition, Black farmers today make less than $40,000 by average annually, compared to nearly five times that for white farmers.
Not only do farmers of color face legal and bureaucratic discrimination, but they also contend with a larger American populace that has an image of farmers being white guys on John Deere tractors, a preconception that unfairly ignores the presence and importance of Black farmers to the American economy and society.
Such public misconceptions can be especially egregious and debilitating in Louisiana and the rest of the South, which for decades built its economy on the backs of Black farmers, first as slaves, then as sharecroppers, who have been consistently exploited.
“This country’s history is explicitly tied to people of color and agriculture,” Spence said.
Like many facets of society, the prevailing history that’s been by white society either glances over or completely blots out the role of people of color in America.
“There’s a lot of disconnect between the average American and the plight of Black farmers,” Davy said. “When I was growing up myself, [Black farming] was just something I never saw. It was not part of the image [of farmers] that I saw in the media and heard stories about.”
She added, however, that the American public should become more aware that “Black farmers are still surviving, despite the race-based problems they face. It’s just something the public is not aware of.”
Spence said that raising awareness of the totality of history and how it continues to hinder farmers of color is vital. He said the continuing decline in both the number and success of Black farmers is something that has old roots.
“This isn’t just happening by happenstance,” he said. “It’s an erosion [of Black farming] in agriculture by design.”
Added Davy: “There’s no aspect of this organization that isn’t made harder [by racial discrimination]. That’s a shameful past.”
Davy and Spence both noted, though, that there are organizations, such as cooperatives and other community-focused groups, that continue to fight for the rights and livelihoods of Black farmers, as well as Latino and Native-American farmers. There’s also many white farmers that do support farmers of color and work as allies for them.
Harrell stresses the importance of farming cooperatives to his family’s business and to the future success of Black farming in general. A member of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives himself, Harrell believes the development of such community-focused organizations, especially local and regional ones, can provide support for farmers by sharing expenses and working together to stay in business.
Harrell also tries to pass on the agricultural knowledge and enthusiasm to younger people of color who might be interested in farming life. He said that despite the challenges, it is possible to succeed.
“I’m trying to show younger generations how they can make a decent living raising fresh vegetables,” he said. “You don’t need a thousand acres. You can get farms of 30 to 50 acres. Yes, it’s going to be some work, but you can do it.”
Harrell added that Black farmers continue to grind away in their agricultural endeavors with the same type of determination and hardiness that has always been the pillars of their industry.
“We were raised to work hard and get out of debt,” he said. “That’s all we know, all we’ve survived through.”
This article originally published in the April 25, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
