Latest news with #USDACensusofAgriculture
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Black US farmers brace for impact amid tariffs turmoil
By Kat Stafford, Kia Johnson, Jayla Whitfield-Anderson BOYDTON, Virginia (Reuters) -As a fourth generation farmer, Virginia resident John Boyd Jr typically spends the busy spring season prepping his land to plant sweet corn seeds and soybeans. But Boyd, the president and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, has also been busy fielding inquiries from Black farmers anxious about the impact of President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs. 'The farmers are calling and saying,'Hey, Boyd, should I plant my crop, man? This ain't looking good for us. Have you heard anything from anybody where we can get some emergency loans?' Boyd recounted in an interview, as he worked on his farm. 'And it's frustrating because the answer is no. We don't have the resources to help them.' In several interviews, agricultural sociologists, public health and government and governance experts and advocates said the impact of Trump's tariffs could be more acute for Black farmers, given their historical challenges in accessing capital, retaining ownership of their land and the enduring legacy of decades of discrimination and racism. Groups representing U.S. farmers and food processors have been mostly critical of Trump's tariffs on imports, which analysts say will hike prices for consumers. The American Farm Bureau Federation, the leading farm lobby, said the tariffs threaten farmers' competitiveness and could cause long-term damage. 'Everything about trade and tariffs over the past few months has just been so erratic that it is tough for businesses, for farmers, for analysts to know what's gonna happen, not only in the long term, but even from day to day or even hour to hour,' said Bill Winters, a Georgia Tech University sociology professor. Black farmers today account for less than 2% of all U.S. farmers, a share that has significantly dropped over the past century, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. In 1920, 41.4 million acres were operated by Black farmers. By contrast, a USDA Census of Agriculture data report found Black producers operated 32,700 farms and ranches, covering about 5.3 million acres in 2022. In a March 2021 website post affirming the agency's commitment to civil rights, former USDA secretary Tom Vilsack said the government needed to acknowledge the "USDA's history of systemic discrimination via policies and programs designed to benefit those with access, education, assets, privilege rather than for those without." He pledged to root out systemic racism and barriers experienced by Black farmers, socially disadvantaged farmers, and poor areas in rural America. The post appears to have since been removed from the USDA's site. Since returning to the White House, Trump has spent the past 100 days aggressively dismantling diversity -- and civil rights -- initiatives across the federal government. 'We spend most of our time just trying to survive on what's thrown at us,' Boyd said, noting that unequal access has existed regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. But he said farmers are concerned about the ripple effects of dismantling programs aimed at remedying discrimination. 'ACTION TO SUPPORT FARMERS' Farming accounts for more than a third of U.S. land. While the number of farms is dwindling and their average size growing, family-owned and operated farms still account for the vast majority of land farmed, according to USDA. A USDA spokesperson said that over the last four years, the Biden administration left the USDA "in complete disarray and dysfunction." "President Trump is taking strong action to support farmers by quickly rolling out programs like the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program that provides $10 Billion in direct assistance to producers," the USDA said in a statement. "USDA does not discriminate and single out individual farmers based on race, gender, or political orientation." The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act signed by former president Joe Biden in 2021, in part set aside billions in debt relief to help socially disadvantaged farmers -- and to address the USDA's history of discrimination. But, the program was repealed following lawsuits filed by white farmers. A subsequent race-neutral program was passed through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 'With tariffs right now, from a Black farmer's perspective, it really doesn't affect us because we have been shut out for 100 years,' said Corey Lea, a Tennessee farmer and advocate. Keon Gilbert, a Brookings Institution governance studies fellow and Saint Louis University public health professor, said Black farmers fear they won't receive payments awarded as part of the legislation. The tariffs, he said, could compound an already fragile situation. 'What could possibly happen is we may see a continued decline in Black farms. Many of those farmers have smaller properties, smaller land, and that may all just go away," Gilbert said. Meanwhile, Boyd will continue to fight to preserve his family's multi-generational farming legacy. "By the grace of God, I'm going to plant my crops," Boyd said.
Forbes
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
How Racism In Agriculture Built America's Food Apartheid
(Part of the series Vanilla is Black) The Trump administration's proposed budget would slash billions from the USDA. Nutrition, rural development, and food programs face steep cuts, threatening efforts like the Illinois Grocery Initiative, which supports independent grocery stores and cooperatives in underserved areas. While many farmers will be hit hard, Black farmers may barely notice. They were never part of the safety net. Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains, Greene County, Ga. Artist Jack Delano. (Photo by ... More Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images) For generations, Black farmers have been left out of subsidies, loans, and access to land. The USDA didn't serve Black farmers; at best, it neglected them at worst, it pushed them out. Only 1.4% of U.S. farmers today are Black. In 1920, it was 14%. In Ohio, it's less than 1%. From 16 million acres owned by Black families, we're now down to scraps. (Source: USDA Census of Agriculture) 'We're Not Allowed to Farm Anymore' I FIRST met a Black farmer in the basement of the Ohio State Capitol, in 2012. He was there to lobby. We ran into each other near the giant mosaic map of Ohio on the ground floor of the statehouse. What he said stuck with me: 'Black folks aren't allowed to farm anymore.' That feels true in state like Ohio where less than 1% of farmers are Black. That is just bonkers! Later, when Planet Money traced the life of a T-shirt, from cotton field to factory to store, I noticed something. There wasn't a single Black voice in the story. Black folks weren't in a story that began in Mississippi about cotton, of all things! It's not like they were left out of the story. Historically, aside from picking it, Black folks haven't been allowed in the cotton business. The USDA, banks, and courts helped push Black farmers off their land. Some were denied loans. Others were burned out, cheated, or chased away. Anton Seals Jr., is doing something about that. Anton is objectively one of the leaders of the urban food and land movement. He's on the board of the Trust for Public Land. He leads Grow Greater Englewood, in Chicago. He's also been my friend since the third grade. His work has had an outsized influence on me and my reporting career. Anton says the recent USDA chaos isn't about food deserts. 'It's food apartheid,' he told me. 'Because deserts are natural. Apartheid is planned.' Trump's USDA Cuts Threaten Local Grocery Access Anton helped shape the $20 million Illinois Grocery Initiative. The program, launched by Governor J.B. Pritzker in 2023, supports independent grocery stores and cooperatives through grants, infrastructure, and technical assistance. It aims to bring fresh food access to underserved Black and brown neighborhoods across the state. President Trump's proposed USDA cuts would jeopardize this initiative and similar programs designed to bring fresh food to local communities. That includes funding for SNAP and school meals. Illinois pantries were left scrambling when the administration pulled reimbursements to farmers supplying fresh food to food banks. (Source: ABC7 Chicago) Anton doesn't hold back. 'We had over a million Black farmers in 1910. Now we have 20,000. That's not a decline. That's theft.' He's critical of how federal money to end food deserts has been distributed. 'Those subsidies still went to box stores. And once the money ran out, they left again. No infrastructure. No lasting impact.' He says the structure remains broken. 'We've never built a pipeline from Black farmers to Black communities. The food might show up, but it doesn't build our businesses or our power.' Anton says in many ways the problems of the inner cities are the problems of Black farmers, 'this isn't just about food. It's about control. It's about who gets to feed who. And who gets fed lies.' He added, "We are not disconnected from the food system, we've been deliberately cut off from it." Karen Washington sees it the same way. She grew up in the Jacob Riis Houses in New York. Her parents worked in food. She became a physical therapist. But her patients kept getting sicker. So she started asking her patients questions, and they remembered gardens, fruit stands, the watermelon man, and home-cooked meals. A vegetable garden planted by the nonprofit Detroit organization Urban Farming begins to take shape ... More on abandoned lots in an area of Detroit that was the epicenter of the 1967 riots that destroyed much of the city's downtown. (Photo by James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images) She saw the pattern: the food system isn't broken. It works exactly as it was designed, to exclude. Karen started gardens. Farmers markets. She co-founded the Black Farmer Fund. Like Anton, she's not focused on nostalgia. 'This isn't about fixing a broken food system. It's about shifting power.' Washington says she's come to realize that helping to repair a broken food system is human rights work, 'if you help the bottom rung of people, everybody prospers. What I'm trying to do is to help people understand their power.' During the Great Migration, Black families fled terror and lost land. They moved into cities. Into redlined neighborhoods. Into jobs with no path to ownership. 'We've never built a pipeline from Black farmers to Black communities. The food might show up, but it doesn't build our businesses or our power.' Anton Seals, Grow Greater Englewood Still, they built what they could. Churches sold chicken dinners to keep the lights on. Fish shacks paid for college. Rib joints got people through school. Women ran ghost kitchens out of their homes. These weren't just hustles. They were strategy. Ayana Contreras writes in her book "Energy Never Dies" how fish fry joints, BBQ shacks, and church kitchens were more than places for food. They were places where Black Southerners rebuilt their culture and created wealth, which they then used to fund civil rights and political movements. Robert Binion, center, a peach and watermelon farmer from Clanton, Ala., speaks at the microphone as ... More a small group of black farmers rally at the Agriculture Department in Washington to urge settlement of a class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination, Monday, Feb. 15, 2010. John W. Boyd Jr., third from left, a farmer from Baskerville, Va., and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, says black farmers have been systematically denied loans and treated unfairly by the Department of Agriculture for years. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) I think a lot about the civil rights leader John Mack and an interview I did with him. It was a basic message. Land. Food. Housing. Access. If we want to fix the economy, that's where we start. Anton said it best: "You want a resilient Black economy? Start with who controls the land, who feeds the people, and who owns the stores. If we don't control any of those things, then what are we really building?" That's a question Black people should be asking themselves in this moment. This is part of my upcoming book, Blackenomics, about how racism hurts the economy and how ending racism benefits everyone financially. Click here to support independent journalism.
