“We Didn’t Get Nothing:” The Plight of Black Farmers

Abstract

The central thesis to this article is that blacks were intended to work the land, but never to own the land. The progression from working the land via slavery, to peonage, and to land ownership is explored. Africans arrived on American soil carrying with them a rich legacy in caring for the land, and while they did so in America, it was under the most onerous of conditions. Once freed, blacks became prodigious land owners, but with the onset of the twentieth century various systemic factors impacted landownership for blacks. These same factors along with mechanization, herbicides, government policy, and the courts all served to undermine farm ownership for black Americans. The Pigford Class Action Suit is central to understanding the complexities of the plight of the black farmer and the attempts of various advocacy groups to maintain black land ownership.

“The next generation, that’s why we continue to do what we do”: African American farmers speak about experiences with land ownership and loss in North Carolina

“…In the era of slavery, White landowners sought the expertise of African slave farmers to improve crop cultivation, production, and animal husbandry (Hinson & Robinson, 2008). After the Civil War the number of African American farmers proliferated, peaking in 1920, when nearly 926,000 individuals worked farms.…”

“…The initial decrease in African American-operated farms is attributed to increased farm mechanization and the end of the sharecropping system (Wood & Gilbert, 2000). Recent factors associated with the decline in the number of African American farmers are argued to be not the result of economic trends alone, and to include: structural changes by U.S. agriculture favoring large farms, cumbersome tax laws, mortgage foreclosures, intestate death of landowners in the absence of a will and the resulting partition sales, and discrimination (Brown, Christy & Gebremedhin, 1994;Gilbert, Sharp, & Felin, 2002;Hinson & Robinson, 2008). Discriminatory lending practices on the part of the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) included not providing African American farmers with access to credit, granting less credit to African American farmers than White farmers, and distributing loans to African American farmers too late in the farming season for maximized farming production (Gilbert, Sharp, & Felin, 2002;Hinson & Robinson, 2008).…”

“…An eventual classaction lawsuit led by plaintiff Timothy Pigford of North Carolina reached the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with then-U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman as the defendant. The court decided in favor of the farmers and the resulting multibillion dollar settlement from Pigford v. Glickman was the largest civil rights settlement in U.S. history (Hinson & Robinson, 2008). A USDAcommissioned investigation into these discriminatory practices also led to the Civil Rights Task Force recommending 92 changes to address racial bias as a part of the USDA Civil Rights Action Plan (Cowan & Feder, 2010).…”

Alternative Agrifood Projects in Communities of Color: A Civic Engagement Perspective

“…Particularly during the second half of the 20 th century, smaller farms struggled to keep up with the cost of mechanization, more complex inputs (e.g., fertilizers, pesticides, new cultivars), and the need to purchase additional acreage to capture ever-greater economies of scale. This struggle to compete at increasing scales was systematically greater for African American farmers than for White farmers (Hinson & Robinson, 2008). Over the last century, the country experienced an estimated 98 percent loss in African American farm operations and a 66 percent loss in White farm operations, all while the largest (and typically White-owned) farming operations grew even larger (Green et al, 2011).…”

“…In 1982, a U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that in 1980 and 1981 local offices of the USDA loaned less than two percent of all farm ownership loan amounts and less than three percent of all farm operating loan amounts to African American farmers (Hinson & Robinson, 2008). As a result, the largest class action lawsuit in U.S. history, known as the Pigford case, was filed against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the late 1990s and was settled in 2000, resulting in ongoing claims processing for African American, Hispanic, Native American, and women ranchers and farmers (Hinson & Robinson, 2008). 2 The loss of farm land ownership pushed many African Americans into urban spaces, migrations reflected in many central cities that are now home to large African American populations (Green et al, 2011;Massey & Denton, 1993).…”