Black Farming and Beyond

By Ariella J. Brown Horn

Originally in the Summer 2021 Agraria Journal

Early last year a small group of volunteers came together to create a platform to not only celebrate the Black and underrepresented farming community in Southwest Ohio, but also to take a look back at the history of farming in the Black community and serve as a catalyst for the next generation of Black farmers. The result was the first Black Farming Conference in Southwest Ohio, held virtually in September. 

Antioch College, The National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, and Central State University partnered with us on the conference, and we received generous sponsorship support from Nationwide Insurance, The Ohio Farm Bureau, and Farm Credit of Mid-America as well as other contributions and in-kind donations. With more than 400 attendees from around the country over a two-day period and more than 1,000 who pre-registered for the conference, it was clear that we had struck a common chord with our focus on Black farming.  

The keynote address, by Dr. Anna Lisa Cox took us back to pre-civil war times, before Ohio was a state, to learn about  how Black pioneers cultivated the land in this region and created a livelihood for themselves before it was all stripped away by racist laws, policies, and practices that robbed Black as well as indigenous people of their land and agrarian ways of life.

Access to land is one of the biggest barriers small scale farmers face, and the Justice for Black Farmers Act now before Congress recognizes that as well as the injustices of the past that left so many Black farmers landless. If passed into law it would create a new Equitable Land Access Service under the USDA that would issue land grants of 160 acres apiece to up to 20,000 experienced Black farmers annually, through 2030. This would expand Black-owned farmland by up to 32 million acres. (Source: https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/justirce-for-black-farmers-bill-introduced-in-senate)

In 1920, there were nearly 926,000 Black farmers, compared with fewer than 50,000 today. Community Solutions/Agraria hopes to help change this narrative through the creation of the Black Farmers Network. We are bringing local Black and underrepresented farmers together for quarterly roundtables, publishing a quarterly Black farming newsletter, and sponsoring the annual Black Farmers conference. These are small ways in which we can be better citizens of our community. They are also ways of saying thank you to the farmers who work every day to put food on our tables.  

The goal of the Black Farmers Network is to create a platform for the  Black farming community to network, discuss relevant farming topics, share insights, gain peer support, and connect with resources. Our next network roundtable will be held in October. Our quarterly newsletter is an extension of the roundtable discussions and will include sources for grants and funding opportunities, information about upcoming events, a profile of a Black farmer from our region, and much more. To subscribe to the newsletter, click on this link. 

Our keynote speaker for this year’s conference will be Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm and author of Farming While Black. Ms. Penniman is a highly sought-after speaker, and we are delighted she has accepted our invitation to join us this year. Our conference theme will be Black Farming: Community Land and Food Sovereignty. If living through a global pandemic over the past year has taught us anything, it is that we as a society, need to get back to growing our own food, truly knowing where our food comes from, and supporting our local, family and community farms. Be on the lookout for more conference details soon. 

For more information about the Black Farmers Network or to offer suggestions about how we might better serve and strengthen the region’s Black farming community, please contact blackfarmersconferenceoh@gmail.com

Ariella J. Brown Horn is Associate Director of Gender Equity Programs and Education at Antioch College, coordinator of the Black Farmer Network, and a member of the planning committee for the Black Farming conference.