Black Farmers, A Spotlight
In 1920, African Americans owned some 14 percent of the farms in the United States. But after a century of racial violence, foreclosures, migration into cities, and farm consolidation, there are just under 49,000 left, representing 1.4 percent of American farmers. Most are concentrated in the Southeast and Texas.
In 1920, Black-run farms were about 14% of the total in the U.S. Today, Black farmers are less than 2% of all farmers. Their farms also tend to be smaller in size. As of 2017, Black-operated farms made up 0.5% of the total farmland in the U.S.
Farmers' Conferences
Booker T. Washington sought new ways to reach struggling local farmers. He believed that with the right guidance, farmers could make improvements, free themselves from debt, and become landowners. Over 400 attended the first Tuskegee Negro Conference in February 1892.
Later, George Washington Carver, whom Washington had hired as the Institute's agricultural director, expanded the conference. Farmers and their wives received specific information on farming and nutrition. The message was one of self-sufficiency, self-improvement, and agricultural diversification.
Carver saw some of his students only once a year. The part-time students were the local farmers and their wives who attended the annual Farmers' Conference. They shared successes and failures of the previous growing year, toured the Experiment Station, and got practical suggestions from Carver.
In 1904 Carver instituted the first "Short Course in Agriculture" in conjunction with the Conference. The course provided intensive agricultural training to full-time farmers for one week.
No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. Booker T. Washington
Black Farmers' Facts
The number of black farmers in America peaked in 1920, when there were 949,889. Today, of the country’s 3.4 million total farmers, only 1.3%, or 45,508, are black, according to new figures from the US Department of Agriculture released this month. They own a mere 0.52% of America’s farmland. By comparison, 95% of US farmers are white.
The black farmers who have managed to hold on to their farms eke out a living today. They make less than $40,000 annually, compared with over $190,000 by white farmers, which is probably because their average acreage is about one-quarter that of white farmers.
One study found that Black farmers lost $326 billion in land — and wealth — between 1920 and 1997 alone. Today’s Black-owned farms are smaller and earn less than farms owned by white people.
Black farmers are severely restricted by having less access to credit, the lifeblood of agriculture that allows farmers to successfully operate a farm from one season to the next. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, a lender of last resort, can help farmers who have nowhere else to go. But for decades, the department denied Black farmers credit and access to benefit programs. And it still struggles to remedy the impact of that history of discrimination. A Center for Public Integrity analysis of data from the USDA found that the agency’s Black borrowers have the highest loan delinquency rates of all racial and ethnic groups.
Black Farmers' Video- Learn more...
LCM Farmers Stress Assistance intends to organize many workshops, lectures, conferences, and benefits to help them to be successful in their agricultural activities
