The loss of agricultural land among black farmers

Western Journal of Black Studies, The, Summer, 2006 by Edmund Merem

Outreach Programs and Exposure to Global Markets

The federation has also initiated an outreach program and meetings based upon a joint initiative of the USDA and the United States Civil Rights Commission. These initiatives were aimed at combating racial discrimination and its effects on marketing and financial efforts of rural farmers (Community Sustainability Resource Institute 1997). At the Global level, the federation has received on behalf of Black farmers, various offers for exports from Africa, Mexico, Canada and St. Thomas in the Caribbean. In that light, in 1997, it signed an agreement with the USDA on ways of assisting Black farmers to break into some of the newly emerging agricultural markets in other countries (Washington and Seifarth, 2002). From the emerging market program, the federation participated in the Southern U.S. trade mission to Canada and they also developed product and marketing plans with shipping agents, the embassy of Zimbabwe, the embassy of Estonia, an Estonian confectionary factory as well as market research initiatives in South Africa (Washington and Seifarth 2002). From this brief analysis, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives successfully implemented numerous initiatives aimed at African-American land retention and acquisition.

Section 5

Findings and Closure

From the results of the analysis provided so far in the paper, it is evident that the Black farming community is still faced with the growing incidence of landlessness. The nature and extent of the problems has in the last several years attracted the interventions of the federal government and African American Organizations in a bid to arrest the issue. In spite of the combined efforts of the USDA, the Congress and African American organizations in different areas of the country, the eradication of land loss within the Black faming community remains elusive. This is due to a host of factors along with other variables that are entrenched in the system.

The study found that the current institutional set up overseeing agricultural land use and rural affairs favor big corporate farms over small family farms associated with Black farmers. In the process, the existing policy has not done enough to address the plights of minority farmers. Additionally, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) of the US department of Agriculture in charge of issuing loans to needy farmers functions under a system of power structure where unequal distribution of FSA funds and unfair treatment of minority farmers by committee members is quite rampant. This leads to a limited voice and unequal participation for Black farmers and socially disadvantaged on matters dealing with their interests on FSA county committees. There is also the systemic lack of access to markets and lines of credit. Black farmers are confronted by a mix of racial discrimination instituted by governmental agencies and the effects of changing demographics in the farm sector.

The three case studies provided some interesting results. In the case of Texas, the trend in the area is somewhat mixed in that while it reflects some evidence of gains in land among the African American farming community. The condition in the state just as in other areas of the South was not favorable to the land retention efforts of some Blacks. In the process, rural African Americans encountered enormous problems after the World War 11 that compelled them to abandon fanning. In the state, the number of Black land owners declined substantially from 1940 to 1960, while the heaviest decline occurred between 1950 and 1960. The forces associated with landlessness shows a regional dimension to the problem. The analysis of landownership patterns in 15 Southern states from 1982 through 1997 reveals a widespread decline among black farms within this period. Black farms in the southern region showed an overall decline of -45.2 percent during the period. Amongst the individual states, the states of Maryland and North Carolina experienced the highest decline in the number of Black farmers. Another group of states made up of Virginia, South Carolina and Mississippi had profound losses of over 50 percent.