Vanishing Black Farmers: Grassroot efforts, podcast hope to bring Black producers back to the farm
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – This summer, more than 43,000 Black farmers received their share of a $2.2 billion USDA settlement for years of discriminatory loan practices dating back to the early 1900s.
For many, the payout comes too late as Black farmers are leaving the profession in droves.
However, there’s a new network of growers who are working to change that, such as third-generation farmer Debra Lockard.
The farmland for Lockard‘s produce in Glimp, Tennessee, has been in Debra’s family for nearly a century.
“My grandad built me a green patch and I love picking mustard greens, turnip greens and right to the day, you can’t get me out of the field on time,” said Lockard.
“My husband sits there with a timer and says, ‘it‘s time to go,’” said Lockard, who inherited her family’s love of the land and farming.
When Lockard’s grandfather farmed this land in 1920, the number of Black farmers in this country was at its peak.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture counted nearly 950,000 Black farmers.
Just over 100 years later, that number has dropped to just over 46,000.
Tennessee is home to just over 1,300 Black farmers.
The Legal Defense Fund says tens of thousands of Black farmers were forced out of the profession following decades of discrimination in farm loans.
Many Black farmers or their descendants opted to sell their farmland.
In 1920, The Land Trust Alliance says Black farmers owned approximately 14-19 million acres of land.
Today, that number is around 5.3 million acres – less than a half percent of America’s farmland.
Lockard hopes to change that.
“Like my uncle, my mom, my family, my dad. We don’t sell this land,” said Lockard.
She’s committed to recruiting the next generation of Black and women farmers.
“I want to serve as a role model, and I have several mentees,” said Lockard, who has been mentoring Memphis urban farmers Bobby and Derravia Rich.
“Yeah, she’s the OG! OK, so perfect example, you got OGs like Debra Lockard who can literally talk to me and all my millennial farmers. We go to her for information, we don’t go to YouTube,” said Bobby Rich, who is the founder of Black Urban Seeds alongside his wife Derravia Rich.
The Richs are the founders of Black Seeds Urban Farms in Uptown, foregoing lush acres in rural areas for smaller community spaces in cities like Memphis.
Like Lockard, the Richs were introduced to gardening from grandparents.
“We started off growing food in our own community, the Magnolia, Castalia areas, and we would give it to our neighbors, give it to our family members and church members and before you knew it, people from all over were calling for vegetables and fruit,” said Rich.
Now the Richs are growing more than just their garden.
Last month they launched a podcast with the Kudzukian Media group called “All in the Farmily,” with hopes of growing a new network of future farmers.
One of their first guests was Debra Lockard.
Lockard’s approach to not only maximizing her own farm’s potential, but also inspiring other Black producers to grow their own profits, combines a mix of old and new school tactics.
A grant funded solar panels that were just installed on her farm.
Greenhouses now keep her crops growing year-round and her son is helping her to explore using robots to test the soil for viability before new crops are planted.
She’s even partnered with another one of her mentees and now fellow farmer, Daryl Leven, to create a farming school.
Leven says he’s passionate about bringing more Black people into farming.
“We lost our connection. We went for the industrial jobs, and we left the farming behind,” said Leven.
“In the old days our relatives all had jobs in which they may have a business job, but then they always had a plot of land that had a garden and we’ve lost that,” said Leven who now has his own urban farm in Raleigh after retiring from corporate America.
According to the USDA, Texas is home to the highest number of Black farmers in the U.S. with more than 11,000 Black farmers.
Mississippi ranks second with just over half that number.
Arkansas is 11th and Tennessee is 12th.
Black farmers made $2.8 billion in ag sales in 2022–less than one percent of total ag sales that year.
If you want to check out the “All in the Farmily” podcast just download the “Grow Tennessee” app in your app store.
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