ITHACA, N.Y. (WENY) -- The number of Black owned farms in New York State is at an extreme low -- with less than one percent of farms being operated or owned by Black or African producers.  

John Boyd, a fourth-generation farmer and founder of the National Black Farmers Association says this is a battle that has been long fought and continues to be a hurdle for future generations. 

Boyd began the organization with the intention of eradicating discrimination that Black farmers were facing in the 1980s.  

“The State of New Jersey, all the way down to Southeastern corridor of the United States, many Black farmers were not receiving farm loans from the United States Department of Agriculture.” 

He explained that he believed it was only an issue happening within his county of Mecklenburg, Virginia. Once news outlets began spotlighting the racial discrimination happening across the country, Black farmers from all around started to come forward with their stories.  

“At the turn of the century, there were 1 million black farm families in the United States, we were tilling 20 million acres of land and today we're down to about 50, 000 black farmers tilling about 3.5 million acres of land.”  

Boyd raises the concern that if action is not taken on a federal level, Black farmers in agriculture will be facing extinction in the future.  

“If Congress doesn't put some laws in place to protect us so our numbers can come up, there's going to be a hard, a tough road to hold for the next generation of farmers.” 

Historically and throughout the present day, farming whether independently or family owned has played a vital role in our social and economic development. While the 13th amendment had abolished slavery when passed by Congress in 1865, it was followed by 100 years of racial discrimination that limited opportunities for Black Americans.  

“We really didn't own any lands after the Civil War, after 1865. The same way my forefathers were able to obtain land after the Civil War, they didn't have anywhere to go. So, some white farmers or plantation owners said, ‘hey, I'll go ahead and sell some land to this black family that continue to stay on the farm and work for us.’ That's how Blacks got land in the first place.” 

Boyd says the same lands Black farmers were given, were soon being stripped away.  

“Through legal laws that are on the book [White farmers] used the county committee system to take land away from Black farmers in this country and that's where we are today.” 

Soon his family farm was being passed down to him, and it was graduating after high school at the age of 18 that he began to witness mistreatment based on his skin color walking into a loan agency of the United States Department of Agriculture. He describes walking into the establishment as though he was “walking back in time” when speaking with a lender.  

“This man spat on me during the loan application session, he tore my application up, tossed it in the trash can, used racial epithets, ‘Negro, whatever you people call yourselves these days.’”  

He recalls sitting with other elderly Black farmers who were waiting to see this lender, who would only meet with them on Wednesday’s, coining that specific day of the week as “Black Wednesday’s.” Boyd was applying for a $5,000 loan that he was continuously denied of, despite already having credit built.  

“This White farmer walks in. His name was Earl. That's all I know. And his whole voice changed, his demeanor changed,” adding “he stood up and talked to him and he passed him what looked like a tax check back then for a $157, 000 farm operating loan. So here I am, an eligible black farmer, who was pleading 5, 000. He had already told me no.” 

It wasn’t long before he had met with a representative from the USDA Civil Rights Office of Virginia after filing several complaints against the lender.  

After the investigation had been launched, the lender had outwardly admitted that he had thrown out Boyd’s application in the trash can.  

“[The representative] said, ‘well, did you spit on John Boyd?’” the lender responded “well, yes, I ain't mean to spit on that old boy. I just accidentally missed my spittoon can on the desk.”  

His life’s work began from that moment on, hoping to make a systemic change where Black farmers would no longer be wrongfully denied of economic assistance for their farm.  

“Abraham Lincoln called it the People's Department. I named it the Last Plantation. And you know, rightfully so, the way that they treated us and other minorities in this country.”  

Boyd’s journey as an advocate for Black Farmers took of leading a national campaign in Washington, D.C. at the White House. Working alongside Senator Corey Booker of New Jersey, they introduced a measure that would offer debt relief to farmers of color in New Jersey.  

“We looked at pulling the piece of debt relief, which I thought was the most effective remedy to receive 120 percent debt relief. That means if you owed USDA money, those debts will be forgiven. If you were behind 20 percent to pay the taxes, and that means for those who don't understand, you have a deed of trust to your house, and it's tied up with the bank. That deed will be returned to you. So, the land will be returned to the actual farmers who are still farming in this country.”  

Congress had decided to pass the measure, but it wasn’t long before their bill received pushback from White farmers, and in turn getting sued by them under the claims of reverse discrimination.  

“The National Black Farmers Association began to fight in court, we began and went on certain motions to say that it's not reverses discrimination, that the discrimination we faced for many, many years was documented, and that white farmers were simply trying to block payments to a needy group of people when, in fact, it was white farmers who received all of the debt relief with ease in this country that Blacks, Native Americans and Hispanics and other populations never received any.

 

 

But one local farmer, Christa Núñez and her husband Pete moved to Ithaca to establish a black, female-owned farm dedicated to giving back and reestablish their roots.  

For children, The Learning Farm offers educational programs aimed at getting children to connect with the land.  

“Every kid that comes here, every kid that I get to interact with, uh, in schools when we go into schools or when they come here for field trips or for our summer after school program, I love them like my own.” 

Núñez wants children from around the community to experience what her children had the privilege of growing up and allow them to reengage with the soil and unplugging from technology, especially for those who live in urban areas.  

“I wanted to plant apple trees so that my kids could climb an apple tree and eat apples if they chose to, I wanted to do that for other kids too, and I want to do that for other mothers like myself.” 

Additionally, she created another program called “Quarter Acre for the People” through her nonprofit called Cooper International, that helps families attain land on their own with the goal of providing what she calls “intentional community building” aimed at bringing people together.  

Still, Núñez says there’s an “extreme inequity” that displaces people of color from accessing land.  

“We're invested in Black and indigenous land agency coming together. And so, everything we do for Black folks and for Indigenous folks, it's about correcting the wrongs, acknowledging what happened. And also moving forward with allies in obtaining more land and turning the corner for everybody.” 

Núñez has also developed a program to get more adult members of the BIPOC community to get involved, and extending resources that puts them at a better standing to one day own land. Aspiring farmers learned how to inoculate shiitake logs, how to grow mycorrhizal mushrooms beneath trees, and other immersive workshops.  

“Part of that's learning how to build farm infrastructure, learning how to scope out what a housing development would look like in an intentional farming community. Part of that is working with legal folks and planners and environmental folks on scoping out what that trajectory of like, I know how to do stuff. I have the folks that I want to work with. I have a piece of land. Now, what can we do to make it happen?” 

With disparity impacting farming and land ownership to communities of color, Núñez says it’s important to especially open doors for women in those groups to be included in these conversations and not be played down – a paradigm she believes is found in almost every field of work. 

“Women have a really hard time and have historically had a hard time even holding land, being able to be acknowledged as landholders and then being at a disadvantage when they try to get farm jobs, being discounted, being paid less.”  

She remains hopeful, praying that the efforts many advocates around are trying to offer to BIPOC communities will one day bridge our differences.  

“If we can create broad coalitions of people who are committed to working for justice on land [and] food justice, we can see a future of Rural lands being diversified with diverse groups of people from all over the world, from this community, folks who've been pushed off land coming back to land, folks who've been disenfranchised coming back to land and working cooperatively together. "