"Being Stewards of Land is Our Legacy": Exploring the Lived Experiences of Young Black Farmers

Touzeau, Leslie

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2019.084.007

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Our findings, of course, must be contextualized within the structures of race and gender. For example, as Touzeau 2019 notes, “The oppressive histories of slavery, sharecropping, and discriminatory lending practices contribute to a modern American agricultural landscape where black farmers are underrepresented,” while The Dawes Act forced Indigenous people to become farmers and ranchers and accept the individual portioning of reservation land to sell off the huge swaths of treaty land to white farmers. This, coupled with the fact that many Tribal Nations use systems that are not structured around patriarchal beliefs, means that land is more likely to stay or end up in women’s hands, but it does not mean that these women faring are better in terms of their profits (Ward 2018 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women, race and place in US Agriculture

2022

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Research on women in U.S. agriculture highlights how, despite real challenges, women have made and continue to make spaces for themselves in this male-dominated profession. We argue that, partly due to data accessibility limitations, this work has tended to use white women’s experiences in agriculture as universal. Analyzing micro-data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture, this paper offers descriptive statistics about women and race in U.S. agriculture. We examine numerous characteristics of U.S. farms, including their spatial distribution, the average number of acres farmed, predominant crop types, and other characteristics to describe how white, Black, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander/Asian women farmers are faring. Our findings suggest significant differences in women’s farms by race. We argue that these are related to the history of forced and voluntary migration within the U.S. Our results indicate that understanding women’s experiences in farming requires understanding the impact of race and these broader historical patterns. Finally, because of these differences across races, we suggest that supporting “women in agriculture” may require tailored responses from agricultural policy and programming that addresses unique needs in specific communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women, race and place in US Agriculture

2022

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“…This highlights a level of dissonance between how farmers perceived the crisis and how they felt compelled to act on it. Research highlighting material and symbolic forms of empowerment and individual-level solutions for change among the African-American farming community has been well documented (Balvanz et al, 2011;Fiskio et al, 2016;Touzeau, 2019). While these previous studies highlighted the crucial role of community and individual-level solutions in addressing the crisis, for widespread social change it is imperative to shift the broader conversation to more structural level interventions (e.g., federal loan reform, farm subsidy programs).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soul Food: [Re]framing the African-American Farming Crisis Using the Culture-Centered Approach

Carter

Alexander

2020

Front. Commun.

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Historically, African-American farmers faced a long and challenging struggle to own land and operate independently. In recent years, several factors, including unfair policy legislation, institutionalized racism, the mechanization of agriculture, and increases in agricultural technology have exacerbated land loss and decreases in farm ownership. Currently, African-American farmers are vastly underrepresented, comprising just 2% of the nation's farmers, 0.5% of farmland and 0.2% of total agricultural sales. As a site for inquiry, this topic has been examined across many academic sub-disciplines, however, the literature has not yet explored how the erasure of the African-American farmer influences the conversation about broader diet-related health disparities in the U.S. This overlooked perspective represents a novel approach to rethinking public health interventions and may improve methods for communicating messages about healthy eating to the African American community. In this essay, we extend (Dutta, 2008) the Culture-Centered Approach (CCA) to foreground the lived experiences and perspectives of a small cohort of African-American farmers (n = 12) living in the U.S. Mid-South as an entry point to address this underexamined area of research and inform future methodological directions of study. Two key themes emerged from the thematic analysis:(1) erasure of the African-American farming tradition and land loss; and (2) solutions to change. Drawing on the understanding that systematic land loss in the African-American community has contributed to wealth disparities between African-Americans and Whites, we argue that the erasure of the African-American farming tradition within mainstream discourses has created communication inequities that disenfranchise the African-American community and may contribute to broader health inequities in food system. Our findings may offer important insights into the methodological development of more effective health campaigns within these communities.

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“…From this history, Blacks bring a deep and complex relationship to land. While not all Blacks long for their agrarian roots, as realities are much more nuanced, nevertheless land ownership and agrarianism are associated with emancipation, power, wealth-building, stability, opportunity, freedom, and opposition to racism (Touzeau, 2019).…”

Section: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Compared to the Northeast's nearly 223,000 white principal operators, 833 are Black or African American, 2,477 are Hispanic and 839 are Asian (USDA Census of Agriculture, 2017). While the number of Black farmers is increasing nationally, they still make up only about 1.4% of U.S. farmers (Touzeau, 2019). American Indian/Alaska Native producers accounted for 2.3% of the country's farmers and ranchers on 6.5% of U.S. total agricultural land, with the majority of these in western and Plains states (USDA Census of Agriculture, 2017).…”

Section: Fairness and Opportunity For All Food Chain Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Regional Imperative: The Case for Regional Food Systems

Ruhf¹,

Clancy²

2022

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‘Regional food systems’ appears with increasing frequency in scholarly works and among food system practitioners. Yet regional food systems are understudied and undervalued. Much more attention to regionalism and regional food systems is necessary to create more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food systems for all. Building from the authors’ 2010 paper, “It takes a region… Exploring a regional food systems approach: A working paper,” this greatly expanded report explores the concepts, practices, challenges, and promise of regional food systems. The report’s focus is on the Northeast U.S., a laboratory for regional food systems thinking and action, but it also describes and gives examples of regional food systems development across the country. The arguments in favor of regional approaches and explorations apply to all regions and embracing them could not be more imperative to address contemporary conditions.

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"Being Stewards of Land is Our Legacy": Exploring the Lived Experiences of Young Black Farmers

Cited by 8 publications

References 21 publications

Women, race and place in US Agriculture

Women, race and place in US Agriculture

Soul Food: [Re]framing the African-American Farming Crisis Using the Culture-Centered Approach

A Regional Imperative: The Case for Regional Food Systems

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