We Shall Not Be Moved:collective ownership empowers Black farmers

June 19, 2020 10:11 AM

An article describing the less-known story of the self-empowerment of farmers of color via Community Land Trusts.
posted by StrikeTheViol (5 comments total)

Across the United States today, white farmers hold 97 percent of farms, 94 percent of farm acreage, and 98 percent of net farm income.

Disgusting, for so many reasons.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:43 AM on June 19, 2020 [7 favorites]

In so many ways, our institutions have imposed, expanded, and reinforced poverty on communities of color, most especially Black and Native communities. Sharecropping was a feudal style system that allowed white landowners to get away with essentially keeping Black people in a form of slavery through debt bondage, and added the ability to ensnare poor whites in the trap as well.

The first Populist movement in the United States was formed by those Black and white sharecroppers, and other disadvantaged people, trying to work together to build a better system. Jim Crow was created partially in response to that movement, to break that fragile alliance that threatened the powers that be so much by giving the poor whites incentives against allying with their Black peers.

Everything that could be done to take power from Black people—economic, political, and social power—was done to reduce the threat of overturning the status quo and the possibility that the wealthy might find themselves subject to the people they were so certain they were superior to, despite all evidence to the contrary. That some people were able to find and build ways to opt out of some of the power structures is remarkable, given the breadth and depth of the efforts against them.

It seems to me that community land trusts and housing cooperatives would be a sensible, and durable if not undermined, approach to the very high costs of housing in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Seattle. Rent controls, which have been in place in New York for decades and which I've seen proposed by folks protesting in Seattle now, seem like they start out as good faith efforts to allow people to remain in their housing despite rising market costs, but eventually benefit people with less need of protection from those costs, while others around them are barely keeping their heads above water, if at all.
posted by notashroom at 11:57 AM on June 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

a Previously with some great links to podcasts and stuff
posted by Mrs Potato at 12:39 PM on June 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

Thanks for posting this. Another great resource on this topic is the work that Leah Penniman is doing through Soul Fire Farm. She published a book called Farming While Black, and Soul Fire's website is full of useful information. They maintain a reparations database that is designed so that people can connect directly with BIPOC farmers.
posted by greenwitch at 5:37 PM on June 19, 2020 [3 favorites]

thanks a lot for this post. i learned a lot and shared it with as many people as i could.
posted by dark matter at 7:39 AM on June 22, 2020