White People Own 98 Percent of Rural Land. Young Black Farmers Want to Reclaim Their Share.

Innovations by Black farmers remain at the core of sustainable agriculture today.

By Tom Philpott, Mother Jones

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Black people have largely been expelled from the US agricultural landscape. In 1920, nearly a million Black farmers worked on 41.4 million acres of land, making up a seventh of farm owners. Today, only about 49,000 of them remain, making up just 1.4 percent of the nation’s farm owners, and tending a scant 4.7 million acres—a nearly 90 percent loss.

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This didn’t happen by accident. Since Emancipation, Black farmers have had to fight for a share of this country’s fertile ground, due to a history of racist policies and land theft. But modern sustainable agriculture owes much to Black agriculturalists, explained Leah Penniman, co-director of Soul Fire Farm in upstate New York and author of Farming While Black, on a recent episode of Bite.

Featured Image, Courtesy of Soul Fire Farm
Full article @ Mother Jones