Black Farmers in America and Upcoming Community Forum

At the February 26th fundraiser in support of the November 30th Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference, John Francis Ficara presented his award winning photographic documentary project Black Farmers in America.  He spent four years photographing black farmers across the country, witnessing firsthand the difficulties faced by families wanting to continue living and working on their land. In these images of financial hardship, survival, and the people’s bond to the soil, Black Farmers in America documents for posterity the struggle of black farmers in America at the end of the twentieth century to preserve their heritage. You can view some of the images here.

According to Ficara, "In 1920, black Americans made up 14 percent of all the farmers in the nation and worked 16 million acres of land. Today, battling the onslaught of globalization, changing technology, an aging workforce, racist lending policies, and even the U.S. Department of Agriculture, black farmers account for less than 1 percent of the nation's farmers and cultivate fewer than 3 million acres of farmland. Inside these statistics is a staggering story of human loss: when each farm closed, those farmers, their spouses, children, grandchildren, and the people they hired, all had to leave a way of life that had existed in their families for generations."  

Next up for the Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners is Saturday's Community forum at 388 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, between Hoyt and Bond, which will occur from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Description of the event:

Join the conversation and learn how you can take action around food, farming and policy in the black community!

What’s for Dinner?
Connecting the Dots Between Food Access, Policy and the History of Agriculture from the Black Perspective

PANEL DISCUSSION

Maya Wiley, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Social Inclusion

Kolu Zigbi, Program Officer for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems at the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation

Jennifer Steverson, Public Programs Curator at Weeksville Society Heritage Center

Space is limited to 150 guests.  To register: http://blackfarmersurbangardeners.eventbrite.com/

For general information, please email blackfarmersconf@gmail.com.