Black Farmers

From OZY -

A COMEBACK FOR THE BLACK AMERICAN FARMER?
By Nick Fouriezos

Minority-led farms have sprouted from New York City to Philadelphia, from Stone Mountain in Georgia to the hills and molehills of Mississippi, a national phenomenon writer Victoria Massie recognized last year by suggesting 35 Black-owned farms that Americans could buy from instead of Whole Foods. Maryland has been especially attractive, both in the fertile fields of the Eastern Shore, home to the Black Dirt Farm Collective, and in Baltimore, site of Tha Flower Factory, among others. Lavette Blue, who with her husband has farmed the Greener Garden in Northeast Baltimore for three decades, says 75 percent of the students in the local small-scale farming classes are African-American. “It’s picking up steam,” adds Staycie Francisco with the Farm Alliance of Baltimore. Recently elected U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is the first Marylander in decades to sit on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, tells OZY that the next federal farm bill will consider “legislation to provide incentives for more young people to go into farming.” Van Hollen also points to work done by the historically Black University of Maryland Eastern Shore; its Small Farm Program provides funds and literature to help limited-resource and socially disadvantaged farmers.

http://www.ozy.com/politics-and-power/a-comeback-for-the-black-american-farmer/75920