Two Biden Priorities, Climate and Inequality, Meet on Black-Owned Farms

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February 1, 2021

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by Hiroko Tabuchi and Nadja Popovich (New York Times) The administration has pledged to make agriculture a cornerstone of its plan to fight warming, but also to tackle a legacy of discrimination that has pushed Black farmers off the land. — … The administration has promised to make agriculture a cornerstone of its ambitious climate agenda, looking to farmers to take up farming methods that could keep planet-warming carbon dioxide locked in the soil and out of the atmosphere. At the same time, President Biden has pledged to tackle a legacy of discrimination that has driven generations of Black Americans from their farms, with steps to improve Black and other minority farmers’ access to land, loans and other assistance, including “climate smart” production.

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Many of those trusts have also put sustainability front and center of their work with local farmers, tapping into the legacy of Black scientists like George Washington Carver. His work on cover crops, which are planted to help nourish the soil, sought to reverse the damage wrought by single-crop cotton farming in the South, carried out on the backs of enslaved people.

Efforts to remedy the loss so far have been small in comparison. Starting in the 1990s, a series of settlements has paid out about $2 billion, in total, to a handful of farmers who could prove direct discrimination.

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And this week, a flurry of executive actions on climate directed the agency to study ways to encourage “climate-smart” agricultural practices while creating new sources of income for rural Americans.

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“The reality is that there are inherent legacy barriers and practices that have prevented Black farmers, and other socially disadvantaged producers, from getting access to programs at the Department of Agriculture,” Mr. Herrick said. “We’re going to do everything we can — the secretary is committed to that — to removing those barriers.”

Those concerns threaten to overshadow the Biden administration’s rollout of agriculture policies that put farmers at the forefront of the fight against climate change.

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One early idea from the Biden transition team is a federal soil “carbon bank” that would offer credits to farmers for carbon they sequester in the soil through sustainable farming methods. The plan would allocate $1 billion to purchase carbon credits from farmers at $20 per ton of carbon they trap in the soil. The Biden transition team claimed it could reduce annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 50 megatons, equivalent to the emissions from more than 10 million cars driven for a year.

Scientists caution that uncertainties remain about the ability of farmers to sequester carbon in their soil. Still, such a policy could, in theory, benefit farmers like Mr. Rowe. Recent studies have shown that organic farming, in particular, may help hold carbon in the soil. READ MORE

National Black Farmers Association Kicks Off Black History Month with Farm & Ranch Living Magazine Farmer John Feature (National Black Farmers Association)

Farmer John — Meet John Boyd Jr., agriculture activist and founder of the National Black Farmers Association. (Farm & Ranch Living Magazine)

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. (Mother Jones)

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