Civil Eats

DECEMBER 10, 2024

In the months before Patrick Brown was born in November 1982, his father, Arthur, lay down on a road near the familys farm to prevent a caravan of yellow dump trucks from depositing toxic soil in his community. Patrick currently operates Brown Family Farms on the land that Byron worked as a sharecropper once he was freed.

Plantation 144

Plantation Farming Farming Acre 144

The Equation

AUGUST 27, 2024

Following the formation of the USDA in 1862 and the abolishment of slavery in 1865, many formerly enslaved African Americans pursued independent farming. However, most of the land offered was of poor quality and was not suitable for farming. Let’s backtrack to the post-Civil War era Enslaved people had limited access to land.

Sharecropping 106

Sharecropping Farming Farming Acre 106

The Equation

AUGUST 27, 2024

Following the formation of the USDA in 1862 and the abolishment of slavery in 1865, many formerly enslaved African Americans pursued independent farming. However, most of the land offered was of poor quality and was not suitable for farming. Lets backtrack to the post-Civil War era Enslaved people had limited access to land.

Sharecropping 52

Sharecropping Farming Farming Acre 52

The Equation

MARCH 4, 2024

We must not forget that at that time the economic options for Black Americans were scarcely more than sharecropping on former plantations or brutal industrial labor in northern cities; political and social freedoms were systematically denied. Community leaders are now in conversation with the corporation that owns the pistachio farm.

Agriculture 118

Agriculture Agriculture Pesticide Ruralism 118

Daily Yonder

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. So I show how the North Bolivar County Farm cooperative in many ways is a direct response to the ways in which food was withheld from Black communities. DY: You write that the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative left no physical trace.

Food 81

Food Plantation Agriculture Agriculture 81

Civil Eats

OCTOBER 24, 2023

Surrounded by low-income apartments, senior housing, and the cheerful hum of an elementary school playground, We Grow Farms is an unlikely yet central landmark in West Sacramento. Leased through the West Sacramento Urban Farm Program , the regenerative urban oasis attracts nearby residents, students, and plenty of honeybees.

Cultivation 145

Cultivation Acre Farming Farming 145

Civil Eats

JUNE 4, 2024

The heirloom gardens project, a collaboration between Princeton University, Spelman College’s Food Studies program, and Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance , aims to memorialize their long-held expertise and culturally meaningful foods. A lot of Black and Indigenous farmers are working full-time jobs and farming on weekends and at night.

Food 111

Food Seeding Farming Farming 111