Restorative Justice for Indigenous and Black Farmers
Item
Title
Restorative Justice for Indigenous and Black Farmers
Description
Reparations & Rematriation for Black-Indigenous Farmers is an online mapping tool that helps indigenous and black farmers connect with resources. Each pin on the map represents a farm and clicking on the pin takes the viewer to information about the farm, its current production and current resource need. The map complements the work of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance.
In a 2019 review, authors Horst & Marion evaluate the literature on landownership concluding that systematic exclusion of non-whites beginning with enclosure during the settler colonial period, continuing with the Homestead Acts, the New Deal era Farm bills and discriminatory lending practices by the USDA has resulted in monopolization of agricultural land in the US by white males, with no progress being made to the present day in land ownership by minorities. Although the authors state the data limitations explicitly, the findings are striking "White, non-Hispanic males comprise the vast majority of all landowners, owner-operators, and tenants. In terms of race, 97% of landowners, 96% of farm owner-operators, and 86% of tenants are White. Meanwhile, farmers that identify as African American/Black, Asian, Native American, or Pacific Islander/Hawaiian make up about 3% of non-operating landowners, 4% of owner-operators, and 14% of tenants. Farmers of color were least likely to be in the more land-secure groups of non-operating landowners or operator-owners, and more likely to be in more vulnerable position of leasing land (though their numbers as tenant farmers were well below their proportion overall in the U.S. population). Meanwhile, people of color comprised about 60% of farm laborers, a very vulnerable position in farming in the U.S., with notoriously difficult working conditions and low wages" during the period of the study 2012-2014.
In a 2019 review, authors Horst & Marion evaluate the literature on landownership concluding that systematic exclusion of non-whites beginning with enclosure during the settler colonial period, continuing with the Homestead Acts, the New Deal era Farm bills and discriminatory lending practices by the USDA has resulted in monopolization of agricultural land in the US by white males, with no progress being made to the present day in land ownership by minorities. Although the authors state the data limitations explicitly, the findings are striking "White, non-Hispanic males comprise the vast majority of all landowners, owner-operators, and tenants. In terms of race, 97% of landowners, 96% of farm owner-operators, and 86% of tenants are White. Meanwhile, farmers that identify as African American/Black, Asian, Native American, or Pacific Islander/Hawaiian make up about 3% of non-operating landowners, 4% of owner-operators, and 14% of tenants. Farmers of color were least likely to be in the more land-secure groups of non-operating landowners or operator-owners, and more likely to be in more vulnerable position of leasing land (though their numbers as tenant farmers were well below their proportion overall in the U.S. population). Meanwhile, people of color comprised about 60% of farm laborers, a very vulnerable position in farming in the U.S., with notoriously difficult working conditions and low wages" during the period of the study 2012-2014.