Finding Success in Soil

Farmers of Color in Colorado are getting an economic boost.

Story by Riley Weeks

June 12, 2021

Mountair Park Community Farm operates on half a hectare of land on the west side of Lakewood, Colorado. On the farm, intermingled with bird song and the rustling leaves of vegetables, is the clank of construction and the occasional clamor of the nearby commuter train. The farm’s greens and browns sit in stark contrast to the greys and blacks of the surrounding city.

On a cool Friday morning in May, Andréa Wilkins y Martínez, the manager of Mountair Farm, is in her element. She is in the midst of training a new summer intern, and her beekeeper has just arrived on site with three new bee colonies. It’s non-stop work on the farm, especially at the beginning of the growing season. Wilkins y Martínez and her team provide around 1,500 kg of fresh food each year to members of the surrounding community who are experiencing food insecurity.

Farmers of Color such as Wilkins y Martínez are working, despite consistent and systemic discrimination, to find success in soil.

Across the United States, minority farmers have faced racial barriers for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated these inequities.Receiving funds, including a recent $5 billion boost from the federal government’s American Rescue Plan passed in March of this year, could mean the possibility of leveling the playing field for farmers, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Rows of radishes reach for the sun at Mountair Farm Park. Some of the food grown on the farm, like these radishes, are sold at an on-site food stand at a reduced price for low-income families enrolled in food assistance programs. Photo by Riley Weeks.

Mountair Farm works in collaboration with three other farms under the umbrella of Sprout City Farms, an organization based in Denver, Colorado, with the vision of cultivating urban farmers that support, and are in turn supported by, their community.

Farming organizations suffered financially due to the pandemic. Tasha Hill, development and outreach coordinator for Sprout City Farms, applied for a grant through the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s (CDA) Farm and Food Systems Respond and Rebuild Fund. With the grant money received, Hill said the farm was able to pay farmers’ wages and provide them with personal protective equipment.

Despite its difficulties, the pandemic hasn’t stopped Sprout City farmers. The organization recently started construction on a solar garden, a plot of land a little over one hectare that will be the largest research site combining the power of solar panels and food crops in the U.S. Rows of gleaming solar panels will generate enough energy to power 300 homes. Underneath those panels will grow crops which will provide reduced-priced food to feed low-income households in and around the area.

Sprout City Farms was one of over 250 current and past grantees of the $1 million fund, which was made available to small and midsize farming operations. The grant prioritized beginning farmers and ranchers, veteran farmers, Black, Indigenous, and farmers of Color, female and LGBTQ+ farmers. These prioritized groups are “often underserved by public programs and projected to bear the brunt of the [pandemic’s] impact,” according to a CDA press release.

“I really think that it’s important that we support socially disadvantaged farmers,” Hill said. “We have to expand our definition of what it means to farm.”

It’s not enough to financially support current minority owned farms, according to Hill. They believe funds should go towards students and entrepreneurs beginning small-scale, organic farms, as well as those who may not own a farm but work on one.

Throughout history, People of Color have faced discrimination within the U.S. agricultural industry. According to the Civil Rights Action Team, a task force created within the USDA to address long standing racial inequities within the department, just 30 years ago in the southeastern U.S., loan applications to the USDA from Black farmers could take three times as long to be processed as loan requests from white farmers.

The American Rescue Plan hopes to address some of the losses farmers of Color have faced due to previous discriminatory policies. The plan allocates over $5 billion towards assisting historically disadvantaged farmers, and about $1 billion of those funds will go towards creating a racial equity commission within the USDA.

Kate McRoy, the process improvement manager for the state agriculture department, hopes funds within her department will also be used to financially uplift underserved farmers.

The Loan Program For Colorado Agriculture is currently under consideration by the Colorado state legislature. The bill would create a lending program within the CDA. Starting in 2023, underserved or underrepresented farmers would be prioritized in the distribution of the $30 million worth of funds.

But Wilkins y Martínez has doubts about such lending programs.

“Bureaucrats are regulating other bureaucrats,” she said, “How effective can it be?”

She wishes the loans were grant funds, eliminating the need for farmers of Color to pay back the government.

This bill comes at a time when Colorado bureaucrats are looking within their agencies to see how they could change to support historically underserved farmers. McRoy said that after the protests in May of last year, the agriculture department decided to take a hard look at the support, or lack thereof, for communities of Color both inside and out of the department.

“We know we are not doing the job that we should,” McRoy said. “We know there are lots of communities that we have yet to reach on a level that they need, and so that is what we are striving for in the next year and beyond.”

According to a study published in 2021, low income African Americans, Hispanic individuals, and women of all racial and ethnic groups had higher risks of experiencing unemployment, food insufficiency and mental health concerns at the beginning of the pandemic.

Agricultural workers were also put in a precarious situation by the pandemic. According to the USDA, the expected total income of agricultural producers for 2020 dropped by $31 billion due to a decrease in crop demand.

Jennifer Benson, the CDA agriculture workforce development program manager, has taken considerable interest in racial discrimination in the industry. She served as the managing editor of the Colorado Law Review, where her research focused on race and gender discrimination within the USDA’s lending programs.

“I’m not a farmer of Color, and so I think it’s really important that the CDA hears from farmers of Color or aspiring farmers of Color,” Benson said.

She now manages a program within the CDA that acts as a financial bridge between agricultural businesses and farming interns. With a wave of her metaphorical wand, Benson is able to provide these businesses with a significant chunk of a potential intern’s paycheck. Her goal is that at least 25% of the businesses participating in the program are owned by a woman or a Person of Color.

Both Benson and McRoy believe amplifying the voices of People of Color within their department and the farmers of Color they serve is an important first step in supporting them.

In the winter of 2022, department employees will begin holding listening sessions where historically underserved farmers will speak about the issues they are facing. The hope is that programming within the department will adjust to better fit their needs, according to Benson.

“I think it’s a great first step to go and just listen to farmers and maybe follow their guidance rather than telling them what you think they need,” Wilkins y Martínez said.

Although Sprout City Farms is taking steps towards racial equity and justice, Wilkins y Martínez believes they aren’t there yet.

“It is a very white-presenting organization and I think they are trying to take steps to remedy that,” she said, “but I also think that it’s a long road for them to get there.”

Wilkins y Martínez believes individuals within the organization must acknowledge their own internalized racism before tackling the larger inequities at play.

Hill, too, sees more work to be done.

“The issues in our food system were glaring during the pandemic and still are,” Hill said, “We can’t expect the impacts of the pandemic to go away once we can all be outside without masks on. There will be some long term systemic effects.”

However, Hill believes the aftermath of the pandemic should be seen as a chance to build a more equitable food system.

Riley Weeks is a Fairhaven student studying environmental science and journalism with an emphasis on Native American studies.