Olivia Watkins, a black agroforest in NC articulates her progress from working on different farms with varied products and applying her learned knowledge on inheriting a 40-acre farm. It expands on the racism black farmers endured through black land disposition. How these injustices need to be address for meaningful agricultural healing. Watkins grows mushrooms on this land and shows have crops are cultivated without removing the trees. Calling his practice "spawn run" as opposed to "colonizing". Not clearing forest for profit. A method of black ecological tradition relying on care, reciprocity, and non-extractive relationships with land. The story basis is that regenerative agriculture is not unique with deep roots in black agrarian knowledge.
It is noted that black slaves practiced regenerative agriculture as survival strategies, that were ecologically sophisticated systems that enriched soil and biodiversity, prior to regenerative branding. Highlighted practices included agroforestry, polyculture and Inter cropping, communal land management, and soil-building practices.
Land granted to black farmers by Tecumseh Sherman, post-civil was taken away through white supremacist intimidation. USDA unfair lend and credit practices negatively affected black land ownership. Property laws enacted made it possible to seize heirs' lands. Carlisle correlates soil health and land justice, explaining why blacks hold only 2% farm ownership today. She concludes attention be given to black land justice for building a sustainable climate-resilient future.
1 comment:
One of the issues with heirs' property was that African American families often did not have access to legal services. As a result, the land was passed down without a formal will, which created "clouded titles". This was exploited by companies and neighbors who seized the land through partition sales. Additionally, credit access and lending were biased against Black farmers who needed that money to sustain their business.
Another issue was that Black farmers built the fertility of the soil naturally, meaning they were independent of the industrial, chemical inputs. This is not something that these big companies want. They need people to purchase their product, so I'm sure they had a hand in this suppression of the technique.
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