Farmers of Color. For farmers and ranchers of color, who make up about 5% of farm producers (USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2019), there is a burden of stress from structural racism (Paradies et al., 2015). This burden of stress that has detrimental impacts on physical and mental health.
In 2020, a 7-minute video was released by A+J productions to show what’s happened to the population of Black farmers. As the introduction explains, The United States was built on the agricultural strength and skill of Black slaves who knew how to farm. But even after slavery ended, Black people who worked as farmers have continued to face systematic barriers...
VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71WZnsqSUo Q
There is also a history of discrimination and disenfranchisement of farmers of color through federal government legislation, treaties, and agencies, including the USDA (Cowan & Feder, 2013). And, the land- grant system has also contributed to the stressor of discrimination (Nash, 2019). On February 11, 2021, Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems conducted a 90 -minute webinar that reviewed the history of the land grant system including the 1862 (predominately White), 1890 (historically Black), and 1994 (Tribal/Indigenous) colleges and universities. This webinar, titled Building Relationships across Higher Education Institutions to Address Racism in the Food System, provided an overview of the history and policy of these institutions through a racial equity lens.
Panelists described an “asset -based pluralistic model of collaborative research and outreach across these institutions to advance food system sustainability and resiliency.” It closed with some ideas about how to improve relationships and offered some resources to explore.
VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQkt4cq2PKI
Hispanic and Latino(a) Farmers. No studies were identified in peer-reviewed publications that specifically addressed stressors among Hispanic farmers though there were some recent studies of the impact of COVID-19 on farmworkers. Those findings are reported in the COVID-19 section of this Guide. One study of 17n Nebraska Hispanic and WEBSITE Hispanic Farmers on Broken Ground, a 26-minute PBS documentary produced in 2012, addresses some of the challenges faced by Hispanic farmers. The video was based on interviews of 17 farmers. While dated, it provides background information based on earlier USDA Census data. This was the only video found in a search for stories of Hispanic producers. https://www.pbs.org/video/net-nebraska-news-hispanic- farmers-on-broken-ground/
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