For years, Veronica Petty has cultivated her own little secret in the back of her suburban Lancaster home.
Beyond the wooden gate, the greenery extends in all directions. The chirping of birds fills the air as bees and aphids buzz around elderberries, peppers, chard, blueberries, figs and peaches. A trickle of water flows steadily from her homemade irrigation system as compost bins do their microscopic work.
From 9 to 5, Petty works as an insurance claims adjuster. When she gets home, she goes to her backyard farm.
“Even if it’s hard with the physical labor, the bags and everything, I love it. “I wouldn’t change it at all,” she said.
Petty is one of the few Black farmers in North Texas who owns a USDA-registered farm and business. She is part of a cohort called The Soil-to-Profit Initiative of the Texas Small Farmers and Ranchers Community Based Organization, which aims to grow the number of Black farmers and ranchers in the state.
P. Wade Ross, CEO of the nonprofit, said his parents W. Wade Ross and Anita Ross started the organization in 1998 to advocate for other Black farmers.
For more than a century, the Ross family has farmed and operated 300 acres near Bryan. The land was passed down from Ross’s great-grandfather, a runaway slave from South Carolina. Grandpa Jack had to pay for his land twice. But he never lived to see the final act.
“Black farmers have always been on the outside looking in commercially when it came to monetizing their land,” he said.
The root of the problem
According to a McKinsey study, Black farmers make up less than 2% of all U.S. farmers. While there is funding available for Black farmers, Ross says emerging farmers and ranchers often don’t meet the eligibility criteria because funders want to see proof of their achievements.
According to Ross, this can create a ‘vicious circle’.
“They say, ‘I don’t really have any real data.’ Even the agricultural service bureaus and places like that want to see a business plan and your track record for the last three years,” he said.
In recent years, the decline in the number of black farmers has also led to significant land loss. From 1992 to 2002, 94% of black farmers lost some or all of their land, which is three times the number of white farmers, according to the Berkeley Institute of Food. An estimated $326 billion in profits and land was lost during the 20th century.
Ross is big on teaching the basics of financial literacy and using social media to do so. He posts about savings and investing on the Instagram account @blackfarmerscbo and invites economists and financial experts to discuss issues such as access to capital.
Petty said learning concepts like “from soil to profit” in the cohort helped her see her backyard farm as a real business.
“You learn everything from managing your land to producing your food, setting up a business and actually selling it. … It’s like a holistic program,” she said.
It takes a significant amount of money to maintain her quarter acre of land. Last year she invested almost $26,000 in her farm and this year she has invested $12,000 so far.
Although she has a deficit, she wants to break even in the coming year. The producer sells her crops at local farmers markets such as For Oak Cliff, and has plans to grow her business by selling herbs to a local Mexican restaurant and her luffa plants to a soap maker. She also receives the help of a USDA Environmental Quality Grant, which provides $5,000 in subsidies for new farm equipment.
Julianna YeeFoon, food justice director at For Oak Cliff, says it’s important that local communities turn to their neighbors for fresh, nutritious food. She said Black and brown people have historically done much of the work to support food systems, but have not benefited from that work.
“The way our food system has developed has evolved largely from the history of colonization and slavery in the United States, and the ways in which labor has been used and exploited to build our food systems are still present,” she said.
That’s why her organization supports local farmers of color by subsidizing their entrance fee to the farmers’ market and by providing tents, tables and chairs so they can focus solely on selling.
Struggling with history
YeeFoon said her organization has taken extra care to support Black and brown farmers because they understand the history of racism they’ve faced, especially in areas like South Oak Cliff and south Dallas, where Petty lives. Parts of these areas are federally recognized food deserts, or areas with limited access to affordable, fresh food.
“The USDA has largely been discriminatory against Black farmers and growers in particular, excluding them from the ability to get financing, to get loans, and to get the support that many white farmers have,” YeeFoon said.
The USDA acknowledges a long history of discrimination against Black farmers. In July, the USDA announced the distribution of $2 billion to farmers and ranchers who faced discriminatory lending before 2021. The majority of the payouts went to black farmers and ranchers.
In recent years, Ross’ family was invited to participate in a provincial program that connected ranchers and meat processors. But when his family showed up, a well-known meatpacker in East Texas took one look at them and said, “This is not a black man’s game.”
“The man from the province couldn’t believe it. He almost fell over because he couldn’t believe that this kind of blatant, overt, systematic racism is happening and that there was nothing we could do about it,” Ross said.
These historic challenges have left many Black farmers with emotional trauma that is not being addressed, Ross said.
“There is very little hope in these communities. There is very little trust,” he said. “It’s a huge thing that most privileged people don’t really understand that piece of it.”
The nonprofit organization provides Black farmers with a space to openly talk about painful experiences. Those types of frank discussions have created a strong community. Petty said everyone in her cohort is always willing to lend a helping hand. In late October, cohort members visited Tyler to help one of their friends with the harvest season.
“If we find my tribe, we’ll just make sure everything’s okay. I discovered that in this organization and I am so grateful to be connected to that family and to everyone in the community,” she said.
Little dreams of buying 50 acres of farmland in Texas where she can live with her family and some goats. It’s a vision that seems a little more possible with the community or “tribe” she finds in the nonprofit.
That dream may not come true right away. But for now, Petty will be in her happy place, weeding and harvesting among the birds and bees.
