Kashea McCowan Nicole Cardoza Kashea McCowan Nicole Cardoza

Support the Indian farmers’ protest.

In November 2020, tens of thousands of farmers and their families took to the streets and blocked highways across India to invoke a national strike. The news about the passing of three new agricultural laws hit the fan, and just as fast as rumors travel, farmers of more than 250 million people from the northern states crowded the capital city. They joined together in a protest to fight against the Indian government and their ideas for the future of farming in India.

Happy Sunday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! We touched on the importance of labor unions in last week's newsletter on BAmazon. I thought today's article on the legacy of César Chávez, written by Charlie, adds timely context for that conversation. I hope you enjoy learning more!

Thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider subscribing for $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

Ps – be sure to sign up for 28 Days of Black History.

TAKE ACTION

  • Learn more about the recent laws enacted last September.

  • Follow reporting from journalists and leaders like Sandeep Singh, Asis Kaur, and Sikhexpo for updates.

  • Raise awareness on social media and in real life using resources in this newsletter – and by following hashtags such as #StandWithFarmers and #FarmersProtest.

GET EDUCATED

By Kashea McCowan (she/her)

In November 2020, tens of thousands of farmers and their families took to the streets and blocked highways across India to invoke a national strike. The news about the passing of three new agricultural laws hit the fan, and just as fast as rumors travel, farmers of more than 250 million people from the northern states crowded the capital city. They joined together in a protest to fight against the Indian government and their ideas for the future of farming in India. 


Unlike most farming communities in the United States who thrive off of large agribusiness corporations and massive farms, India is the complete opposite and works on a much smaller scale. The vast majority of India’s farmers own fewer than three acres of land. Though there are many small farms in India, many of them are struggling to make ends meet. However, that fact doesn’t take away from the huge impact those farmers have on the livelihoods of those around them. 
 

The agricultural sector in India makes up nearly fifteen percent of the country’s $2.9 trillion economy and employs around half of its 1.3 billion people—approximately more than 600 million workers—which is almost twice the entire population of the United States (CNN). This is possible because, for decades, they have sold their produce in their home state’s government-sanctioned markets that guarantee minimum prices on several key commodities. This all changed in September 2020 when Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, passed the new farming laws that will change the way the agricultural industry does business. These modifications will change the way crops are to be produced, stored, and sold. The laws include The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act (India Today).
 

Some farmers such as Sukhdev Singh feel like these measures only will benefit large corporations thus opening the door for private players to play a much bigger role. The result will lead to the loss of decades-old concessions, and most of the farmers will be left to fend for themselves, furthermore, pushing them into poverty at the mercy of the free market (BBC News). 
 

“These laws will have an affect on anyone who eats,” Singh says. “They will buy from us for very low prices and we will lose our livelihoods” (Al Jazeera).
 

With boiling fear, farmers swarmed into the heart of the capital of New Delhi. Standing their ground, millions of agricultural workers prepared for a month on end protest against the government and their antics. Beginning as a non-violent protest, India’s farmers joined together making their opposition known by blocking the roads that lead up to the capital. Just a couple of weeks ago, the heat escalated and turned violent when protestors confronted police officers and began charging a procession of tractors onto the streets. They were met with tear gas, massive concrete barriers, and the government cut off all access to the internet, electricity, and water supplies (CBSN). More than 120 people were arrested, and farm union leaders were charged with sedition and rioting.


Today, it is evident that the farmers are determined to dismantle these newly imposed agricultural laws. For however long it takes, millions of farmers and their families have decided to leave the comforts of their homes and live on the streets (PBS News Hour). They have even erected thousands of iron nails on some of the roads to keep the police from invading. These farmers are dedicated to making prime minister Modi and his government uncomfortable to the point that he has a change of heart. Modi states in an interview that he will not change his mind about the new laws but will delay them for the next eighteen months.
 

To further push the protest along, protestors have found ways to make their stay at the capital a part of their daily lives. Medical booths are being set up to tend to the sick, and tons of water-filled tanks brought in on tractors are provided to supply people with water for bathing, cooking, and cleaning. The old and young are cooking in community kitchens and serving meals, and even a makeshift mall, a roadside market, with people selling items like coats and jackets is available (CNN). 


The Indian government is determined to force farmers back to their lands with closed mouths, but this revolt—as it were—shows how prime minister Modi and his crew are worried about just how far these protests will go. But these farmers aren’t giving up their demands; some are prepared to wait it out for years, if need be. 


Being in the United States, you may feel that there is little you can do, but standing with those adamant supporters and howling as loudly as you can, along with those farmers, will help get the attention of those higher-ups. Stand against those big businesses and corporations looking to profit from the small man they see as dispensable. And, like the farmers, stand firm and be unmovable until those unfair agricultural laws are repealed.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Farmers are protesting against the newly imposed agricultural laws that are set up to benefit corporations and private players.

  • The agricultural sector in India makes up nearly fifteen percent of the country’s $2.9 trillion economy and employs around half of its 1.3 billion people, approximately 600 million workers.

  • The laws affect the way crops are produced, stored, and sold.

  • To further push the protest along, protestors have found ways to make their stay at the capital a part of their daily lives while putting a foot down on their demands.

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

Read More
Andrea Plaid Nicole Cardoza Andrea Plaid Nicole Cardoza

Support Black farmers.

155 years. 64 trillion dollars.

That’s how long the families of 4 million enslaved Black people have been waiting for their 40 acres and a mule since stewarding land in the antebellum U.S. That’s how much money this property is worth. A promise often cited but never fulfilled.

As society reckons with compensating this missing generational wealth, today’s Black farmers still struggle to get and maintain their acreages. Black farmers “were a major agricultural force in the 19th and 20th centuries” (Modern Farmer). Ironically, this height of Black husbandry occurred in what Black historian Rayford Logan coined “The Nadir,” the period between 1890 and 1918 – some African American scholars extend the era to 1930 – when progress toward racial equity reached its lowest point.

Happy Sunday. Today we're joined by Andrea to look at the history of Black farmers in the U.S. I really enjoyed diving into the history of our migration across the country, and understanding the nuances of land ownership. I used to live on a farm, and miss that relationship to the earth. I hope you enjoy!

Are you following us on Instagram? We'll be hosting a conversation with Deepa Iyer on finding your role in movement work on Tuesday, January 19 at 1p EST. We're gathering questions in advance over on the ARD community. 

And thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider making a monthly or annual subscription on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). 

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

GET EDUCATED

By Andrea Plaid (she/her)

155 years. 64 trillion dollars.

That’s how long the families of 4 million enslaved Black people have been waiting for their 40 acres and a mule since stewarding land in the antebellum U.S. That’s how much money this property is worth. A promise often cited but never fulfilled. 

 

As society reckons with compensating this missing generational wealth, today’s Black farmers still struggle to get and maintain their acreages. Black farmers “were a major agricultural force in the 19th and 20th centuries” (Modern Farmer). Ironically, this height of Black husbandry occurred in what Black historian Rayford Logan coined “The Nadir,”  the period between 1890 and 1918 – some African American scholars extend the era to 1930 – when progress toward racial equity reached its lowest point. 

 

The U.S. government signed the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which solidified the citizenship of newly emancipated Black people. These two laws gave Black people legal rights to claim 160 acres for a nominal fee, a deed, and if they stayed on the land for five years (Aeon). Most of them staked their claims on Southern lands under a corollary to the Homestead Act called the Southern Homestead Act (SHA) of 1866. This “land hunger,” as W.E.B. DuBois called it, drove approximately 200,000 Black people to own 20 million acres of land in the South and the West by the 1910s, in the midst of the Nadir (Mother Jones). 14% of that land was in Mississippi (The Atlantic). 

Some of the manumitted Black folks did not stay in the South. Instead, they sought their literal and figurative 40 acres in what’s referred to as “the American West,” but is actually where the government stole Indigenous people’s lands in its expansionist efforts. Famously known as the Exodusters, approximately 3,500 Black people – out of the millions who were freed and several thousand who moved west – were able to claim 650,000 acres of this land. Including their families, about 15,000 Black people lived in these homesteads (National Park Service). By the 1920s, the number of Black farmers peaked at 949,889, with their owning 15 million acres across the U.S (The Guardian). 

 

In response, white supremacy redoubled its efforts to divest these farmers of their acreage and their livelihoods. 

 
In practice, the Homestead Act and the SHA were insufficient to support freed African Americans through the bureaucratic process. It also often provided unfarmable land and never included the money to pay the filing fee (PBS). A few of the newly freed Black people, particularly Black men, ended up sharecropping or in chain gangs. According to The Atlantic, “even the most enterprising black landowners found themselves fighting a war of attrition, often fraught with legal obstacles that made passing title to future generations difficult.”

 

Ultimately, out of the 28,000 that filed for land patents, only about 5,500 Black people actually received them (Aeon). In contrast, the Homestead Act and the SHA ultimately gave away 270 million acres to 1.6 million U.S.-born and immigrant white people. As of 2000, 46 million of these people – about a quarter of the U.S. population – are descendants of these landowners  (Aeon).

White nationalist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan – some of whom were on city councils and law enforcement – forced many Black farmers off their land because, in some cases, the farmers’ growing wealth from their work offended the white townspeople’s sense of racial superiority. In other cases, the white people wanted the land itself. (Los Angeles Times)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) aided and abetted in further depriving Black farmers of land and livelihood. The all-white department, which fortified its efforts to bolster American agriculture under the New Deal’s Farm Bill of 1933, routinely excluded the farmers by denying them loans or colluding with banks and land developers to steal the land (Modern Farmer). They also forced farmers off their rightful property and treated the farmers with openly disdainful hostility when they sought their services (The Counter). Between 1930 and 1950, Black husbandry “declined by 37%...and black tenants and [sharecroppers] declined by 32%” as this new iteration of the USDA and its policies favored corporate farming. This drove Black farmers out of business and off their lands, which accelerated the Great Migration, where Black communities moved into urban communities (Rosenberg and Wilson Stucki).

However, Black farmers resisted. The National Black Farmers Association and other African American agricultural landowners organized and sued the USDA in 1999 for racial discrimination, stating that “the department denied them access to federal farm-operating loans, disaster payments, information on farm programs, technical assistance, and other support that the agency is mandated by law to provide low-income farmers” (Yes Magazine). The USDA settled that case, known as Pigford v. Glickman, that year for $1 billion, with Congress appropriating more money to compensate for the farmers who filed late. This action, called Pigford II, brought the total to $1.25 billion in 2010 (Yes Magazine). However, The Counter investigated that this victory was, at best, a hollow one.
 

Even with these actions, only 45,508 Black farmers remain as of 2019. They own only 0.52 percent of U.S. agricultural acres and earn, on average, $40,000 per year, compared to their white counterparts’ average yearly income of over $190,000 (The Guardian). The old towns and homesteads settled by the Exodusters are fading away (Washington Post). Today’s reality is, according to NPR, “farmland is expensive, and farm real estate prices have been on the rise since 1969.” This means “young Black farmers with student debt or low credit scores face more challenges accessing the credit needed to put a down payment on viable land for farming” (NPR). The coronavirus pandemic is further devastating this population; many Black farmers, who tend to have smaller operations, have been left out of the billions of dollars in relief funds (100 Days in Appalachia).

 

Still, some African Americans, including younger people, find their way back to agricultural stewardship and find a way to give back to their communities. In the 1990s, Chicago media mentioned The Black Farmers Markets, which explicitly connected this segment of land cultivators with Black customers in the face of white hostility in the “traditional” farmers markets. (The Counter) This organization works in coalition with a vibrant network of other food-justice, racial-justice, and farm-justice groups such as the National Black Food & Justice Alliance, Soil Generation, and Community Food Lab and agricultural communities such as Soul Fire Farms and Black Dirt Farm Collective. 

 

The U.S. government – through the USDA – wants another chance to rectify its devastation. Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand co-sponsored the Justice for Black Farmers Act released on November 30 (Mother Jones). The new bill will allot $8 billion to buy land to give to Black farmers. It will also give money to “agriculturally based” historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other nonprofits to help them assist the USDA in finding land to purchase for the farmers, and provide the resources to support new Black farmers and Black agricultural collectives. 

Black lives matter – including the lives and livelihoods of the Black farmers who literally feed us. We need to return the favor.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Black farmers in the United States have a long, proud, and devastating history of landownership and in starting and maintaining a sustainable livelihood. 

  • Black farmers played a significant role in U.S. agriculture in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially during The Nadir, the lowest point in U.S. race relations.

  • Black farmers resisted land-grabs and racial discrimination on the federal and local levels.

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

Read More