Increased federal funding for Black farmers—not less—will help US agriculture become more resilient as our climate changes.
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Increased federal funding for Black farmers—not less—will help US agriculture become more resilient as our climate changes.
January 29, 2025
A 19th-century Nicodemus family in front of their improved homestead. (Photo courtesy of Kansas University Spencer Research Library, Nicodemus Historical Society Collection)
In the U.S., we’ve seen a much-needed push toward “regenerative” and “sustainable” agriculture to protect the environment and keep farms productive, particularly in the face of climate change. In the last few years, there has also been renewed interest in addressing historic wrongs perpetrated against Black farmers and building a more equitable food system.
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These efforts come at a time when the number of small U.S. farms, which includes most Black-owned farms, continue to decline. Farms are consolidating as small producers struggle with rising costs, changing weather conditions, and other challenges. The obstacles are particularly acute for Black farmers, who own far fewer acres of farmland today than they did a century ago. The loss of these small farms hurts rural communities, paves the way for environmentally harmful monocropping, and prevents farmers from building economic power through agriculture.
As the second Trump administration begins, federal lawmakers continue to hash out which programs will be funded by the now long-delayed farm bill. As those conversations restart, it is crucial for lawmakers to support and consider the experiences and wisdom of Black farmers, who have already created a model for resilient farming and local food systems.
This real-world example is Nicodemus, Kansas, the oldest African American town west of the Mississippi River and the longest-lasting Black homesteader colony in America.
Nicodemus was settled by my great-great-grandparents—along with 300 other freed enslaved people—who left the oppressive Reconstruction-era South and migrated west in 1877 in search of opportunity. Together, they left the plantation of Richard M. Johnson, who was vice president under President Martin Van Buren.
They had been solicited by a white land surveyor named W.R. Hill, who encouraged them and other freed enslaved people in Kentucky to move to Kansas. They knew the federal government was promising 160 acres each to prospective settlers such as themselves, to improve land in the West. They’d also seen advertisements promoting the land as vast, vacant, and fertile. So they moved.
These original settlers of Nicodemus were homesteaders and did indeed each receive 160 acres. Within two years of its establishment, Nicodemus saw an influx of 700 Black settlers. However, its decline began in the 1880s, when the railroad opted to bypass Nicodemus by five miles to the south, favoring Hill City instead. This prompted many Nicodemus merchants to move out of town and closer to the railroad.
A Nicodemus farmer on a combine in the 1930s. (Photo courtesy of Kansas University Spencer Research Library, Nicodemus Historical Society Collection)
Despite these challenges, the early residents used their creativity and grit to build an all-Black farming community. When my great-great-grandparents first arrived, Kansas was wild land, and—being from tobacco country—they weren’t sure where to start. The generosity of the Potawatomi Tribe kept the recent arrivals alive. The Potawatomi shared their hunts, helped us build our first homes (dugouts), taught us how to plant crops, and gave us seeds to grow. We tended the land, joined by God on a mission to build something that could last for generations.
The early settlers had been promised soil so rich they’d be able to throw seed on the ground and crops would grow, but the soil, weather, and climate were much different and less forgiving than what they expected. My ancestors knew they couldn’t grow tobacco, so they learned how to cultivate crops like corn, wheat, and sorghum (milo), all without irrigation. They had to use horses to break the land. Wheat is still the main crop in the area, and sorghum is also still produced today.
In Nicodemus, then as now, we always let our land rest during summer fallow—meaning we don’t plant during one crop rotation—because it keeps our soil healthy. We plant cover crops like radishes because they nourish the land, and because we actually use them.
In recent years, the federal government has ramped up programs that pay farmers to adopt these age-old practices. “I was surprised to see how many regenerative practices I would be paid for by acres, which I was already implementing, such as no-till, cover crops, crop rotation, and reducing the use of harmful chemicals,” Francessca Petrie, Nicodemus farmer and the USDA-FSA land capital marketing access grant director, told me. Her husband is a sixth-generation descendant of Nicodemus’ original settlers.
Here’s another example: Farmers in Nicodemus don’t disturb their land with mechanized tilling because we know it erodes our soil. My family has been doing this to guard against the droughts that plague Northwestern Kansas, long before “climate-smart practices” became a term.
Over the years, though, many Nicodemus families lost their land due to a combination of challenges, including adverse weather conditions, low crop yields, and systemic discrimination by the USDA in loan approvals for our ancestors. Even with the sustainable agricultural practices we used, severe droughts made it difficult to grow crops, leading to widespread farm losses due to unpaid loans and mounting debts. All of this was too much to overcome without support like USDA loans.
Early residents used their creativity and grit to build an all-Black farming community.
As a result, white farmers now own over 85 percent of Nicodemus Township land, known as some of the best cropland in Northwestern Kansas because of how we treated it. These farmers have significantly benefited from the struggles our community faced, compounded by the fact that the railroad never extended to Nicodemus.
My own family has lost thousands of acres of our original homestead. In Graham County, we had over 35,000 acres in the 1920s. We lost most of that land in the 1950s, and today, we have less than 5,000 acres collectively.
The loss of our farm still reverberates today. That piece of land held the potential to nurture not only crops but also the dreams and aspirations of our family. When the farm was taken from us, it was not just soil and property that were stripped away; it was the promise of generational wealth, stability, and a future built on the legacy of hard work and perseverance. Instead, we were left to start over, a setback that countless Black families have experienced across this nation.
In 1999, farmers in Nicodemus and throughout the state founded the Kansas Black Farmers Association (KBFA) in response to the Pigford vs. Glickman lawsuit, a watershed case in which Black farmers successfully sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture for racial discrimination. The KBFA’s goal was to give Black farmers in the state an ongoing collective voice, support underserved producers, and preserve farmer legacies.
When I assumed leadership of KBFA in 2012 as CEO and president, I recognized that to preserve our remaining land, we needed to adopt additional smart-farming practices, increase income for our farmers, address heirs’ property legislation, and ensure that succession plans were developed and filed in court. Together, we’ve made significant progress.
KBFA’s membership data suggests that the tide has turned in Graham County, where land ownership among Black farmers began to increase in 2014 and accelerated after 2019, when the organization was reorganized and we put even more focus on education, research, climate-smart practices, and succession planning.
But our farmers, and other Black farmers, need more help. To prioritize equity and rectify the massive land loss of BIPOC farmers, an issue especially close to my heart because of my family’s own story, lawmakers could expand initiatives like the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program, which provided KBFA with an $8.4 million grant.
That funding will help new farmers, female farmers, and socially disadvantaged farmers purchase land. But more importantly, the funds from the grant will also allow us to help farmers keep their land in perpetuity.
Investment in programs like the Local Agriculture Market Program and the USDA’s 2501 Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Grant have also been critical for my community and Black farmers in Kansas. Education and research are crucial tools for developing, reclaiming, and thriving on our lands.
The 2501 grant plays a vital role in connecting us with USDA offices and programs—and by requiring those offices to provide technical assistance, inform us about available programs, grants, and loans, and ensure that support is accessible.
This support could have provided a lifeline for previous generations of my own family and other Black farming families in America. In the mid-20th century, Black farmers were being systematically pushed off their land at alarming rates. Between 1910 and 1997, Black landownership plummeted by 90 percent, a consequence of institutionalized racism and lack of access to the same protections and support afforded to white farmers.
These losses have had a compounding effect, widening the racial wealth gap and depriving Black families of the opportunity to build economic power through agriculture.
In Nicodemus, then as now, we always let our land rest during summer fallow—meaning we don’t plant during one crop rotation—because it keeps our soil healthy.
The 2501 grant has significantly enhanced KBFA’s ability to serve farmers, ensuring they have the resources and knowledge to succeed. For instance, KBFA partners with the Graham County Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to deliver technical assistance through an annual initiative called “Breakfast with NRCS,” funded with a 2501 grant.
Also, NRCS representatives are scheduled to speak at each of our quarterly meetings. By integrating them into our membership, we ensure they receive real-time updates and can respond effectively to the needs of our farmers.
Lawmakers should also boost programs like Climate Hubs, which are regional research centers that provide irreplaceable insight into sustainable practices. Our closest hub, based in Colorado, assists us in areas like soil testing and pesticide-free farming.
Black farmers today are facing significant anxiety and stress, uncertain about what the new administration will mean for us, the partnerships we’ve built with the USDA, and the grants that have supported our progress. Since 2020, the strides we’ve made have been nothing short of phenomenal, and we are determined not to lose ground (literally and figuratively).
We, the farmers in Nicodemus, uphold the practices passed down by our forefathers, techniques that have been integral to how we farm and have guided KBFA’s efforts to innovate while keeping sustainable agricultural practices alive in the region and state. For us, that isn’t because of a new focus on sustainability—it’s simply the way things have always been done, starting with what our Indigenous brothers and sisters taught us.
Right now, American agriculture is fighting to survive problems of our own making, and it needs solutions. To help, Congress just has to support and heed the wisdom of Black farmers like those here in Nicodemus.
Nicodemus is special to me for a million reasons. It’s where my family is from, where I’ve built my life, and where I’ve dedicated myself to serving the Black farmers of tomorrow. But it’s also special simply because it survived.
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