Apparently black farmers To receive the approximate end of each stick in the last century.
In 1910, they represented about 14 percent of American farmers and owned more than 16 million acres of land. today, One in 100 farmers is black, owns less than 5 million acres and is losing $326 billion in land value. Farmers are prosecution USDA l Alleged discrimination.
Venture capital investments in agtech have boomed over the past few years, and many farmers also receive some type of backed funding, whether from the government or non-profit organizations. However, these opportunities do not seem to reach Black founders. Crunchbase found that since 2018, $98.6 million out of $39.4 billion has gone to just five Black-owned agtech companies. This, coupled with alleged discrimination on the part of the government, means that black farmers have been marginalized from accessing the appropriate financial resources they need to survive in this particular market.
For these reasons, in 2017, Karen Washington and Olivia Watkins created the Black Farmer Fund. The Fund provides economic and social opportunity for Black farmers, agricultural and food businesses in the Northeast with the goal of helping build community wealth for Black agricultural businesses throughout the region. There are about 703 Black-owned farms across the Northeast out of a total of 196,000 farms, Watkins said, adding that in New York alone, an average Black farmer makes $906, while white farmers make about $42,000. “There is a huge racial wealth gap in agriculture and across industries,” Watkins said.
The fund is technically a non-profit with an attached debt fund. It raised an oversubscribed $1.1 million beta fund in 2021 from investors and institutions, which it subsequently invested in eight companies. It is raising its second fund with a goal of $20 million and has reached about half of that amount so far, Watkins said. As a debt fund, it offers low-interest community bonds and grants, and writes checks ranging from $1,000 to $3 million.