Challenging Racism in the Food System

Food Sovereignty Prize will be awarded on October 14 in Des Moines, Iowa. This year, one of the two winners is the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, a network of cooperatives, almost all of them comprised of Black family farmers, across the deep South. The Federation upholds a vision of local production for local consumption, and of defense of their family land needed for that local production.Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, has a similar mission and values.

1 Racism, violence, and massive migration from the rural South to the industrialized North caused a steady decline in the number of Black farmers.

2

th.  That’s cutting time. Planting is over. It was several things like that, that brought the suit about. A lot of black farmers went into the USDA offices and were denied. They wouldn’t even give them the application for a loan. The USDA officers told them, ‘You can’t make any money farming, so. . .’ In the lawsuit, [denial of your loan] had to happen to you between ’81 and ’96. It was happening before then and it is happening now, after the lawsuit. That’s just the price of doing business, I suppose.