think of the deep south, and you’ll imagine fluffy white cotton fields, vast plains of peanuts, and shimmering catfish ponds as far as the eye can see. although hoop skirts and flour sack shirts are long extinct, along with the majority of sharecroppers, squatters, and migrant pickers, farming is still a big business below the mason-dixon line. even as suburban sprawl encroaches pastureland and strip malls stand on former feedlots, small farms persevere.
here in memphis, if you drive east, past wolfchase galleria, you’ll see brown daubs of land destined for corn seed, soybeans, or hay. head north, towards millington, to count heads of cattle that graze on acreage sandwiched between developments, or travel south of the state line, where cotton remains king.
year by year, however, the number of family farms are shrinking. reality checks like bad weather and high-interest loans, coupled with the daily rigors and stress of rural life, are taking toll at a record pace. younger generations are bypassing plowing for college and white-collar careers. dispirited, frustrated farmers are selling out to giant corporations, hanging up their overalls, and walking away from the land.
photojournalist john ficara spent four years capturing the plight of modern-day farmers for his book, black farmers in america, which was published by the university press of kentucky.
“family farming is really a way of life – it’s not a typical nine-to-five job, and now we’re losing the tradition,” ficara says flatly. “it’s too cost prohibitive. ultimately, all family farms are going to be really gone – they’ll be taken over by corporations.”
“if a farm is doing okay, children are more likely to take over,” he notes. “when farmers are struggling, and barely holding it together, the next generation looks at their fathers and grandfathers and say, ‘I can drive a truck or work a day job,’ rather than go through the hardships and headaches of running a farm.”
while this plight affects all family farmers, says ficara, african american farms are going out of business at a much faster rate – four times as quickly as their white counterparts. “at their peak in the 1920s, there were 2.2 million black farmers under the age of 25 in the US,” he reports. “there are less than 18,000 now.”
The legacy of african american farmers goes back further than william tecumseh sherman’s promise of forty acres and a mule, ficara says, explaining that, “as slaves were freed during emancipation, one of the only things they knew how to do really well was farm. Their quest to get land was essential – it was their way to have a stake in this country’s future.”
yet from the beginning, he states, discrimination and racism have stunted the success rate of black farms. in his book, ficara documents both the daily labor of black farmers, and their strife at the hands of the USDA, currently a defendant in myriad legal affidavits and class action lawsuits.
some of the images in black farmers In america – shot with a medium-format camera that yields lush, black-and-white portraits – are timeless. marion county, florida farmers john and evelena burton stand, hands clasped, in front of a loamy spread, their lined faces perfectly illustrating their lifelong toil. charles and anne williams are caught stooped-over, fistfuls of green beans filling their buckets, a pose familiar to anyone who’s ever handpicked a harvest. jerry singleton kicks dust into the camera lens, following tat, a plowing mule, with his head bent down, counting the furrows. other pictures are irrefutably modern – like the portrait of north carolina farmer harold wright, who welds a piece of broken machinery while clad in a pair of pleated khakis, or the image of alabaman jessie carver, who wears a striped polo shirt and a pair of running shoes with his faded overalls.
“all of the farmers were very open,” says ficara, who took an estimated 7,000 photographs during the project.
“one family in southwest georgia was in transition – the father had a heart attack, the farm was going downhill, and he was trying to get his son to take over. the son, a high school graduate, wanted to get a loan to upgrade the machinery and start replanting.”
“I accompanied them through the whole process,” he recalls, “and I saw first-hand the dilemma of being denied monies, even if it was a prosperous farm at one point. on any small farm, a lot of extended family members are involved, making jellies and jams, boiling peanuts, running a roadside stand, or selling produce at a farmer’s market. most people talk about tangible things, like profits and land loss, but they don’t touch on the human terms. traveling around and talking to farmers, I realized that something greater is being lost.”
“while intentions might be good at a federal level, at the county level, blacks are still at the back of the bus,” he says.
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