The black farmers seem having received the brunt of every stick during the last century.
In 1910, they represented about 14% of American farmers and owned more than 16 million acres of land. Today, One in every 100 farmers is black., owning less than 5 million acres and losing $326 billion in land value. The farmers are suing the USDA to alleged discrimination.
Venture capital investment in the agtech space has boomed in recent years, and many farmers also receive some form of subsidized funding, either from the government or nonprofit organizations. However, these opportunities do not appear to be reaching Black founders. Crunchbase found that since 2018, $98.6 million of $39.4 billion has gone to just five Black-owned agtech companies. This, along with alleged government discrimination, means that Black farmers have been marginalized from accessing the adequate financial resources they need to survive in this particular market.
It was for these reasons that in 2017, Karen Washington and Olivia Watkins created the Black Farmer Fund. The fund provides economic and social opportunities to Black farmers and agribusinesses in the Northeast with the goal of helping build community wealth for Black agribusinesses across the region. There are about 703 Black-owned farms across the Northeast out of a total of 196,000, Watkins said, adding that in New York alone, the average Black farmer earns $906, while white farmers earn about $42,000. “There is a huge racial wealth gap in agriculture and in all industries,” Watkins said.
Technically, the fund is a non-profit organization with a debt fund attached. It raised an oversubscribed $1.1 million pilot fund in 2021 from investors and institutions, which it then invested in eight companies. It is raising its second fund with a goal of $20 million and has so far reached about half that amount, Watkins said. As a debt fund, it offers low-interest community grants and notes and writes checks ranging from $1,000 to $3 million.
