Black women have long been at the heart of agriculture, from ancestral sharecropping to modern-day urban farming movements. Princess Titus, co-founder of Appetite for Change, a local nonprofit that uses food as a tool to promote health, wealth, and social change, is a leader dedicated to reclaiming land, food and power for her community.
Black women in urban farming are employing innovative techniques to maximize food production in limited spaces. Community gardens, vertical farming, hydroponics, and permaculture practices are among the strategies for increasing access to fresh produce. These efforts not only provide nourishment but also restore agency over food sources, helping Black communities reclaim autonomy over their food systems and economic futures.
In the early 20th century, agriculture was the bread and butter of the southern Black population. The promise of "40 acres and a mule" was a vastly unfulfilled promise. Despite this, by 1910, Black Americans owned approximately 15 million acres of land, primarily in the South.
However, due to systemic discrimination and other factors, this number declined sharply over the 20th century, dropping to about 2 million acres by 1997. Today, Black-owned farms currently account for less than 1% of the nation's farmland, with the number of women-owned farms at approximately 30,000 per the USDA.
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