Ricky Dollison grew up farming in Poulan, Georgia, on 197 acres of fields, pastures and woods. His father grew peanuts, cotton, vegetables and tobacco. He raised hogs and cattle, too. Before that, his grandfather, known as "Big Daddy," farmed the land.
Farming wasn't easy and for a time, Dollison pictured a different life for himself. He received biomedical training and calibrated and repaired medical equipment at a hospital before moving to Connecticut to do electrical work.
"To tell the truth, I think I did everything to run away from it," Dollison says of the family farm. But one day he was out in a Connecticut snowstorm. "I fell in a big ditch full of snow. I had to pull myself out and when I did, I decided I wanted to come home."
Home meant more than just warmer Georgia; it meant farming. His mother wanted to make sure that the land stayed in the family, he says. So Dollison took over the farm, which his mother had rented out since his father died in 1993.
Keeping land in the family has long been a struggle for black farmers, says Carrie Davis, president and CEO of Wealth Watchers Inc., a NeighborWorks America network organization. After the abolishment of slavery, African-Americans acquired millions of acres of land, but many of them found it difficult to maintain ownership, often due to discriminatory practices, and as a result, a majority of those acres were lost, Davis says. The loss of land prevented most black farmers from creating generational wealth, she adds.
Other barriers have included land issues that stem from lack of estate planning. If an estate isn't handled in probate, the property is owned jointly by a landowner's descendants. Known as "heir properties," the descendants have the right to use the property, but they don't have a clear or marketable title to it, Davis says. Owner validation is important for USDA's farm loans and program enrollment. Until a recent change in the farm bill, it was almost impossible to obtain certain types of assistance with 'heir properties,'" Davis says.
A class action lawsuit filed by black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Pigford v. Glickman, alleged that the USDA was responsible for racial discrimination in allocating farm loans and assistance between 1981 and 1996. The lawsuit was settled in 1999, one of the largest Civil Rights settlements to date.
Mistrust between black farmers and the USDA continued. The number of black farmers declined, dropping to just over 34,000, according to the last agriculture census, from a peak of almost 950,000 in 1920. Black farmers make up less than 2 percent of U.S. farmers.
Davis says the USDA has demonstrated a commitment to improving the viability and profitability of small farms and ranches, especially those owned by African-Americans. With its history, though, it was difficult to build trust. That's where other partners and stakeholders step in.
Wealth Watchers has established a strong partnership with USDA through its Comprehensive Rural Opportunities Program (CROP), a rural initiative designed to empower and mobilize rural communities while enhancing the coordination of outreach, technical assistance and education efforts to farmers, landowners and ranchers. "We had a special emphasis on focusing our outreach and educational efforts on African Americans and other minorities," Davis says. Wealth Watchers helped build a bridge between the USDA and minority farmers, she says.
Dollison says Wealth Watchers, which covers Florida and parts of Georgia, has been a great resource. They've pointed him to programs and connected him with other black farmers. He's connected black farmers to Wealth Watchers and the CROP initiative, too. He trusts them, he says.
"A lot of the policies that I don't have time to sit and read and learn — Carrie [Davis] finds things available for us," he says from his truck in the middle of a field where he's doing a soil test in preparation for spring planting. Davis has told farmers about loans and conservation stewardship programs. Relationships like that help add to a farm's longevity, Dollison says. And they help with planning for years to come.
Farming has always been a difficult profession, regardless of race. Long hours, hard labor and dependency on the right kind of weather — that's every day. But racism has made it more difficult for black farmers.
Dollison remembers that when his father or grandfather wanted to buy chemicals for the crops, they had to ask a white neighbor to do it. "And when we sold or purchased cows, we'd get a neighbor down the road to do that for us, too," he says. It was the only way to get a fair price.
But he would much rather spend his time publicly talking about his farm and his sausage than about obstacles. He built his business and his brand — Warrior Creek Premium Meats, featuring "whole hog link and pan sausage." He got a contract with one local Piggly Wiggly supermarket and then another. He began working with his daughter Leiandra Dollison McLemore who, like himself, had moved away. But four years ago, she came home and Dollison taught her what he knew. He also taught his son-in-law, sales director for Warrior Creek, and his grandchildren. "You have to start early," he says.
CROP
It's been seven years since CROP began helping farmers in Florida and Southern Georgia. Davis says that during the foreclosure crisis, when her staff talked to rural homeowners, they found that many of the residents owned additional acres of land. In many rural communities, there is typically one major employer, she says, and if that employer closes, the economic impact is felt through every part of the community. Davis says she often wondered why residents weren't farming on their additional acreage to feed their families and help make ends meet. Some didn't have farming experience, she found. Those who did have experience didn't have access to the capital they needed to start or scale up farming operations."So I would often ask, 'Why aren't you working with USDA?'" They told her.
Community building and engagement is part of the foundation that Wealth Watchers is built on, Davis says. And while their efforts had focused on urban communities, the transition to expand to rural communities wasn't difficult. Now, through the CROP initiative, Wealth Watchers works with everyone from backyard farmers to farmers like Dollison with 200 acres. Davis estimates that they've worked with 1,000 farmers and rural residents since CROP's inception.
Some of the farmers they work with sell at farmer's markets. Davis has two farmers who work directly with schools, through USDA's Farm-to-Schools program. In both instances, she says, access to capital was needed to meet market demands and to expand.
"Our ultimate goal is to ensure that the farmers, ranchers and landowners we work with are able to operate their enterprise in a sustainable and profitable way," she says.
Another CROP project is Woodland Gardens Villa, a 20-unit farm-labor housing project in Albany, Georgia. Now in the design phase, the project was made possible through support from USDA and a loan from Community Housing Capital. Davis says that having lending organizations who only provide capital to NeighborWorks organizations made the process less cumbersome. "They understand our commitment to a double bottom line better than traditional lending organizations do," she says.
Woodland Gardens Villa will have over a $2 million impact in the city once its completed, Davis says. Rental units will be available to anyone who has worked in the agriculture sector.
NeighborWorks, Davis says, has enabled her organization to expand its reach and work on a larger scale in both urban and rural communities.
It can be hard to measure the impact, she says. But the "support we receive from NeighborWorks is leveraged by attracting additional support, which makes a substantial impact not only in the communities we serve, but in the lives of the individuals and the families we serve."
Read "Growing trust," part 2 of our two-part story of how Wealth Watchers served as a bridge for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to rebuild trust among black farmers in rural communities.
