More Black U.S. Farmers, But Fewer Own Land or Earn Top Income
- White farmers are 95 percent of the total, new census shows
- Ownership rates are declining faster for black producers
A farmer picks tomatoes in Sharon, Massachusetts.
Photographer: Adam Glanzman/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The number of black farmers in America has gone up, but to look at that number in isolation would be to mask the vast disparities that fall along racial lines.
There were 45,508 black farmers in 2017, up about 2 percent from five years earlier, the Department of Agriculture said Thursday in its first agricultural census since 2012. About 3.2 million farmers are white, or 95 percent. More striking, ownership is declining faster for black farmers, down about 3 percent since 2012, compared with 0.3 percent for white growers.