In 2012, Gail Myers received a somber phone call: An elderly Black farmer she had known for 20 years had passed away. As a longtime advocate for Black farmers who kept in touch with dozens of farming families, it wasn’t uncommon for Myers to receive these calls. Many of the farmers in their 80s and 90s were dying, and their valuable inherited knowledge was also being lost.
At that moment, something clicked in Myers. An esteemed sustainable farming organizer and a cultural anthropologist of agricultural history, she spent time interviewing Black farmers while writing her doctoral anthropology dissertation at Ohio State University Then in 2004, she co-founded a nonprofit for underserved sustainable farmers called Farms to Grow. In the intervening years, she had continued teaching, writing, speaking, and organizing events aimed at connecting Black farmers and educating the public about their work.
Gail Myers, filmmaker, sustainable farming organizer, and cultural anthropologist of agricultural history.
The 2012 call mobilized her to act, and she decided to spend nearly two months that summer traveling across 10 Southern states, documenting Black farmers’ stories and generational knowledge for the documentary Rhythms of the Land. She applied for grants and fellowships to make the film, which she shot herself. The documentary, which acts as a powerful document of a pivotal time in U.S. history, was released in 2022 and has been screened so far at the New York Botanical Garden, Cornell University, and The New School.
We spoke with Myers recently about the making of the film, the oppressive history of sharecropping, and the power of seed saving for Black farmers.
Your film comes at a time when the struggles of Black farmers are finally attracting more mainstream media attention and advocacy. What has led to that groundswell?
The work started long ago, and this is the natural progression, but we’ve been pushing the rock uphill to tell this story. Initially, Rhythms of the Land was supposed to come out in 2013, but I think it was too early and there wasn’t the appetite then; 2022 was the perfect time for it to come out. George Floyd’s murder had a lot to do with people wanting to open their eyes to the Black community and Black farmers, who after Pigford [v. Glickman] are still trying to tell their stories.
In 1997, there were a handful of organizations doing this [advocacy] work. That number has quadrupled, so the ecosystem of support for Black farmers has expanded. Black and brown communities are really coming together to tell the story of BIPOC farmers.
Do you want to name a few of those groups?
There have been some key organizations, like Soul Fire Farm; I can’t say enough about their work, like their summer farming program. Another is Black Urban Growers (BUGs), whose conference I first attended in 2012 or 2013. BUGs has brought together Black growers from all over the world, including more young people.
“Black farmers continue to face land takeovers from developers and local and city governments. There is also local level interpersonal violence Black farmers have to deal with.”
In the film, you feature Arkansas farmer Alvin Steppes, who was denied an operating loan by the Farmers Home Administration in 1986 and lost his farm. He kept records of his own lawsuit, which supported Black farmers in advancing Pigford v. Glickman.
Yes, but sadly, Alvin never received a dime from Pigford 1 or Pigford 2. Those who received a $50,000 payment might have put a down payment on a tractor, but Pigford did not benefit Black farmers on the whole as it should have. Black farmers are still losing land without relief.
The recent commitment from Biden was for $5 billion loan forgiveness [later walked back after lawsuits from white farmers claiming discrimination], but not a lot of Black farmers got loans that can get forgiven. What we would have loved and have been pushing for is a foreclosure moratorium.
What other challenges are Black farmers facing now?
Black farmers are isolated and often don’t have anyone to advocate for them. Our farmers aren’t even at the starting line, and don’t know how to ask for support from agricultural agencies. Or they’ve applied for loan services and been denied.
Black farmers continue to face land takeovers from developers and local and city governments. There is also local level interpersonal violence Black farmers have to deal with. There have also been attempts from white neighbors of Black farmers who want to take Black farm land and their animals. Farmers have mentioned livestock being stolen and poisoned.
The film explains how the numbers related to Black farm ownership are deceptive.
Yes. In 1920, over 920,000 farms were owned by Black farmers. But only 219,000 of these farms were operated by Black families who were independent owners, and 703,000 were farmed by tenants or sharecroppers. Cotton was king, and tobacco was the queen. It was $1.89 per bale for white man’s tobacco and $1.40 for a Black man’s tobacco.
Land sovereignty is vitally important to Black farmers. You explore that historic oppression of sharecropping in the film, and how it’s connected to the current fight for land ownership.
