SR0266 103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR0266 LRB103 32277 MST 61540 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, In 1920, Illinois had 892 Black farmers, and African Americans owned 14 percent of the nation's farmland; and

WHEREAS, As of the 2017 USDA Agricultural Census, there are 188 individually Black-owned farms which make up a combined 40,412 acres; out of the 116,417 agricultural producers in Illinois, 267 are Black and 115,896 are Caucasian; and

WHEREAS, According to the USDA's National Statistics Service, as of April 2019, Illinois had 72,000 farms; Illinois' farmland covers 27 million acres, which is approximately 75% of the state's total land area; and

WHEREAS, As farming has become a big business, it has become one of the least diverse businesses in our state; the pressure to consolidate that has reduced the ranks of farmers for the past century is making any turnaround unlikely; and

WHEREAS, The number of Black farmers in Illinois appears destined to eventually be reduced to zero; the numbers are dwindling across much of the Midwest; and

WHEREAS, The scarcity of African American farmers stems from our troubled history as well; racial discrimination played a big role in driving Blacks off their land in southern states; for sharecroppers, farming was associated with the poverty and backbreaking labor of slavery; for those who owned land, unequal treatment made it difficult to retain the property and earn a living; as recently as the mid-1990s, white farmers who agreed to sell crops would routinely get better prices at market; and

WHEREAS, In a landmark legal settlement, the U.S. Agriculture Department acknowledged that it had abused Black farmers for generations when agents approved only a fraction of financing requests, delayed loans until after the planting season, and withheld other key payments; and

WHEREAS, Only in a few southern states have the ranks of Black farmers shown a notable increase; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge the Illinois Department of Agriculture to study the effects and the types of land loss to Black farmers from post slavery until now; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we call for state support and capacity building for Black farming communities across Illinois and a dedication to helping grow agriculture in rural, urban, and suburban areas to meet food access demands and increase economic resilience in vulnerable food desert communities; and be it further

RESOLVED, That Black farmers can play a leading role in our local healthy food system and create regional networks of jobs, food, and opportunities; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be delivered to the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the National Black Farmers Association.