By Diana Martinez and Lorenzo Jones of Chicks Ahoy Farm, Inc.
At the recent signing of the “CT Farm Bill”, Gov. Lamont claimed to “love” farmers. However, when talking about CT farming, he doesn’t name the gross disparities resulting in 98% of all CT farmers being white. Amongst those farmers, the most prominent landowners “rule the roost,” while many others struggle or are forced to quit or sell their land to developers. Bills like SB 1497–absent an analysis of and support for small farms, urban farms, migrant and immigrant labor, and farmers of color–rather than promoting food security, result in additional support and tax breaks for white landowners. That might work for a handful of farm owners in towns like Woodstock, but what about the rest of us? Where is our love?
This “CT Farm Bill”, at best, commits money and capacity to the same system yielding systemic disparities in access to start-up capital for agribusinesses. Coaching, mentorship, and technical assistance do not adequately meet the needs of urban communities, especially when staff at the Department of Agriculture and related agencies are not equipped with the tools, training, information, or resources necessary to support Black and Brown families entering Connecticut’s agricultural industry.
You don’t become a farmer because you grow food, have chickens, or produce something people eat. Farming is a designation received after meeting certain requirements set by the State of Connecticut and/or the USDA. Individuals without a Farmer Tax Exemption Permit (Farm Number) are not considered farmers and are therefore ineligible for many USDA offerings, including their quinquennial Agricultural Census.
This Census influences the decisions made by national and state lawmakers responsible for crafting the Federal Farm Bill. You can grow food without a ‘Farm Number’, but you have no vote, voice, or input in the Census that shapes legislation that determines spending on our food, air, and water. It’s as Jim Crow as Jim Crow was. The CT Mirror article “At ‘farm bill’ signing, CT leaders pledge to protect agriculture industry” references a 2022 report on CT’s Agricultural Industry. This report makes no mention of BILPOC (Black, Indigenous, Latiné, People of Color) farmers, nor of migrant and immigrant laborers growing and processing our food, and makes only slight mention of urban agriculture. We are invisible, and the “white” next to “farmer” remains silent. Gov. Ned Lamont loves (white) farmers while people in our communities go hungry every day.
Gov. Lamont professes this affection for farmers after rejecting housing reform and unemployment payments for striking workers; just days after massive Federal cuts to SNAP and Medicaid; and while individuals at Cheshire CI continue a hunger strike protesting their living conditions. This may seem like a broad stroke, but food security is critical for us all. People clinging to the State’s broken social safety net often end up in the criminal justice system when it fails them. Supporting overwhelmingly white male land owners while vetoing legislation for housing and worker protections, and allowing inhumane conditions at Cheshire is a myopic and strange kind of love, albeit familiar to us.
It doesn’t have to be like this. We can put real love into action and create new pathways to agriculture for people in Connecticut. At tables with comprehensive representation from people directly impacted by food apartheid, as well as farmers, mutual aid funders, community-based foundations, local community-based organizations, and the Department of Agriculture, we can grow the agriculture industry in ways that allow for equitable access to farming; encourage full representation in food and farming policy; and create resilient systems capable of weathering the storms of political change.
Since 2022, our action group Cultivating Justice has been working to increase the number of BILPOC farmers in the state. We’ve met with people across 60 municipalities, helped them learn more about the growth opportunities in the field of agriculture, and started a Farmers and Leaders of Color cohort. We have assisted and coached dozens of people, primarily women and BILPOC in becoming farmers. With support from Chicks Ahoy Farm, I was able to start my own farm, Dee’s Crafty Bees, and partner with the City of Middletown and residents of the Miller-Bridge Street neighborhood to establish a community farm which now features crops, laying hens, beehives, and composting.
People in our neighborhoods have the skill and passion to grow food. We know how to be creative about where we grow food. We know our neighborhoods are full of spaces sitting vacant or being bought up by developers where we could be incubating 100 community farms. Gov. Lamont should see that love absent vision and action is empty. Loving farmers means paying more than lip service to BILPOC farmers and urban agriculture. It means introducing measures that actually increase the number of underrepresented farmers and support those farmers in becoming and remaining sustainable as they feed our communities.
If you’re interested in learning more about farming and community organizing, email diana@chicksahoyfarm.org to schedule a one-on-one!
This editorial is in response to CT Gov. Ned Lamont signs legislation to boost agriculture sector.
