November 17, 2025
USDA packages meant to degree the enjoying subject have been slashed beneath the Trump administration in 2025.
Close to the japanese fringe of Fayette County, Kentucky, sits the Coleman Crest Farm within the rural hamlet of Uttingertown. That’s the place Jim Coleman works the land his great-grandfather tilled as an enslaved particular person — till he secured his freedom by combating within the Civil Struggle and returning to buy the farm greater than 130 years in the past. Now, Coleman is constant his household’s farming legacy, however not as a result of it’s simple work protecting Black farms alive.
“Yesterday, I used to be pulling up mulch,” Coleman advised Subsequent Metropolis, in between administrative calls. “I had harvested arduous the day earlier than. Did just a little little bit of harvesting [yesterday], invoiced it, packaged it, put it within the case, put it in my truck, drove to my buyer, and delivered.”
Coleman’s 13-acre plot is among the few within the county — and in Kentucky — that’s nonetheless Black-owned and operated. And amongst all farmers, the sheer quantity of farmland has fallen, statewide and nationwide.
“The common age of farmers is 58 years outdated. They’re burnt out. They’re debt-ridden. Their children don’t need it,” Coleman says. “And you bought a developer knocking in your door saying, ‘Pay attention, I’ve received $50,000 an acre.’”
He explains the very first thing such a farmer would possibly suppose: “$50,000? I might promote this factor, or perhaps a portion of it. Repay my money owed and get a life.”
USDA packages meant to degree the enjoying subject have been slashed in 2025 beneath the Trump administration. That features the “socially deprived” designation within the 1990 Farm Invoice, which directed assets to farmers who traditionally confronted lending discrimination. The choice dominated that the results of racial discrimination had been “sufficiently addressed.”
In the meantime, Black farm possession in Kentucky has shrunk dramatically during the last century — from about 650 Black farm homeowners in contrast with roughly 100,000 white farm homeowners, in accordance with the 2022 USDA Agricultural Census. That proportion lies far beneath the nationwide common of 1.4%. The entire variety of Black producers nationally additionally decreased by 4% between 2017 and 2022.
Going through the specter of city growth and the lack of federal assist, how can Black producers’ farms and legacies survive and thrive in Kentucky?
Native rules, resembling Lexington-Fayette County’s Buy of Growth Rights program, have the potential to assist, however some Black leaders say this assist shouldn’t be but reaching those that want it most. Within the meantime, Black-led organizations like Black Soil are serving as assets and companions to Kentucky’s Black farmers.
Buying growth rights
Like many states, Kentucky has developed authorities packages to assist farmers enhance their monetary place whereas preserving their land’s farmland standing; nonetheless, the Commonwealth’s packages are much less sturdy than these of its neighbors.
The Kentucky Division of Agriculture preserves about 200 farms by means of the Buy of Agricultural Conservation Easement Company, which solely accepts donated land. And nonprofits just like the Bluegrass Land Conservancy, additionally primarily based in Lexington, provide tax deductions to landowners who be part of their community.
Lexington-Fayette is one of some municipalities nationwide that gives an alternate: direct buy of those growth rights.
Town-county authorities adopted its Buy of Growth Rights (PDR) program 25 years in the past, modeled after comparable easement packages, resembling these of the Bluegrass Land Conservancy. Solely tracts of land 20 acres or bigger have been eligible till this 12 months, when the workplace kick-started its Small Farm Conservation program. The brand new subset of PDR permits 10- to 19-acre farms to enter easements.
“We thought, ‘Oh, perhaps we’ll get 5 or 10 purposes.’ And we received 37,” says Beth Overman, the director of Lexington’s PDR workplace. That was after spreading information in regards to the small farm program by means of phrase of mouth as a take a look at run.
Town and workplace then course of and rating these purposes. As of late 2025, greater than 33,000 acres are beneath PDR easements, nearing the 50,000-acre purpose. Their subsequent utility interval opens later within the 12 months, and officers plan to get the phrase out by means of council members and mail commercials.
The brand new guidelines open up a possibility. Black farmers nationwide are inclined to personal smaller-acreage farms and earn decrease income. They now have the choice to promote the event rights of their 10-plus-acre farms. They obtain that worth in money, which is beneficial for buying new gear or staying afloat whereas retaining possession of their farm. Builders can’t then purchase it out for industrialization, serving to the farmland keep in households and communities.
“With a small farm program, as soon as phrase is out and other people realize it’s there, then that minority farmer who perhaps has 5 acres or zero acres — realizing that they might put the farm into the small farm program and get just a little money again, could assist them suppose, ‘I might perhaps take this soar and … attempt to begin my very own farm,’” Overman says.
Lexington’s PDR program is a one-person workplace, and Overman says the shortage of manpower and assets impacts what they’ll do.
“Perhaps that’s a spot we might get to sometime — it might assist folks make the leap to purchase a farm in the event that they knew,” Overman added.
The items are all there, able to be put collectively. On paper, it really works.
In actuality, the founding father of Lexington-based nonprofit agribusiness Black Soil says this potential has gone unrealized for the area’s most susceptible producers: farmers in Black rural hamlets.
“[The PDR program] must do much more outreach in educating people within the rural hamlets — technical help, in addition to the outreach to let folks know,” says Ashley C. Smith, who got here to agriculture as an grownup and launched Black Soil in 2017. Her group helps Kentucky Black farmers and runs contemporary meals markets in Lexington, connecting residents experiencing meals insecurity to provide and meat from Black farmers at below-market charges.
In her time working the group, she has labored extensively with city Black farmers within the metropolis’s denser neighborhoods, in addition to rural growers in areas like Utteringtown and past state traces.
Smith argues that details about native agricultural packages like PDR isn’t disseminated successfully, a consequence of systemic racism all through the trade.
“Black Soil acts as a mirror. If we’re capable of finding this many Black farmers in our area — farmers, culinary artists, trade professionals — [then] there’s an energetic option to not see folks.”
Coleman sits on the Rural Land Administration Board, which oversees the PDR program. Which means his personal farm is ineligible. However he agrees this system isn’t reaching those that want it most.
“Nobody in that room is aware of in regards to the PDR program,” Coleman says. “PDRs are very transformative, and I feel the appropriate option to go. [It can’t help] if you happen to don’t know.”
Assist from Black Soil
The Cleav Household Market isn’t eligible for Buy of Growth Rights both as a result of it’s not in Fayette County. The household farm straddles the Central Time Zone border in rural Bonnieville — about an hour south of metropolitan Louisville and just below two hours from Lexington.
“What I would like y’all to get from that is you can begin right now,” farmer Travis Cleaver says, motioning to the hen coop behind him.
The solar beat down on dozens {of professional} and aspiring growers as his fellow farm workers defined that every broiler hen wants another sq. foot each week because it grows.
“These are scrap supplies we discovered across the barn and scraped collectively. As you get higher, you purchase higher.”
The Cleav Household Market was one in all a number of locations within the State of the Soil convention, hosted by Black Soil. Friends traveled from states away to listen to from trade professionals, tour farms throughout central Kentucky, and community with agriculturalists of all walks. Native Black growers and cooks produced many of the meals, too.
“As a substitute of rallying all farmers and digging into people who need to farm, folks have been making an attempt to work to ostracize and undermine and reduce. However fortunately, these farmers have been resilient and so they caught collectively,” Smith says.
Cleaver walked attendees by means of the effective particulars of crop and livestock manufacturing. Their leafy greens use drip tape as an alternative of pipe, and the white plastic overlaying the soil helps regulate its temperature within the scorching months.
His father purchased the farm in 1980, persevering with the legacy that Travis’ great-grandfather had begun. Now, they function it with the information gained over generations from farming communities. For rural Black farmers particularly, Cleaver says it’s already arduous sufficient to get the land. His job, now, is to be a very good steward.
“I do know the sacrifice that my dad and mom [made] to get this in a time when it wasn’t simple to get it. Whether or not or not it’s rates of interest, whether or not or not it’s injustices, whether or not or not it’s lack of wages, lack of expertise.”
Black Soil invests funds into Black-owned farming operations, helps growers discover grants, after which locations their produce and meat on native cabinets. The Cleav Household Market’s seasonal produce seems at Black Soil’s Lexington markets, bolstering entry to contemporary meals for city residents and producing income for Cleav Household Market. It’s a part of Black Soil’s mission to empower Black-owned farms within the face of historic and ongoing oppression and exclusion.
“We at all times say we’re a ladder … they’re standing on our shoulders, or we’re standing on their shoulders. And collectively, we will preserve this factor the place it’s all around the state,” Cleaver says. “Simply getting good meals to good folks.”
Black Soil’s Smith says their work to create a structured assist for Black farmers got here with loads of opposition. It included what she says have been pointless appeals, losses in information, and trade professionals treating Black farmers’ produce as ‘soiled.’
“We needed to create our personal sidewalk. We actually needed to pour the concrete, get in there and easy it out, and say, ‘Okay, now we’re gonna stroll proper right here.’ We needed to sidestep folks as a result of they saved standing in our manner,” Smith says. “I can solely think about the heaping feeling upon farmers, whose merchandise are being not directly insulted … [from] agribusiness, designed to assist the farmers that they aren’t serving to.”
Black Soil can be one in all Coleman Crest Farm’s major collaborators. Coleman says the group’s assist has been invaluable as a result of its mission was constructed with the wants of Black farmers on the forefront.
“It helps to provide us the income to get the credibility. However then, you construct within the infrastructure, and now you possibly can market to large prospects like wholesalers, Walmart, Complete Meals, and others — as a result of they’re on the lookout for it. They only don’t know the place to get it,” Coleman says.
Coleman says data entry is very a battle for rural and Black people alike. When he first put in his personal farm’s irrigation system years in the past, he dismissed the concept of looking for authorities help, considering it might take too lengthy and yield little return. That lack of awareness saved him from saving 50% of the prices.
“If you happen to’ve received cable TV in your own home, then you possibly can have entry to the web. However then the following [question] is: Are you comfy utilizing the pc? And are you aware find out how to search?” he says. “It’s not an absence of packages; it’s a ignorance of the place these packages exist.”
Coleman doesn’t have kids to inherit his land. The destiny of its legacy is unsure. At the moment, he plans for close by universities to make use of it for agriculture training.
His ancestors, who tended this land earlier than him, are buried and memorialized close to the treeline. He is probably not buried on this land, however irrespective of its future, these markers signify centuries of trauma, perseverance, and grit.
He says homegrown nonprofits like Black Soil are paving a transparent path ahead, and hopefully, devoted conservation packages like PDR will quickly play a hand.
“The long run’s vibrant for these of us who’re gonna produce a regionally grown product the place we will promote it immediately — or as carefully as attainable to the top shopper,” Coleman says.
This story was produced as a part of Subsequent Metropolis’s joint Equitable Cities Reporting Fellowship for Rural-City Points with Kentucky’s CivicLex.
This story was produced by means of our Equitable Cities Reporting Fellowship for Rural-City Points, which is made attainable with assist from the Knight Basis.
This story was produced by Subsequent Metropolis and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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