A book celebrates Black American farming history

“We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers Land and Legacy,” by Natalie Baszile (Amistad)

Farming would seem to be one occupation that Black Americans could find refuge from discrimination. Consumers choose their fruits and veggies by their size and vitality, unconcerned about the hands that raised them. How different America would be if agriculture were that ultimate meritocracy, rewarding those who master the science of soil, plants and the environment.

However, the celebration Natalie Baszile refers to in “We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers Land, and Legacy” is leavened by hard truths and cruelties of efforts to run Black farmers off the land.

That’s one reason why, as Baszile writes, Black farmers cultivate less than half of 1% of the nation’s farmland today.

“This country was built on the free labor of enslaved people whom carried their agricultural expertise with them when they arrived on America’s colonial shores,” writes Baszile.