The Course
The stories on these pages are the products of an interdisciplinary, racially diverse team of eight University of Missouri students who prepared for and went on a 10-day field-reporting trip through the Deep South over spring break 2017. The class was run through the Missouri School of Journalism and included a diverse array of faculty. The course was a section of “Field Reporting on the Food System and Environment.”
The stories on these pages are the products of an interdisciplinary, racially diverse team of eight University of Missouri students who prepared for and went on a 10-day field-reporting trip through the Deep South over spring break 2017. The class was run through the Missouri School of Journalism and included a diverse array of faculty. The course was a section of “Field Reporting on the Food System and Environment.”
The goal of the course was to produce multimedia stories about African-American farmers and the social justice issues they have faced and are overcoming. The course also aimed to create a meaningful cross-cultural learning experience that enabled students to forge new understandings about working together — to learn, take on difficult challenges and communicate among themselves and with broader audiences about social injustice and other complex barriers to a better food system and society.
The team consisted of graduate and undergraduate students majoring in Journalism, Documentary Film, Science and Agricultural Journalism, Psychology, Sociology and Rural Sociology.
After 10 weeks of immersion in the history, sociology, economics and politics of African Americans and the land, the group departed March 24 on a 2,500-mile trip through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Although black farmers have received piecemeal coverage, we felt journalists in general had not yet connected the dots. This was a complex story, one that reflected much about how racism more broadly affects our society.
We knew that in 2015, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that about 13 percent of the nation’s population was African American, up from 9.9 percent in 1920. However, the most recent Census of Agriculture, in 2012, found that African-American farmers comprised less than 2 percent of U.S. farmers, down from 14 percent in 1920. Current sales from black farms represent 0.2 percent of total U.S. agricultural sales, and black-operated farmland account for only 0.4 percent of U.S. farmland.
Our central question was, why, as the percentage of African Americans in the general population has risen, have the numbers, sales and land of black farmers plummeted? We learned that the history and a litany of recent court decisions suggested racial discrimination in the food system, including by the influential U.S. Department of Agriculture, was behind the dramatic decline. Recent political conditions, including a resurgence in racial hate groups, suggested that significant racism in society, and possibly in agriculture, continues today.
We set out with open minds to gather facts and stories as we encountered them, but we also kept at the forefront of our minds these particular lines in the Code of
“Boldly tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience. Seek sources whose voices we seldom hear.”
“Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable. Give voice to the voiceless.”
“Avoid stereotyping. Journalists should examine the ways their values and experiences may shape their reporting.”
With the stories on these pages, the students have revealed the human side of racism and the roadblocks to success created by racial discrimination. They also have learned much about the role and responsibility of the professional, public-service journalist in our nation. And what it takes to fulfill that role with integrity.
We believe the facts and stories presented here reveal one of the tragedies of the U.S. food system: an underclass of farmers discriminated against based on race yet who continue to strive in new and creative ways to ensure a better future for their children and grandchildren.
