Black Farmers Roundtable: Food Is More Than What’s on Your Plate

Earlier this week, Word In Black convened researchers, food advocates and Black farmers for its second panel event focused on the issue of how food issues in the United States are affecting Black Americans.

The conversation, “What’s On Your Plate Part II: Black Farmers Roundtable,” was sponsored by the Knight Foundation and featured Dr. Christa Mahlobo, Word In Black’s research director; Sha’ka Von Thomas, founder of the Houston Board of Food Security; and Tambra Raye Stevenson, founder and president of Women Advancing Nutrition, Dietetics and Agriculture, which is known as WANDA. 

Joining Thomas on the panel of Black farmers were Jeremy Peaches, founder of Fresh House Grocery and BlackFarmerBox.com, and Elisabeth Ramsey, known online as “The Farming PhD.”

The Food System at a Breaking Point

The event grew out of Word In Black’s “What’s On Your Plate” report published Sept. 3 examining food safety, food deserts and the policies that shape what ends up on Americans’ plates. 

“[Food] touches education, where kids go to school and get free lunches, and what those lunches are. It touches politics, which is where people decide what funding goes to the FDA, what funding goes to SNAP, what funding goes to the USDA,” said Joseph Williams, Word In Black’s head of content and panel moderator, in explaining how the series expanded to cover nearly every part of Black life. 

The conversation revolved around how issues of food access and trust in food and its safety are the product of policies that affect food subsidies, deregulation, land dispossession and civic disengagement. Panelists argued that reversing course will take the same policy tools that created concerns about food access and quality in the first place.

RELATED: What’s on Your Plate? The Answer Says More Than You Think

Trust In The Food Supply Hits A Cliff

A newly released Word In Black survey of nearly 1,300 Black Americans, “At the Table,” found that trust in the nation’s food supply is collapsing. Mahlobo reported that “about 80% of the people surveyed agreed to some extent that the food that we’re served in the U.S. is not great for our health.” Additionally, 60% said they feel insecure about food safety altogether — a steep decline from a national trust rate of 70% just two years earlier. 

“It shows this stark drop-off between how people used to feel about food,” Mahlobo said, tying the decline to the recent wave of food recalls and what she described as a widening gap between consumers and the federal agencies that were established to protect them.

“Families, especially moms… are asking three critical questions: ‘Can I afford it? Can I trust it? And can I find the food that actually works for my family and for my culture?’ And these are not just separate questions. We are at the intersection of them in terms of what they need. In the same kitchen,” Stevenson said. “A mother may know exactly what she needs to feed her children and still be negotiating price and transportation and quality and recalls and time, and whether the food being recommended is even available where she lives. And so that is why the Word In Black findings are so important,” she added. 

But Thomas, who works directly with Houston residents, said the most common question he hears has little to do with food recalls and everything to do with food access “Where is local food? Where do I go for local food?” are the questions he hears most often. 

The Economics Of Cheap Food

That erosion of trust, panelists argued, is inseparable from policy choices made decades ago and reinforced today.  For example, the idea that cheap food carries a hidden cost was a recurring theme. Peaches, who runs a Houston grocery store, laid out how federal subsidies for staple crops quietly determine what fills American carts. Wheat, corn, soybeans and oats are subsidized commodity crops that become the backbone of processed food, he said, while fresh produce is largely left to the market. “This is 70% of what the grocery store is. It’s not fruits and vegetables,” he said, arguing that the imbalance — not personal choice — explains why processed calories are cheap and fresh ones aren’t. 

Thomas said he views the current system as “a eugenics-based food system,” adding, “The people with the fewest economic choices end up being exposed disproportionately to unhealthy food environments.” 

Mahlobo pointed out that while WIB survey respondents don’t qualify as being food insecure, a significant portion of them control their food costs by “trading down” — buying chicken instead of beef, frozen vegetables instead of fresh, or simply eating less.

Reclaiming Land, Reclaiming Power

For the farmers on the panel, the work is inseparable from the way it’s perceived. Ramsey recalled being the only person of color on an urban farm early in her career. 

“I was told that farming’s really ‘white’ and if it’s something I wanted to do that I would just basically have to suck it up and do it,” she said. She recalled Black volunteers she supervised describing themselves as “indoor slaves and not outdoor slaves,” a comment she said reflected a deep, painful association between farm labor and slavery.

 Peaches said that history shapes how the profession is still viewed. 

“It’s always been looked at as a slavery thing for African Americans,” he said, arguing that agriculture should, instead, be reclaimed as a source of “economic power” and generational knowledge.

Several panelists framed land ownership itself as an act of reclamation. Thomas described buying land next to his grandmother’s house in South Baton Rouge, on a street where his family had lived without the owning the property since a relative’s service in World War I.. 

“I was the first individual in my family to actually purchase land right next to my grandma’s house,” he said, describing how he turned a quarter acre into “a functioning flower farm.” 

Peaches traced his own surname to a Mississippi plantation: “My family last name is ‘Peaches’ because we were on a LaGrange plantation in Bovina, Mississippi,” where his grandfather tended the peach orchard, he said. Stevenson connected these histories to broader strategy, pointing to historic all-Black towns in Oklahoma and arguing that “economic power turns into political power.”

From Foodies To Food Citizens

Panelists agreed that food justice ultimately requires policy engagement, not just individual choices. Thomas pointed out how climate change — evidenced by back-to-back major hurricanes — may force individuals to build local food resilience now before shortages occur. 

Stevenson also urged the audience to see themselves as more than consumers. “You’re not simply a shopper. You may also be a parent, a taxpayer, a constituent, a caregiver, an entrepreneur, a student,” she said, describing what she calls “food citizenship” — engaging with the full supply chain rather than just the point of purchase. She said WANDA’s research found that 90% of respondents to a related survey said the nation needs “a food bill of rights.” She noted the United States has voted against a United Nations’ resolution declaring food as a human right.  

Finding Good Food Locally

Several speakers also stressed that federal safety-net programs remain central to food access. SNAP benefits, food policy councils and farmers market “double up bucks” programs that match assistance dollars for fresh produce were all cited as tools worth defending and expanding, even as some programs, like SNAP, face cuts.

Peaches suggested simple first steps: “Just Google what’s in your area, what black farmers are in your area, what co-ops you might have,” he said, adding that even a novice should “take a chance and plant a seed or a tree.” 

Ramsey pointed to organizations like the Black Farmers Market in North Carolina and the Black Farmers Index, which helps shoppers find Black-owned farms nearby. She said some farmers markets offer SNAP recipients matching “double up bucks.” 

Thomas encouraged neighbors to look out for one another directly: “Get your hands in some dirt. Help out your neighbors.”

RELATED: Beyond the Supermarket: The Fresh Options Reshaping How We Eat

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