DES MOINES — Farmers of color from across Iowa gathered for the first time on Saturday in Des Moines, sharing resources and forming connections they say will help minority farmers succeed in the state.

Organized by Todd Western III, the first inaugural Iowa Farmers of Color conference brought together Black farmers in Iowa to network and find resources that can help them improve and innovate. Nearly 100 people — some farmers and others working in other areas of agriculture — attended the conference.

Western, who lives near Minneapolis and farms his family-owned land in New Sharon and Waterloo, was inspired to start the conference after visiting the Harvest Ball in North Carolina, a national gathering of Black farmers.

Western said until recently, he only knew one other Black farmer, his neighbor.

“I was just so overwhelmed with the camaraderie, the community, the networking and the friendships of Black farmers coming together,” he said. “I said, ‘We have to do this up north.’”

Forming connections

Western’s family has owned his Iowa farmland for more than 150 years, where they grow corn and soybeans. His ancestors settled the land near New Sharon in 1864 after buying their freedom from slavery in Virginia, he said.

He’s one of only about 72 Black farmers in Iowa, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture.

There aren’t any formal organizations connecting Iowa’s Black farmers, and breaking down those silos and connecting farmers of color was a major goal of the conference, Western said.

Ryan Madison, who operates Mad Acre Farms in Gladbrook growing specialty crops, said he does not know any other Black farmers in the area.

“It’s always nice to see someone that looks like you that’s doing farming,” he said. “ … There’s not too many people of color farming in Iowa, so it’s kind of nice seeing people that look like you doing the same thing that you’re doing.”

Madison said he has found a welcoming community where he farms, but he faced discrimination initially trying to buy land in Iowa. When he entered land he was planning to buy for an agreed-upon inspection, the owner called the police and accused him of trespassing, he said, and then pulled their offer to sell the land.

“God works in mysterious ways because it actually worked out perfectly for us, because we’ve got awesome neighbors,” he said.

Farmers of color face unique challenges

Ricki King, a genealogist who is working on a project on the history of Black farmers in Iowa, said it is important to show that Iowa has a long history of Black farmers cultivating the land. There have been farmers of color in Iowa since it became a territory in the 1830s, including a group of 50 people who settled in Fayette County in 1854.

“I didn’t know there was Black farmers in Iowa just until last year,” she said. “And besides this event, we need to have other events just spotlighting farmers of any minority, and that’s my goal.”

But despite that history, Iowa’s Black farmers are disconnected, isolated and face unique challenges, conference speakers said.

Dewayne Goldmon, the USDA senior adviser for racial equity, said uniting Black farmers who have a shared history and face similar problems can help connect them to people and resources they need.

“When you’re a Black farmer, a farmer of color, you have to fight all the issues all other farmers fight. … You also have to fight isolation,” he said. “Too often times, discrimination then comes with that, and you feel like you operate in a vacuum.”

The isolation sometimes leads to a lack of understanding around loan programs, federal assistance and business opportunities, said Sylvester Miller II, a U.S. crop technology marketing manager at FMC who farms in Michigan and Arkansas.

“Across the board, we do a great job of the farming piece, that’s something that’s been ingrained to us that we really understand,” he said. “But really understand the business part is the way that really unlocks some of the things we haven’t been given preview to.”

Federal programs, nonprofits aid minority farmers

Speakers at the conference highlighted a number of federal programs through the USDA and local nonprofits designed to aid Black farmers and other minority farmers who have been historically left out of the department’s loan programs.

In 1999, the U.S. government settled a lawsuit alleging it had discriminated against Black farmers in allocating loans and federal assistance. Much of the promised payments did not reach the farmers they was intended to help, and in 2010 Congress spent $1.2 billion in another round of payouts.

An NPR analysis from February found that Black farmers are still disproportionately denied by USDA programs — 36 percent of Black farmers were approved for direct loan applications in 2022, while 72 percent of white farmers were approved.

Under President Joe Biden’s administration, the USDA and other agencies were charged with promoting equity and inclusion initiatives. Two recent government programs are designed to address historic discrimination in agriculture, Goldmon said.

One program, part of the American Rescue Plan of 2021, provides debt forgiveness for socially disadvantaged farmers. Another, the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program, included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, provides financial assistance to people who were discriminated against in farm lending programs.

“We acknowledge the useless and painful history of discrimination; we’re going to draw a line in the sand and give you better access to resources, capital, personnel, as we go forward,” Goldmon said. “It’s important that we do that. It’s important for agriculture that we do that.”

What’s next for the conference?

Western said he’s planning to make the conference an annual event and find ways to engage the group between the annual conferences. He said he hopes Iowa’s Black farmers continue to lean on the network developed at the conference.

“For these individuals that attended this, to have a connection point now so that they can call any time they want to, to these subject matter experts throughout the year,” he said. “And ultimately, that we have a community now that we can communicate with throughout the year, and that we all then benefit with higher years, lower costs and great, bountiful harvest.”