Riley will bring people-centered approach to help farmers

Farming as an American industry has long been hobbled by systemic racism, sexism, ableism, land theft and labor exploitation. Now, America’s farmland itself is shrinking.

According to the latest Farms and Land in Farms report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. lost 1.3 million acres of farmland in 2021, decreasing from 896,600,000 acres in 2020 to 895,300,000 acres in 2021 (tinyurl.com/26fqjw3y). The USDA report shows farmland acreage has decreased by over 13.62 million acres since 2014, an average loss of over 1.9 million acres per year.

An annual report prepared by USDA partner American Farmland Trust, estimates an average of 2,000 acres of U.S. farmland are converted each day (tinyurl.com/2y57aa7u). The loss is primarily driven by developers who have been purchasing farmland to meet growing demand for housing in urban, suburban and, yes, rural areas.

Losing farmland to residential development means less space for producing food. The resulting lower supply will inevitably drive up the cost of food and trigger a host of other problems.

Rural and urban residents who can’t afford to live in those new housing developments, including farm workers whose jobs disappear with the farms, are pushed into urban areas. There, they face the usual urban problems: substandard housing, high rent and increased risk of poverty-created violence and go without the backyard space to grow their own food, an important supplement to purchased groceries for many families.

Without the capability to produce the volume that attracts commercial buyers, farmers face limited access to markets. Local governments cut back social services, leaving people without needed resources. All this happens while developers gaze upon undeveloped acreage and increasingly pressure farmers to sell their land, worsening the trend. Rooted in all this is the hard fact that over the centuries, farming and food production in our region has been tied to race and class oppression and exclusion.

Example: Black people have been farming in New York State since the 1600s (blackfarmersunited.org/about-us).

Surprised? That’s probably because between various regimes of exclusion including that of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, banks, the realty sector, zoning and planning boards, and the resulting extra difficulty accessing markets, our numbers have dwindled by 52% over the past century, even as the number of Black New Yorkers has increased more than 2,000%!

Without serious investment and intervention, the reversal and repair of the aforementioned inequities, Black farmers in New York state will continue to be marginalized and our food systems and farmland will continue to be diminished and attacked.

As an agriculture researcher, educator and activist, I’ve spent years observing and creating cooperative rural land governance models and equitable food systems. I’ve seen firsthand how outside forces disrupt rural communities when they whittle away at farmland, and I am constantly on the search for solutions. I am convinced that positively impactful solutions work best when local residents discuss their challenges and direct ideas for change.

That’s why, this election, I will vote for Josh Riley, Democratic candidate to represent Tompkins County’s new congressional district (NY-19). Riley will bring a people-centered approach to issues like how to save and grow small and medium-sized farms, provide quality health care in rural communities and update and improve infrastructure plagued by decades of neglect.

Riley will listen to the residents who are most impacted by land theft, rural segregation, exclusive real estate practices and oppressive zoning and planning practices, working within communities to create and implement solutions. That will be a refreshing change for this county.

Riley’s past work has exemplified a people-centered approach to leadership. I hope to work with Riley on making our county a leader in farmland preservation and food systems equity.

I will be discussing with him a proposal to create legislation that supports New Yorkers who have systemically been forced into urban areas, reservations, and impoverished rural areas to forge new paths on rural lands. The goal of this collaboration will be to preserve farmland and support and integrate healthier communities, housing, food, economic and business development in New York state.

Farmland in our region is disappearing under pressure from residential and commercial developers. Farming and food production here are made even more difficult for many due to decades-old policies that foster race and class oppression and exclusion.

If we don’t work with legislators and policy makers who understand these problems and have the gumption to push for change, it will only get worse. Get yourself and your neighbors and friends to the polls on Nov. 8 and elect Josh Riley to Congress because of his commitment to pushing for reforms that protect agricultural lands and the people who depend on them: all of us.

Christa Núñez is the founder and director of CAN Cooperative Media, the Learning Farm and its nonprofit sister organization Khuba International. For the past five years, she has operated the STEAM In Nature Summer Camp and After School Program at the Learning Farm. Through Khuba International, Núñez has implemented community and school garden programs such as the Quarter Acre for the People Project, Ubuntu Library and the Equitable and Edible Farm School curriculum at the Ithaca City School District.