On the Ground with Organizations Uplifting BIPOC Farmers
These groups are helping reverse historic inequities by offering capital and assistance unavailable through more traditional avenues
Leslie Woodward was in a real pickle. She’d temporarily closed Edenesque, her nearly decade-old self manufactured plant-based dairy company, to transition to a co-manufactured enterprise with a production partner, and urgently needed capital to scale up.
A Black woman and Le Cordon Bleu grad who cooked in prestigious restaurants, Woodward watched as peers in the industry obtained funding because they had a network to tap into. Individual investors dismissed her as not being ambitious or confident enough. She had no recent revenue figures to provide to a bank.
Woodward believes her color was a barrier to procuring capital. “I think we just have a perception of what leadership looks like, or who can lead or build. That’s a trope or image. If you don’t match that image…,” she trails off.
Then she successfully applied for financing from Black Farmer Fund (BFF), a nonprofit community investment fund that supports the Black agricultural community in the Northeast to close the racial wealth gap and build connections.
Thanks primarily to BFF, “we were able to create a brand and get our infrastructure set up and inventory and everything we needed,” says Woodward.
Filling a void
Since the 1920s, the percentage of Black farmers in the United States has declined precipitously from 14 percent to two percent. The history of racism throughout the agricultural industry is well-documented. Though the ruling of Pigford vs Glickman awarded nearly $2 billion to Black farmers, it’s still difficult for beginning Black farmers to get a foothold in the industry.
BFF is one of a handful of organizations formed since 2020 to support BIPOC farmers and food businesses unable to obtain capital and other critical aid through conventional options, like a farm credit bureau or bank. Another is Potlikker Capital, a social justice charitable fund supporting mainly rural BIPOC farmers across the country.
Both are impact investing funds, which invest capital to generate returns and positive social or environmental impact. Like other investment funds, they raise capital through donations and the sale of notes.
BFF seeks to deploy $40 million over 75 investments within 10 years. So far it has raised 68 percent towards that and invested in 16 farms and businesses including a distillery, a herbal education and medicine concern, and a brand of a West African sparkling beverage. Some are members of BFF’s $1.1 million pilot fund, which was used to test, build, and inform the organization’s process for centering the needs of farmers and investing in a more reparative structure of capital.
Potlikker aims to work with 300 businesses, including distributors, processors, and producers. lt also partners with farmers who are not of color, but who are in relationship to the community, and underwrites two agriculture entities: Jubilee Justice and Food System 6.
The funds employ a holistic approach using integrated capital, technical assistance, and networking, recognizing that growth support requires more than just money, particularly in BIPOC communities. Technical assistance can range from helping a farmer set up Quick Books to introductions to a soil remediation expert or a State Department of Agriculture contact. Chosen farmers and businesses must follow climate-smart practices and give back to their communities.
In this non-extractive, restorative model, integrated capital can be zero or low interest loans, grants and recoverable grants, equity, or near equity. Decision making is community-led by BIPOC members of food and agricultural spaces, including farmers or those who work at nonprofits, in food systems, education, and business, including some of whom have received support from the organizations.
Strands of support
Support takes many forms. For one, BFF and Potlikker establish culturally appropriate relationships and do not charge a fee for their services.
BFF also offers community engagement and networking through community work days and skill shares on topics like how to be loan ready. Funding comes from rapid response or community garden pools or as a portfolio business, a large scale investment.
Sometimes, when trusted with people’s emotions or mental health challenges, “just being able to be there and help folks navigate through challenging transitions,” is what’s required, says BFF co-founder Olivia Watkins.
Edenesque became a portfolio business of BFF last year. While most investees receive between a quarter and half a million dollars, the company received $1.25 million in a grant and a loan. With the funding, Edenesque relaunched in October 2024. Its nut and oat milks are sold in over 200 stores in the Northeast, including Whole Foods; that number will double by April. Now that she’s virtually rebuilt her company from scratch, Woodward plans to use BFF’s technical assistance offerings, like learning to use social media for brand promotion.
Since 2021, Potlikker has provided resources to 57 farmers in 24 states. By May, co-founder Mark Watson expects that number to grow to 65.
Ozell White, a Mississippi cattle and watermelon farmer, participated in Jubilee Justice’s rice growing project. He served as Chair of Potlikker’s Board and received a $12,000 grant for fencing and a mechanical weeder after meeting Watson on a cross-country RV trip to visit farmers. Better equipped to control weeds and practice sustainable farming, White now doesn’t need pricey chemical inputs.
With eight other farmers throughout Mississippi, White is also participating in one of Potlikker’s “communities of practice,” groups organized so farmers can share knowledge and trade business opportunities. They’re learning accounting, tax preparation, and business planning from Potlikker staff, its Board and Resource Council members, and experts contracted by Potlikker.
“The beauty of Potlikker,” says White, “is that they can start with the farmer, and walk with that farmer from where they are and stay with them until they get where they need to go.”
Changing the landscape
These efforts to effect systemic change have gained greater significance with the recent dissolution of many DEI efforts across industries.
Watson and Watkins believe that fundraising will continue apace because of the substantial interest in having strong local food systems and support from mission-aligned donors. “I think it’s just the context in which we’re all working is going to shift,” Watkins says.
Organizations like Potlikker and BFF are needed to help the money flow fair, says Watson. “I don’t know how we’re going to handle it, but we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing,” he asserts, “serving communities that we feel like have not ever had real access or might be getting diminished access to resources.”
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