Contact: Heather Gray or Jerry Pennick
404 765 0991
hlgray@mindspring.com
www.federation.coop

In survey completed by the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund a few years ago (2001) and funded by the USDA's Risk Management Agency, we have realized that many of the findings would likely be helpful to other farm groups and we will begin reporting on them periodically. In the project we wanted to assess the progress of Risk Management education and implementation of some risk management tools such as crop insurance.

ATLANTA ...(December 20, 2004)   Marketing of farm products remains problematic for farmers and is a major risk area. In virtually all of the marketing categories, there are relatively few differences between those who purchased crop insurance and those who did not. There were some exceptions, however, with cash forward contracts, futures market, using a market advisory service, broker, commercial outlets, and cooling facilities. In these five categories, and while the numbers were not large, there were more farmers who had purchased crop insurance who were also engaged in these practices or services, with the exception of cooling facilities. Interestingly, respondents who had not purchased cop insurance were more likely to have a cooling facility. Cooling facilities are more likely used by vegetable farmers for whom adequate crop insurance is not routinely offered by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation.

In only three categories did the percentages in marketing go above 50% and those were in: reliable transportation, in which 76% of crop insurance purchasers said they had reliable transportation compared to the non-purchasers; 78%of purchasers said they would like to join a marketing co-op compared to 66% of non-purchasers; and 54% of purchasers sold produce to commercial markets compared to 33% of the non-purchasers.

Marketing is clearly an area that demands attention for African American family farmers and one in which these farmers appear to be extremely vulnerable. As demonstrated in their responses in the survey, Black farmers are not in a competitive position due to their lack of access to the market infrastructure such as marketing services, cooling facilities, processing facilities, and marketing cooperatives. They are also no accessing other marketing techniques such as the futures market, etc, nor are they planning their marketing strategy in advance of production.

When race becomes a factor, marketing risks are compounded. Black farmers state that they are often not able to obtain a fair price for their farm products. One Texas farmer referred to this when he said, "(There are) so many crooks in the farm business - government and private barns, etc. - until it makes it hard for a Black man to make it. When they see a Black man coming, they drop the prices." Along this line, another Texas farmer said that his number one risk concern was "fairness at the market place when selling. Blacks get lower prices for their products."

When looking at markets by length of time farming and acres farmed, the most significant indicator of preparing and planning for markets was the number of acres farmed. Respondents who were farming a larger acreage were more likely to have written a marketing plan and to have a contract for their produce.

Priority needs to be given to addressing Marketing Risk Tools in the technical assistance provided to farmers from all farm agencies, community based organizations and land grant colleges. Farmers need assistance in all areas of marketing. 

Summary: In this survey 338 black farmers throughout the south were interviewed. Here are  some of the basic demographics of these black farmer respondents: 90% of the respondents were male; 31% of the respondents were under the age of 49 and 69% were from 50-93 yeas old. 46% had purchased crop insurance in the past 5 years; there was a fairly even distribution of the length time the respondents had farmed with the largest group (24%) having farmed 41 years or more; most of the farmers in the sample (56%) farmed 100 acres or less; most of the farmer  (69%) owned from 1 to 100 acres of land; only 20% of the respondents reported receiving an FSA loan in the past 5 years; and 42% said that farming was their principle income.

Note: The Federation, now in its 37th year,  assists Black family farmers across the South with farm management, debt restructuring, alternative crop suggestions, marketing expertise and a whole range of services to ensure family farm survivability.