Kwanzaa Karamu: 2007 Farm Bill and Black Agribusiness Feast

Sacramento, CA ~ Black Agribusiness is the composite sector comprising agriculture, trade, distribution, processing and services associated with fuel, fiber, food, forestry and finance.

A global Kwanzaa table represents current reality of our “collective faith” in Black Agribusiness. In the past we produced the entire harvest in classical African Civilization, today we are primarily consumers in our harvest celebrations; tomorrow we will become the primary producers of our harvest celebration that restore our people to our traditional greatness.

Agribusiness, besides providing inputs for production, links black farmers to consumers through handling, processing, transportation, marketing, financing and distribution of goods and services, every day.

New opportunities of Black agribusiness will spur agricultural growth and provide business opportunities in the value-added segments of processing, distribution and marketing.

A strong link between global agribusiness and locally grown production can reduce urban and rural poverty that provides job creation, increases local tax base and provides holistic value to the consumer for better health outcomes.

Black Agribusiness can transform urban and rural society by creating opportunity for new, returning and developing producers and consumers. In the 21st century, “green technology” and the modern traditional aggregate U.S. agriculture industry can mirror potential equal opportunity actualized by documented government procurement and services utilizing Black Agribusiness nationwide.

The 2007 Farm Bill may finally begin a long difficult journey toward rebuilding a strong and viable Black agribusiness sector of the U.S. Agricultural Sector. We have witnessed nearly a century of declining Black farm productivity, low investment in infrastructure and/or inadequate rural incomes resulting in a 98% loss of Black Farmers. Today, we choose a methodology embracing Kwanzaa 365 days a year.

The 2007 Census of Agriculture will measure current baseline data and then we can begin to measure the growth and productive opportunity experienced beyond the systemic institutional racism documented by closing the Pigford Era Chapter within USDA policies, programs and practices.

Recent events document the level of resistance to change by a high level USDA career employees and first time oversight historical examination by the U.S. Judiciary Constitution committee hearing on the lingering effect of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Black Agribusiness may be the greatest economic indicator of past, present and future of Democracy in the United States of America.

Imani, faith the final day of our Kwanzaa holiday celebration requires renewed focus on inclusive ‘Black Civic Participation’ building upon Umoja, unity the essential foundation principle that binds over 40 million Black citizens within the United States of America will form a more perfect union.

We must choose to officially measure and learn to optimize utilization of the full potential of Black Agribusiness as the salient economic indicator of a people working to restore ourselves to our traditional greatness taking the best of our ancient classical African traditions while utilizing the best of appropriate technology of the 21st Century.