HARVEY, Ill. -- It took Bernard Thomas 19 hours to get here from his home in Bartow, Ga. It didn't help that a tire blew out and a nasty thunderstorm erupted on the way.
But despite the tough trip, Thomas plans to keep coming to this suburb south of Chicago almost every weekend for the rest of the summer, to sell his load of organic melons, tomatoes, peaches and corn. He is a pioneer of sorts, the first in a program that hopes to bring more southern black farmers north to sell their produce at higher prices.
Michael Paulos, left, gets help with peaches from Ron Curry as Bernard Thomas and Khashoggi Storman, in cap, help Verdia Johnson choose corn in Harvey, Ill.
(John Gress For The Washington Post)
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Though the transportation costs for the farmers are high, Thomas is banking on the popularity of home-grown southern produce and the higher market prices in the Midwest to make his effort worthwhile.
"You can make so much more up here. In the South you can't charge near as much for anything because people don't have as much" money, Thomas said. "This is a long way, but it's worth the drive."
Things are tough for many family farmers, but for black farmers in the South they are even tougher. Not only do they face competition from huge corporate farms and rising taxes, but many say they continue to be affected by a long legacy of discrimination in receiving government subsidies and loans from banks.
Minority farm ownership is down. In 1920 there were about 900,000 black farmers in the South, according to historical records kept by the National Agricultural Statistics Service. The Agriculture Department's 2002 agricultural census found only 29,090 black farmers in the entire country.
"It does show a dramatic decline," said Ginger Harris, a statistician with the National Agricultural Statistics Service. "The number of farmers in general has declined, but black farmers have declined even more. In 1920 they made up about 15 percent of all farmers; today they make up only 1.2 percent."
As with family farms everywhere, children are deciding not to take over their aging parents' farms, opting instead for more lucrative and flexible occupations.
"Now there's no way you can earn a living on what used to be a reasonable-sized piece of land," said George Naylor, an Iowa farmer and president of the National Family Farm Coalition. "And I'm sure it's worse for [black farmers in the South]. They tend to have smaller farms, and they're spread out more. And the prices down there are a really big problem."
That is why Bob Storman decided to bring southern black farmers up to Harvey.
"Most of us here in the southern suburbs originally came from farming families," Storman said. "We miss being able to get fresh southern fruit and vegetables like this. So this gives the farmers a way to make some money, and it gives the residents here a taste of the things they remember."
On a hot, humid Saturday in late July, Thomas's pickup and flatbed trailer were parked in a hotel lot. He was surrounded by buyers, some who had driven an hour or more to get a taste of real southern watermelon and sweet corn. Many of the customers were born into farming families in the South and missed the produce they remember from their youth.
"We raised vegetables, cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, our own chickens and hogs," said Willie Mae Alexander, 83, an Arkansas native who drove from Gary, Ind., with Clara Brown Smith, 61. "Most African American families who came here from Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas did have farms. We're used to the farm life."
"They should get sugar cane. You can't find sugar cane in Chicago," added Shelby Rowe, 64, who is originally from a Mississippi farming family and now works installing air conditioning units. "And it's hard to find good lemons, pecans and blackberries. If they bring those things up from the South, people will come."
