Bill Text: IL HR0625 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Declares April 1 through April 6, 2024 as Black Farmers Week in the State of Illinois. Encourages the people of Illinois and their representatives in government to learn about the history of Black farming communities and the contributions made by African Americans to agriculture in the United States.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-05-15 - Added Chief Co-Sponsor Rep. Nicholas K. Smith [HR0625 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2023-HR0625-Introduced.html

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HR0625 LRB103 39637 MST 69997 r
HOUSE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Farming as a family-owned and independent
business has been an important part of the social and economic
development of Illinois and the United States; and
WHEREAS, Black farmers in America have had a long struggle
to own land and operate independently; for more than a century
after emancipation and the ratification of the 13th Amendment
that abolished slavery, various economic and social barriers
were discriminatorily applied towards Black farmers, and the
few existing civil rights laws were rarely enforced; and
WHEREAS, Pembroke Township, founded by self-emancipated,
escaped enslaved people, was once home to the largest
community of Black farmers in the north; and
WHEREAS, In 1920, Illinois had 892 Black farmers, and
African Americans owned 14 percent of the nation's farmland;
and
WHEREAS, According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
National Statistics Service, as of April 2019, Illinois had
72,000 farms, covering 27 million acres, which is
approximately 75% of the State's total land area; and

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WHEREAS, As of the 2017 USDA Agricultural Census, there
were 188 individually Black-owned farms, which are a combined
40,412 acres; out of the 116,417 agricultural producers in
Illinois, 267 are Black; and
WHEREAS, As farming has become a big business, it has
become one of the least diverse business sectors in our State,
and the pressure to consolidate has reduced the ranks of
family and independent farmers for the past century; and
WHEREAS, The scarcity of African American farmers stems
from the troubled history of the U.S.; for sharecroppers,
farming was associated with the poverty and the backbreaking
labor of slavery; for those who owned land, unequal treatment
made it difficult to retain property and earn a living, and
racial discrimination played a major role in driving Black
farmers off of their land; as recently as the mid-1990s, Black
farmers who agreed to sell crops would routinely be offered
lower prices at market than white farmers for equivalent
products; and
WHEREAS, In a landmark legal settlement, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture acknowledged that it had abused
Black farmers for generations when agents approved only a
fraction of financing requests, delayed loans until after the
planting season, and withheld other key payments; and

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WHEREAS, Movements in Illinois and across the country have
fought to rectify historic discrimination against Black
farmers and to develop interest in farming in young people and
have worked to innovate in the farming space, including the
development of Black-oriented urban agriculture, vertical
farming, and microfarms in order to deliver fresher and
healthier foods to communities and consumers in need of better
food choices; and
WHEREAS, Black farmers can play a leading role in building
local healthy food systems and creating regional networks of
jobs, food, agricultural goods, and related opportunities;
therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
we declare April 1 through April 6, 2024 as Black Farmers Week
in the State of Illinois; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we encourage the people of Illinois and
their representatives in government to learn about the history
of Black farming communities and the contributions made by
African Americans to agriculture in the United States; and be
it further

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