ROCHELLE – Minority-owned farms in Alachua County were some of 43,000 nationwide to receive part of a $2.2 billion payout from the U.S. Department of Agriculture last July.
WUFT shared the story of John “Ronnie” Nix, a cattle rancher in eastern Alachua County, when the funding was first announced in 2022. Today, six months after the check arrived, he reflects on what it did – and didn’t – do.
The payments
Black producers account for 3.5% of all farmers in Florida, their acreage a third the size of the state’s average, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture.
Nationwide, the number of Black-operated farms nationwide dropped from nearly a million in the early 1900s to a little over 32,000 in 2022. As farmers mechanized their operations during the 20th century, Black farmers were denied loans granted to white farmers. Their land was repossessed, parcelized and otherwise stripped.
The $2.2 billion in USDA funding announced in 2022 was a one-time payout intended to address past lending discrimination. It was open to anyone who had been unfairly denied funds by the agency, regardless of race or whether they had a current farming operation.
Proponents called the amount “historic”, though nowhere close to the value of acreage taken from Black farmers in the 20th century, estimated at $326 billion by the American Economic Association.
Farmers in Florida’s 3rd Congressional District received a total of $4.5 million split among 53 recipients. Most got between $10,000 and $50,000.
For Nix, the payout was about $16,000: enough to cover a year’s worth of feed for his cattle and little else.
John Boyd Jr., founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association, said, while some would-be producers were awarded $500,000, “there were Black farmers that farmed all their life and got a $15,000 or $20,000 payout out of this process.”
“The process was flawed,” in certain aspects he said, but, “at the end of the day $2.2 billion was paid out to some very needy families.”
'Something they can’t take from you'
Walking through the grounds of his farm, Nix points to the oak tree where his family would picnic, the plows his uncle used to open rows and a corn crib, built in 1910, leaning but still standing.
At its peak, Nix’s family tended to 2,000 acres of farmland, some leased and some owned. Today, he owns 60 acres.
Nix underscored land ownership as fundamental to Black independence in his 2022 interview with WUFT. He reiterated the sentiment in 2024.
“My granddad used to tell me: ‘get some dirt under your feet and something in your head, because that's something they can't take from you.’”
Nix is president of the North Central Florida Black Farmers Association, founded in 2022 to promote Black landownership and keep regional farmland profitable. It currently has 16 members. He’s active on half a dozen environmental boards and groups, among them the Rural Concerns Advisory Committee to protect agricultural and historic settlements in Alachua County.
But he’s looking for more dirt under his feet on his own farm.
Most of the area surrounding Nix’s pasture land is covered in pine trees owned by paper manufacturers. It’s routinely clearcut, hunted and unlikely to ever return to agriculture. But the 40 acres adjacent to his cows’ home are a quiet, flat oasis away from forestry operations and hunting leases.
“We used to use this field years ago when I was growing up,” he said, stepping through saw palmettos into the open expanse. A family bought it decades ago and “now they’re selling it.”
Nix hopes to buy the land and use it to grow his own hay.
While record-high land prices don’t make the purchase easy, the investment would have two payoffs. It’d save around $5,000 to $8,000 per year on hay and expand the amount of land Nix could pass on to his grandson, Keilyn Fuller.
Fuller, 23, studies at Santa Fe College and works a hospital job part-time, but drives his mud-streaked Jeep to the farm at least twice a week to feed cattle, spread hay or fix odds and ends. He plans to pursue an Agricultural Operations Management degree at UF before taking over the farm.
“It’s been in my family so long,” he said as eager cows snatched sliced bread from his hands, “I just want to continue on the legacy and try to build on what was already built.”
Nix’s Brangus cattle are heat-tolerant, gentle and always excited for mealtime. (Rose Schnabel/WUFT News)
A 'broken promise'
In 2021, Black farmers were allocated $5 billion in debt relief through the American Rescue Plan.
White farmers alleged discrimination before the funds were distributed and a Federal judge ruled in their favor. “We didn’t get debt relief and that was a broken promise,” said Boyd, whose lawsuit against the USDA on the matter will be heard by an appellate court in Washington D.C. on February 4th.
Instead, the Biden-Harris administration allocated $2.2 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act with no stipulations on race. Six months after the one-time payout was made, the Trump Administration paused IRA funding.
The administration also dismantled federal diversity and inclusion programs, longtime sources of aid for minority farmers.
To Nix, the funds, however much, were a step in the right direction.
“The only way you can fix it, the only way you can halfway make a system equal,” he said, “is to give some credibility to things that were done incorrectly in the past.”
