Overview

The Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference is an annual gathering to enhance the critical relationship between food and health in the Black community by empowering growers, eaters and activists.  The conference strengthens networks and inspires new ideas among people working across disciplines to address the food-related issues that contribute to inequities in health, wealth and justice in black communities.  These inequities are well documented:

Our farmers are in peril:

1. •In 1920, over 14% of U.S, farmers were African American.[i]
   

2. •In 2007, less than 2% of U.S. farmers are African American.[ii]
   

3. •Only 110 of more than 56,000 farmers in New York State are African American.[iii]
   

Our communities are malnourished:

1. •Nationally, the typical low-income neighborhood has 30 percent fewer supermarkets than higher-income neighborhoods. [iv]
   

Our health is suffering:

1. •Nearly 50% of African American children will develop diabetes at some point in their lives.[v]
   

2. •About four out of five African American women are overweight or obese.[vi]
   In 2007, African Americans were 1.4 times as likely to be obese as Non- Hispanic Whites.[vii]
   

3. •Deaths from heart disease and stroke are almost twice the rate for African Americans as compared to Whites.[viii]
   

2010 Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference

Our first annual conference drew more than 500 attendees and featured keynote speaker Will Allen, MacArthur Fellow and Growing Power, Inc. Founder and CEO.  Download our 2010 Conference Journal to read more about last year’s event by clicking on the attachment below.