The National Farm Security Plan: What Does It Mean for Black America and Black Farmers?

The National Farm Security Plan: What Does It Mean for Black America and Black Farmers?

The USDA just launched a National Farm Security Action Plan, framing America’s food system as a national security issue. The government is finally acknowledging that foreign land ownership, compromised supply chains, and manipulation of nutrition programs are strategic threats. And they’re absolutely right. Food, land, and production are not just economic factors—they are the foundation of sovereignty. While the federal government mobilizes to protect its agricultural base, Black leadership in America remains largely silent about the vulnerability of our own food chain. The truth is, Black America doesn’t have one.

If you can’t control what you eat, where it comes from, or how it’s distributed, then you are dependent. And dependence, by definition, is not power. You cannot claim economic independence when you don’t own the land under your feet. You cannot demand better health outcomes while being fed by corporations who profit from your sickness. And you cannot build generational wealth when your role in the economy is limited to consumption, not production. These aren’t theoretical arguments. They are real-world outcomes.

In Black communities across America, the results are plain to see. We lead the nation in diet-related illnesses. We own a microscopic fraction of farmland. Our children are raised in food deserts with more liquor stores than grocery stores. Meanwhile, we hold endless community meetings, protests, and press conferences—none of which result in one acre of land acquired or one distribution center built. It doesn’t take a genius to see why the system is broken. It just takes someone willing to ask who benefits from us staying out of the supply chain.

The USDA’s plan might be politically motivated, but it’s grounded in a fundamental truth: whoever controls the food, controls the people. That’s why they’re taking steps to protect American soil, strengthen domestic food supply lines, and eliminate foreign threats. Now ask yourself: where is our plan?

You don’t get economic equity from hashtags. You get it from owning land, growing food, and feeding your own people. That’s the beginning of true wealth and health. But Black leadership continues to invest in what looks good on paper instead of what works in practice. There’s no national push to support Black farmers. No strategy to create local food cooperatives or secure distribution rights. No urgency to reclaim agricultural knowledge or pass it on to the next generation. Instead, we wait for government grants and nonprofit partnerships, mistaking access for ownership.

You can’t protect a community if you can’t feed it. You can’t liberate a people who rely on their oppressor for nourishment. And you can’t build an independent Black economy when everything we consume is produced and owned by someone else. The federal government is responding to threats by building supply chain security. Meanwhile, our leaders respond to our own food crisis with silence, distractions, or deflections.

Thomas Sowell once said, “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” And yet, that’s where we are. Black America continues to pay the price—with our health, our wealth, and our children’s future—while those we elect, appoint, and applaud avoid the consequences of ignoring the obvious.

The National Farm Security Plan is about protecting what matters most. Until we in Black America treat food, land, and production the same way, we’ll remain at the mercy of a system that was never built to feed us in the first place