RE-ENTERING AFRICAN-AMERICAN FARMERS: RECENT TRENDS AND A POLICY RATIONALE

Today, there are only about 15,000 black farmers in the United States. Declining by 98 percent since 1920, black farmers have suffered losses attributable to public policy, economic pressures, and racial oppression. All of these factors must be addressed if African-American farmers are to survive. In this paper, we use Census of Agriculture data and a follow-on survey in one Mississippi Delta county to review the current situation of black farmers. We introduce the concept of "re-entering farmers" to suggest that a significant number of black farmers, who are not defined as "farmers" by the Census, still own land and want to farm again. The first section of the paper provides a brief overview of the historical and current trends of black farmers in the United States. The second section discusses Delta County, drawing upon our survey and the Census of Agriculture. The third section discusses the implications of civil rights violations by the former Farmers Home Administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Finally, we conclude with a policy recommendation to slow the drastic decline of African-American farmers.Afro-American farmers--Mississippi, Land use, Rural--Mississippi, Afro-American farmers--Civil rights--United States, Afro-American farmers--Government policy--United States, Agriculture and state--United States, Farms, Size of--Southern States, Discrimination in financial services--United States, Agrarian structure--United States--Southern States, Farm Management, Labor and Human Capital, Land Economics/Use,

THE DECLINE (AND REVIVAL?) OF BLACK FARMERS AND RURAL LANDOWNERS: A REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH LITERATURE

African-Americans as a group went from owning almost no land in the United States after the Civil War to peaking at 15 million acres by 1920. In that year, 14% of all US farmers were black. Of these 926,000 black farmers, all but 10,000 were in the South. By 1997, fewer than 20,000, or 1% of all farmers, were black, and they owned only about two million acres. The loss of landownership and farming operations has contributed to the poverty of many rural communities in the South. This paper consists of a review of 74 journal articles, reports, chapters, and books on African-Americans and farming, comprising most of the scholarly literature on the issue published since 1971. One of the commonalities in the literature is the sense of hopelessness in stemming the tide of black land loss. On the other hand, another commonality is the view that the black farmer and rural landowner must be sustained, even brought back. Among the studies are those claiming that landowners make up the backbone of civic and political life in rural black communities. Other advantages of landownership include increased personal pride, higher educational achievement of children, and an overall better sense of wellbeing. Most of the works offer similar perspectives of the decline of blacks in farming, and suggested solutions also are often repeated in these works. But there are differences in the works, and together they cover a wide range of issues that differentiate black farmers by sub-region, state, farm size, tenure, crops raised, and social and economic situation.Afro-American farmers -- Bibliography, Afro-American farmers -- Government policy -- United States -- Bibliography, Afro-American landowners -- Bibliography, Farm ownership -- United States -- Bibliography, Agrarian structure -- United States -- Bibliography, Labor and Human Capital, Land Economics/Use,

An Examination of Travel Effects on Performance Outcomes in Major League Soccer

The home advantage (HA) is a well-documented phenomenon across team sports, including association football (soccer). The effects of travel play a role in the HA, although the nature in which travel affects performance is still unknown. Match data from Major League Soccer (MLS) were used to investigate the role that crowd factors, travel, and team quality play in the HA. The results demonstrated the negative effect of a connecting flight by the visiting team on match outcomes. Also, in comparison to drawn matches, home team wins and losses increased when traveling east

Fomenting Democracy: The Case for Federal – Local Cooperation

This essay profiles a program in a rural, black Mississippi community called Youth-in-Agriculture. This case study of Mileston, Mississippi depicts the collaborative efforts of the federal government and community organizations through nearly a century. This essay also describes the ways in which the Trump administration could most support agricultural communities like Mileston, MS

The Loss and Persistence of Black-Owned Farms and Farmland: A Review of the Research Literature and Its Implications

This paper reviews 115 articles and books published since 1971 that comprise almost all of the scholarly research on black farmers and land loss. It provides a general overview as well as discussion of the benefits of landownership for the black community. Several causes of black land and farm loss are reviewed: forced sales due to heir property, lack of access to government programs, and continuing racial discrimination by lenders and government agencies. A number of the works cited provide possible ways to slow the loss of black-owned land, including strategies to increase the profitability of individual farms and increased finding of programs (e.g., by 1890 land grant universities and community-based organizations) that provide assistance to small-scale, limited-resource farmers. The paper concludes with suggestions for additional research and legislative action

Black Agrarianism: The Significance of African American Landownership in the Rural South

Agrarianism is important in the American mythos. Land represents both a set of values and a store of wealth. In this article, we ask how land matters in the lives of rural, southern, Black farmland owners. Drawing on 34 interviews, we argue that, since the end of slavery, land has continued to operate as a site of racialized exclusion. Local white elites limit Black farmers’ access to landownership through discriminatory lending practices. At the same time, Black farmland owners articulate an ethos in which land is a source of freedom, pride, and belonging. This we term “Black agrarianism.” They cultivate resistance to the legacies of slavery and sharecropping and contemporary practices of social closure. These Black farmland owners, then, view land as protection from white domination. Thus, we demonstrate how landownership is a site for the re‐creation of racial hierarchy in the contemporary period while also offering the potential for resistance and emancipation.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146353/1/ruso12208_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146353/2/ruso12208.pd

Multiplicity of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells: Finding the Right Route to Therapy

Over the last decade, the acceleration in the clinical use of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) has been nothing short of spectacular. Perhaps most surprising is how little we know about the “MSC product.” Although MSCs are being delivered to patients at an alarming rate, the regulatory requirements for MSC therapies (for example in terms of quality assurance and quality control) are nowhere near the expectations of traditional pharmaceuticals. That said, the standards that define a chemical compound or purified recombinant protein cannot be applied with the same stringency to a cell-based therapy. Biological processes are dynamic, adaptive and variable. Heterogeneity will always exist or emerge within even the most rigorously sorted clonal cell populations. With MSCs, perhaps more so than any other therapeutic cell, heterogeneity pervades at multiple levels, from the sample source to the single cell. The research and clinical communities collectively need to recognize and take steps to address this troublesome truth, to ensure that the promise of MSC-based therapies is fulfilled

Thermal decomposition and gasification of biomass pyrolysis gases using a hot bed of waste derived pyrolysis char

Chars produced from the pyrolysis of different waste materials have been investigated in terms of their use as a catalyst for the catalytic cracking of biomass pyrolysis gases during the two-stage pyrolysis-gasification of biomass. The chars were produced from the pyrolysis of waste tyres, refused derived fuel and biomass in the form of date stones. The results showed that the hydrocarbon tar yields decreased significantly with all the char materials used in comparison to the non-char catalytic experiments. For example, at a cracking temperature of 800 °C, the total product hydrocarbon tar yield decreased by 70% with tyre char, 50% with RDF char and 9% with biomass date stones char compared to that without char. There was a consequent increase in total gas yield. Analysis of the tar composition showed that the content of phenolic compounds decreased and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons increased in the product tar at higher char temperatures

Minimal information for studies of extracellular vesicles 2018 (MISEV2018):a position statement of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles and update of the MISEV2014 guidelines

The last decade has seen a sharp increase in the number of scientific publications describing physiological and pathological functions of extracellular vesicles (EVs), a collective term covering various subtypes of cell-released, membranous structures, called exosomes, microvesicles, microparticles, ectosomes, oncosomes, apoptotic bodies, and many other names. However, specific issues arise when working with these entities, whose size and amount often make them difficult to obtain as relatively pure preparations, and to characterize properly. The International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) proposed Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles (“MISEV”) guidelines for the field in 2014. We now update these “MISEV2014” guidelines based on evolution of the collective knowledge in the last four years. An important point to consider is that ascribing a specific function to EVs in general, or to subtypes of EVs, requires reporting of specific information beyond mere description of function in a crude, potentially contaminated, and heterogeneous preparation. For example, claims that exosomes are endowed with exquisite and specific activities remain difficult to support experimentally, given our still limited knowledge of their specific molecular machineries of biogenesis and release, as compared with other biophysically similar EVs. The MISEV2018 guidelines include tables and outlines of suggested protocols and steps to follow to document specific EV-associated functional activities. Finally, a checklist is provided with summaries of key points