Where are the Black American Cheesemakers?

July 15, 2020 The Cheese Shop Of Salem

When I started searching for Black, American, artisan cheesemakers, I knew there was a possibility I wouldn’t find any. Unfortunately, that possibility became the reality. I want to note here that this does not mean there are no Black cheesemakers out there, but just that I couldn’t find them. But I mean, I definitely tried to spread my inquiries far and wide across the food industry and across the country, so not finding anyone is still significant and disquieting. Why haven’t I been able to find any Black, American, artisanal cheesemakers? I don’t have any solid answers for you. I mean, this is a small thing, right, artisanal cheesemaking, but looking at why an entire population of people is such a tiny part of our industry is a HUGE thing. To be completely honest, I don’t feel especially qualified to even toss out hypotheses, but I’ll tell you what I’ve been learning and thinking about, and maybe you’ll agree or think I’m crazy and wrong, but I’m throwing it out there. We clearly need to be interrogating this as an industry, so I’m taking a stab at it.

I initially turned to agriculture because farming and cheesemaking go hand in hand – either farmers are themselves the cheesemakers, or cheesemakers get the milk from farmers. In my preliminary research (there’s still soooooo much for me to learn here, like so much), I learned that in 1920, Black Americans owned about 14% of the farms in the US even though at the time, Black Americans made up about 10% of the population. Since then, that number has dropped to about 1.3% according to the US Department of Agriculture’s 2017 Census of Agriculture. I obviously wanted to know about why this significant drop occurred, and again many forces come into play.

One reason, according to an extremely informative article in the Guardian by Summer Sewell and a report by the USDA, Heirs’ Property and Land Fractionation: Fostering Stable Ownership to Prevent Land Loss and Abandonment, was that unclear or nonexistent wills made land ownership by the next generation almost impossible. Before 2018, if someone bequeathed you land, but didn’t have a formal will to prove it, you couldn’t get a farm number from the USDA. That farm number is essential because owners must use it to apply for loans from the USDA, the main body from which farmers receive money. No will, no farm number, no loan. And guess who received very little information about writing “lawful” wills…yep, Black farmers. The USDA estimates 80% of Black farmers’ land was lost in this way, either because the local government refused to acknowledge the rightful ownership of the land passing from one Black farmer to his/her progeny, or the Black farmer who received the land couldn’t get the loans necessary to keep the farm afloat. And everything I read made it very clear loans are absolutely essential for farmers, then and now. Not having the “proper” will was just one excuse USDA loan officers used to keep loans out of the hands of Black farmers. In fact, throughout the 1990s, John B. Boyd Jr, founder of National Black Farmers Association, lobbied to bring a loan discrimination case against the USDA, and in 1997, $1 billion was paid to 16,000 farmers whose loans had been withheld because of their race. However, discrimination persisted, and another major case was filed against the USDA for the same reason in 2010. Again, the Department had to pay up, this time $1.25 billion to 18,000 farmers.

Let’s bring this back to cheese. Black farmers’ land was taken, or they couldn’t get the loans they needed to keep their land, and thus the number of Black farmers has dwindled. Fewer farmers, fewer opportunities for cheesemaking by farmers. Of course, that is not to say all cheesemakers are farmers, but the progression from farming to cheesemaking is not even an option if Black farmers were kicked off their land or given no monetary assistance all farms require.

So this is one part of the answer to why I couldn’t find Black cheesemakers. Another reason for lack of Black cheesemakers is, naturally, our own industry of artisanal cheese. Like with farming, I am an outsider when it comes to cheesemaking. I’ve seen it done when we visit cheesemakers as a shop, and I always have great admiration for their drive, love of the product, and ability to work so freakin’ hard every, single, day. As I’ve said many times in this newsletter, I fully acknowledge I could not do what cheesemakers do – I’m too lazy. Watching and learning is the extent of my cheesemaking experience. What I do know is that like farming, starting a cheesemaking operation requires capital. We can agree that if a Black person went to get a loan for say vats, shelves, molds, and other cheesemaking equipment, they face the possiblity of discrimination that I as a White person do not have to even think about. So here again, the loan issue. Also, there is exposure. Exposure to farming, cheesemaking, cheese itself. Spring Brook Farm, makers of Reading and Tarentaise Reserve, is doing something cool here through their organization, Farms for City Kids. Students, some of whom have never been to a farm before, visit Spring Brook Farm in Reading, Vermont for a week of fun and learning, all for free. Yes, it’s just a week, but it may spark an interest in a child who later decides cheesemaking might be a cool thing to check out. Who knows, at least they had the opportunity to see it!

Here, I think we at the shop can help with exposure to cheese. Where can we give students tastes of cheeses they may not otherwise have the opportunity to try? I am a cheesemonger because of my father. He became a cheesemonger when I was thirteen and so small production, delicious cheese became a big part of my life. Without that, would I have considered a job in the cheese world? Maybe, but having so much of it around all the time certainly helped push me in the dairy direction. How can we bring that opportunity to another twelve year old in a way that’s interesting, tasty, and welcoming?

Welcoming. How can we make our overwhelmingly White industry more welcoming? I can only try to imagine what it is like to be the only Black person working in a shop where most of the customers are White and most of the people working there are White. What can we do to make our shop and other small shops like ours a comfortable place for our non-White customers and coworkers? What are the steps forward from here? More questions for which I don’t have solid answers… What I would give to be able to answer these with certainty!

While my Black American cheesemaker search was unsuccessful, it pushed me to learn more because of that. I feel as though I simply dipped my toe in an ocean of things I should already know – the history of Black farmers in the US, how to bring people into a very White industry, how to make everyone feel comfortable setting foot in our shop (when anyone can set food in our shop again, arg COVID). I have put my sources below so you can check them out if you’d like. And if you have any thoughts, any answers, any sources or details I missed, anything, please email me at info@thecheeseshopofsalem.com, because I think we will be more successful if we work on these issues together. Everyone should feel like they can eat cheese (unless you’re allergic, eek sorry!) and, ideally, everyone should feel like they have the opportunity to give cheesemaking a shot. Here’s to the future Black cheesemakers of America!

For the love of cheese and moving our industry forward,

Kiri

Sources (not in any real citation style, sorry teachers and professors!):

The Guardian –

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/why-have-americas-black-farmers-disappeared

Modern Farmer –

https://modernfarmer.com/2018/08/black-land-matters/

From Reconstruction to Deconstruction –

https://ssrn.com/abstract=1544380

USDA Census 2007 - https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2007/Online_Highlights/Fact_Sheets/Demographics/black.pdf

USDA Census 2012 –

https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2014/Highlights_Black_Farmers.pdf