Kendrick Ransome
Farm to School to Healthcare promotes healthy eating and outdoor recreation through community gardens and youth-led farmers' markets in Hertford County, NC.
Black Farming Incubator Wants To Bring Equity To Industry In NC
North Carolina Public Radio | By Naomi Prioleau
Published December 30, 2021 at 12:28 PM EST
A Black farming incubator in Edgecombe County wants to help other aspiring Black farmers learn about agriculture.
The goal of the incubator is to bring racial equity to eastern North Carolina through hands-on experiences, produce boxes and farming workshops.
Kendrick Ransome is a Black farmer with Golden Organic Farms that is responsible for the incubator. Ransome said equity is important in the agriculture industry, especially for Black farmers.
“When we talk about equity, we're talking about building our farms up first,” he said. “I have a 100-year family farm and you look at my infrastructure compared to another white farmer who's always been farming for 100 years, the infrastructure pieces are totally different. We're talking about focusing on us what we can do to help improve our situations.”
A recent report from Modern Farmer magazine showed that over the last century, Black farmers have lost 90 percent of their land.
Roughly, 98% of all farmland in the U.S. belongs to white landowners according to a 2020 report from the National Young Farmers Coalition.
Ransome said Black people who get into agriculture cannot only help reverse those statistics, but it will also help to heal the Black community.
"The mental health aspect of just having your hands in soil, it is eliminating depression, eliminating a lot of anxiety, a lot of anger,” he said. “Connecting with our souls you know through nature and understanding our bodies is another way that we can all heal."
Ransome says the incubator will have workshops, equipment sharing programs and hands on experiences and opportunities for aspiring Black farmers.
He hopes to have it up and running by the spring.
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From N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
October 9, 2020
Sometimes passion fuels us to explore a new career or hobby that we end up falling in love with. Although he did not grow up farming,
Kendrick Ransome, owner of Golden Organic Farm LLC in Pinetops, NC loves agriculture and the impact he has on the world through it. Kendrick has been farming since 2018, but his families history with farming reaches far beyond that.
“This current farmland has been in my family for about 100 years,” he said, “my great grandfather raised hogs and various vegetables here and I originally took it over because I wanted to have more control over my families food source and I ended up really enjoying it.”
Today, Golden Organic Farm grows a variety of fruits and vegetables, including onions, peppers, tomatoes, collards, watermelon, cantaloupe and kale.
“Kale has been a pretty recent crop for us,” Kendrick said, “I really like the way that it grows as well as its easy marketability.”
Kendrick starts each day before the sun rises by feeding the livestock and working the garden until lunchtime. After lunch, he makes deliveries to his customers and Vidant Health Hospital before heading back home to continue working the garden until bedtime.
“It’s an all day job for sure and it is constantly a juggle,” he said, “the whole package of farming is pretty intense because you don’t just plant and harvest the crops, but you also have to market the products and promote your brand at the same time.”
Despite the hard work, he says that promoting health and seeing people inspired by his work is enough motivation to keep him going day after day. Products from Golden Organic Farm can be found on their online portal as well as through their CSA program.
“We have worked with farmers markets in the past, but lately we have been marketing directly to consumers to establish and build those relationships,” he said.
In addition to marketing directly to consumers, Kendrick works with Down East Partnership for Children to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to school-aged kids.
“The program means a lot to me because my kids are included in it,” he says, “and it means a lot to be a part of the movement that is providing healthy foods for kids in school on a regular basis.”
As stated above, Kendrick also provides his fruit and vegetable products to Vidant Hospital to promote healthy eating among patients and staff.
“Nothing comes easy in this life, especially not farming,” he said, “it requires a lot of hard work and patience but brings a lot of joy at the end of the day.” In the future, Golden Organics hopes to become an incubator for young farmers, especially Black farmers, and create a market for them to work in.
“Finding your platform and voice as a young person can be difficult, especially in the agriculture industry,” Kendrick said, “I hope to make that process easier by not only helping kids gain experience and reach their dreams in farming, but by also giving them a platform where they can do that.”