The United States’ agricultural system was built on the backs of enslaved persons. Yet today, only 1.3 percent of farmers are Black and they own less than 1 percent of the nation’s farmland. The nonprofit Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture (CCUA), in partnership with the Columbia Farmers Market and Sustainable Farms & Communities, is on a mission to change this through the Henry Kirklin Black Farmer Scholarship Fund.
Henry Kirklin was an influential farmer and Boone County resident. “Kirklin was born into slavery just a few years before emancipation, so in the early 1860s. And when he was five years old, he was freed,” Bill Polansky, executive director of the CCUA, says. He never had any formal schooling, but began working in greenhouses and quickly showed a knack for gardening, eventually becoming a greenhouse supervisor at one of Mizzou’s research labs. “The professor found that Kirklin was so good with pruning and grafting plants that they wanted him to teach the classes. And so, of course, he was Black, and it was the 1800s,” Polanksy says. “The students were white males, so they actually had him teach the students outside on the steps of the building, because they wouldn’t let him inside to teach.”
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After many years at Mizzou, Kirklin was able to purchase his own land and became a successful farmer. He sold produce to grocers, restaurants and the dining halls on campus. Later in life, he toured various universities, sharing his technical knowledge; he even met and advised Booker T. Washington. “He was a huge success story of somebody who was born into slavery and was able to really make quite a living for himself and his family,” Polansky says. “However, his history…had sort of been forgotten. You can’t really go anywhere and learn about who he was.”
The CCUA has sought to honor and remember Kirklin in a variety of ways. In partnership with the Boone County Historical Society, they located Kirklin’s unmarked grave and held a ceremony to install a proper headstone. The nonprofit also started the fund for aspiring Black farmers in his name in 2020. “We’re just trying to bring more equity to the food system we’re in by having better representation in our growers,” Polansky says.
The scholarship is designed for people who identify as Black, have never extensively farmed before and are farming or plan to farm in Missouri. Successful applicants receive $3,000 to support their business plans. “If you are a beginning Black farmer, and you want help with your farming business, we would like to give you some money,” Polanksy says. So far, the grant has funded five aspiring farmers.
Polansky recognizes that there are many barriers to entry for Black farmers that this grant can’t solve on its own. Farming’s high start-up cost, with the large amount of capital needed to purchase equipment, seeds and land, is one issue. “Getting into farming is hard enough as it is, but there’s obviously all of the history and the barriers that people of color have faced,” Polansky adds. In addition to these grants, the CCUA stays in touch with past grant recipients and serves as a resource, offering support and technical advice when needed.
In the future, the CCUA would love to offer more grants and take the program statewide. “We’re still kind of searching for how we can be more impactful and how this can continue to improve what our food system looks like and give people opportunities.”
To learn more about the CCUA or donate to the Henry Kirklin fund, visit columbiaurbanag.org.
