The storm of Trump-imposed chaos piles upon pre-existing U.S. food supply problems, including inflation, food-insecure regions, and food shortages, but some Black farmers believe they may have a rare competitive edge amid the turmoil.
“We’re coordinating with our USDA and MDAC representative to bridge the gap and fill the void in communities,” says Dr. Shavonn Watkins, an entomologist who specializes in integrated pest management, who also runs a poultry farm on her rural Terry, Miss., property. “We could’ve raised prices, but our goal is to provide for our community. We want to make a profit, but we also want to meet people where they are, and a lot of people are struggling due to job loss and the economy. My husband and I talked about raising our prices, but we decided we’re good where we are. Hopefully it’ll bring more people to us.”
The Plucky Chickens of Mississippi
The Guardian reports that Big Egg is already making record profits off inflated prices. Mississippi-based Cal-Maine, the largest egg producer in the U.S., enjoyed a monstrous $1.2 billion profit between 2021 and 2023, long before their flocks got hit with bird flu. They issued shareholder dividends totaling $250 million in fiscal year 2023. Company filings show Cal-Maine sold 7% more eggs in 2024 compared to 2021 and tripled its profits over that period.
The Guardian noted that egg prices continued to rise in Mississippi despite that state serving as the home of Cal-Maine Foods and egg production generally rising in the state and bird flu not reaching flocks until January.
I was aware of this while I was taking pictures of Watkins’ poultry coops. I also couldn’t help but notice the health of the birds. These weren’t factory-style hens locked in a chicken-sized cage, dropping eggs into a hopper for the rest of their short, miserable lives. These birds run free on the property, and they’ve got attitude. A tiny rooster assaulted my ankles while I was snapping pictures. He was a cute little guy, probably a Polish chicken breed—the kind with a ridiculous mop of head feathers big enough to completely obscure his eyes. He’d rake my jeans and then peek out from under his plumage, lining me up for his next adorable attack. He looked like Ringo Starr.
S.D.S. Farm sells a dozen medium-sized USDA-approved brown eggs for $6.50, and a dozen large for $7. Those are the same prices you find in many grocery stores these days, if you can find eggs at all. The egg aisle at Kroger, in Jackson, Miss., frequently runs low, despite managers limiting purchases on some dairy and egg products to three per household for most of 2025.
Delivering a Bounty of Skills and Services
Watkins has a Ph.D. in agriculture, so moving into the realm of poultry wasn’t too far a jump for her. Watching for raccoons at the chicken coops may be a new experience, but it still feels familiar, she says.
“Having traveled all around the world advising farmers on crop improvement in Africa and Latin America, I decided that if I ever slow down, and I’m not spending 75% of my time in the field. I need to venture into this myself—plus it’s in my blood,” Watkins says.
There are plenty of other Black farmers in the Mississippi area practically begging to provide your veggies and produce. Rod Nelson and his father, R.D. Nelson, run R&R Farms in Magee, Miss. They offer watermelon, sweet corn, field peas, butterbeans, okra, tomatoes and squash from June through September. Like their vegetables, they also grow sugarcane with a minimum of chemical pesticides, and they process their own cane syrup for $16 a quart and $12 a pint. Try it over your waffles. You’ll love it.
In addition, they breed Angus bull yearlings to sell to other farms. But chances are you’ve never heard of Rod Nelson or his awesome cane syrup, nor of Dr. Watkins and her delicious eggs because they don’t have the brick-and-mortar presence of a Kroger or Target. You can find them through a Facebook page and the support of their community. But there’s no reason that support shouldn’t grow, especially considering the challenges Black farms face.
Climate and (of course) Racism Flummox Black Farms
“Numerous people I’ve known are getting out of (farming),” says Nelson. “I’m 42 and I’m pretty much the youngest farmer in my area. There’s one other guy who’s one year younger than me. … This year we had to put a well in to deal with the drought. We didn’t used to get droughts so bad, but I’ve never experienced a drought like the one a year ago.
Aside from financial hardship, Nelson says Mississippi weather is the most ferocious it’s been in his 20 plus years of farming, but even that’s not enough to kill a business if he could get more produce to the people who need it.
“Farms are a dying industry in many places, but they don’t have to be. We got the capability to do a lot more, [and] … Black farmers would really appreciate your business.”
The playing field for Black farmers was never fair. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a long and sordid history of locking them out of federal loans, grants, and other assistance that saved countless generations of white farmers from the ravages of weather and bad timing.
Leaving Black farmers to fend for themselves against the elements while coddling white families decimated Black-owned farmland in the U.S. In 1910, Black farmers owned 16 million acres of U.S. farmland. By 2017, that number dropped to just 2.9 million acres, or 0.32% of U.S. farmland. The USDA only recently admitted wrongdoing and paid $2 billion to address the discrimination. But then, one week after Trump’s inauguration, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo freezing spending on federal loans and grants, including funding for programs supporting small farmers. It rescinded the memo after an army of attorneys general filed suit, but the Trump administration then dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had a habit of buying produce from U.S. farmers to provide humanitarian food aid to people across the planet. This now leaves grain and produce sitting idle in agriculture-heavy states like Kansas, and it abruptly halted USAID-related fish and rice production in Mississippi.
Another Struggle: Too Small to Get Bigger
Marquitrice Mangham runs the Farmacy Marketplace grocery store in the underserved town of Webb, Miss. Open since 2022, her store thrived in the yawning Delta food desert and Mangham is now opening an additional store in Oakland, Miss. She also runs a mobile grocery that serves food insecure areas all over the Mississippi’s Delta. Mangham said she turns to small local farmers to supplement her stock, but she believes Black farmers don’t currently have the capacity to reach their full potential. This, she says, is a travesty in Mississippi, which is one of the most fertile regions on the planet. Sources say only 3% to 5% of what Black farmers in Mississippi produce goes to commercial markets.
“I rely on Black farmers for some of my stock, but they can’t provide the volume that we need, as retailers, year-round,” Mangham says. “But we are trying to build that, and it’s great to consider integrating them into our supply chain. There are organizations out there trying to help Black farmers get to the point where they’re consistently supplying stores, but it takes time. And it’s probably going to take more time now that some of that (federal) funding is going away.”
Mangham adds the nation could not only save money but would energize local economies by “building Black farmers up” with the resources they need. This includes training and technology to meet federal and state regulations and federal stipulations on water quality and equipment.
“There’s a number of things you need to build capacity and grow healthy food, and small Black farmers just don’t currently have the resources to do that. And there aren’t many revenue sources they can turn to for that,” she says.
Hug a Small Farmer
Considering the circumstances and the need to make a stand in food insecure areas, now would be an excellent time to patronize your local farm through direct-to-consumer markets (i.e. Community Supported Agriculture programs, Farmers Markets, Farm Stand and U-Pick services). Customers can also opt for wholesale opportunities including farm-to-school programs, food hubs, and cooperatives.
Thankfully, that’s where you come in—you and your newfound indignation at oversized grocery chains and your vigorous determination to invest in your community. Today, BGX is providing a helpful list of Black farmers like Dr. Watson and Rod Nelson, and many others, just so you can make some calls and grab yourself a healthy bushel of greens while giving an equally healthy boost to the regional economy. We hope readers will use this resource to reclaim at least some food from big chains—and go hug a small farmer for us.