As a community, farmers in the United States often face challenges that are out of their control, such as drought, livestock disease, and global pandemics like COVID-19. For Black farmers, says Loren Henderson, associate professor of public policy, these obstacles are compounded by land theft, inadequate succession planning, systemic racism, and discriminatory U.S. Department of Agriculture policies and practices. As a result, Black farmers today are facing extinction. Henderson was featured on The Academic Minute to talk about her research.

Henderson, who will be the first African American director of UMBC’s School of Public Policy this fall, is the author of Race, Ethnicity, and the COVID-19 Pandemic(University of Cincinnati Press, 2023). She began researching how Black farmers were faring amid these hurdles during COVID-19. Henderson conducted 50 in-depth virtual interviews with Black farmers in the U.S. The project addressed Black farmers’ expertise and experiences in establishing and maintaining farms under the onslaught of systemic racism and COVID-19. 

“Additionally, I asked the farmers about their use of governmental and private financial resources and their understanding of social policies that impact their ability to establish or maintain their farms,” Henderson shares with Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and host of The Academic Minute, a daily show featuring faculty from colleges and universities worldwide speaking about their cutting-edge research.

UMBC Academic Minute episodes

Henderson joins other UMBC scholars in sharing the latest research in media and communication studies; modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; language, literacy, and culture; philosophy; gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; and history. This series is republished on NPR podcasts and Inside Higher Ed.

Learn more about Loren Henderson’s research

• Minority Landowner Magazine podcast (2023)
• “Black Mothers in Racially Segregated Neighborhoods Embodying Structural Violence: PTSD and Depressive Symptoms on the South Side of Chicago,” Journal of Ethnic and Health Disparities (2023) 
• “Black mothers trapped in unsafe neighborhoods signal the stressful health toll of gun violence in the U.S.,” The Conversation (2023)  
• Diversity in Organizations: A Critical Examination (New York: Routledge, 2015)

Get to know UMBC’s School of Public Policy.