U.S. Farmer Inclusion Program

The Farmer Inclusion Program is N4J’s core U.S. initiative, currently active in North Carolina. Through this work, we work with Black, Indigenous, and other farmers of color, to increase access to financial and technical resources for climate resilience, climate mitigation, and regenerative agriculture.

A pdf of this Farmer Inclusion Program Overview can be found here.

Puede leer la descripción del Programa para la Inclusión de Agricultores aquí.

What We Do

  • Knowledge sharing. We facilitate peer-to-peer networks, and we compensate farmers, local subject-matter experts, and local partners for sharing their time, networks, and expertise with us and others.
  • For-us-by-us networks. We support practice-based implementing networks that provide and share knowledge, technical resources, and contract-based funding opportunities for regenerative agriculture, climate resilience, and climate mitigation.
  • Advocacy capacity. We look to support farmers’ ability to speak collectively or on behalf of other farmers and address discriminatory practices that historically and currently exclude Black, Indigenous, and other farmers of color from accessing existing funding and support.
Farmer Inclusion

While Black and Indigenous communities have a long history with regenerative agricultural practices, they face some of the highest barriers to maintaining access to their land and to continued investment in these practices on their farms. Historically, Black farmers held almost 25% of farms in North Carolina; now it’s 3%, or less than 1,500 farms. At the same time, with less than 2% of U.S. land farmed as organic (and even less with regenerative or restorative practices), industrial agriculture contributes to an overwhelming amount of climate emissions; habitat loss; soil erosion; and water, land, and air pollution—impacting frontline farming communities.

The Farmer Inclusion Program seeks to increase Black and Indigenous farmers’ access to resources and strengthen climate resilience through social justice approaches and a focus on regenerative agriculture.

Our Approach

Practice-Based Networks for Peer-to-Peer Learning and Wrap-Around Technical Assistance

N4J supports networks of farmers who want to implement specific regenerative agriculture practices such as cover crops, field borders, no till fields, or prescribed grazing. These practice-based networks will receive:

  • Financial support and subject-matter expert technical support for implementing new approaches on their own farms
  • Compensation for their input and insights as they network and share lessons learned from their farm with other farmers


The North Carolina agricultural justice landscape is diverse and well-established and N4J’s goal is to be additive. When possible, we support existing networks through local partners.

Subject-Matter Experts and Local Partners

N4J works through subject-matter experts and local partners. We seek mutually beneficial partnerships and support to:

  • Increase farmer engagement and representation and recruit new producers, growers, and farmers to practice-based networks
  • Facilitate network meetings and support farmer networks with tailored technical resources
  • Lead movement-building and joint advocacy, highlighting Black, Indigenous, and other farmers of color and their concerns

Let’s Talk About It! Please contact us via this form with questions and comments if you are interested in joining a network or engaging as a subject-matter expert.

The Team

This work is made possible through partnerships with the US Department of Agriculture, The Kenan Charitable Trust, The Walmart Foundation, and other donors.

Resources

The following Resources section includes a collection of U.S. government publications, news articles, scholarly publications, and listings of Black farmers and relevant markets. We will periodically update this collection. You can also read more about our approach to this important issue in this this blog post.

Resources