Denise Greer Jamerson doesn’t have banker’s hours. Neither does her father, husband, or son. Theirs is a multi-family commitment not just to make sure that their six-generation farm survives but to also help other families like theirs find support that has been lacking in income, resources, lending, and investment.
No matter how much it takes.
“This is in me,” Jamerson told American Farmland Owner as the rain fell on her family’s farm in Lyles Station near Princeton, Indiana. “This is my heart, you know.”
It has been too dry there lately, so that rain was welcome.
LEARN MORE: Princeton, Indiana, has a population of approximately 8,300 people and is the largest town in Gibson County.
Jamerson is part of two farming operations, one by ancestry and the other begun by her husband and son. Greer Farms is the original. It has survived weather, economic strain, and war for nearly 170 years. The farm pre-dates the Civil War and is the last remaining African American settlement in Indiana.
RELATED: This interview with WISH-TV in Indianapolis, Indiana, explains the history of Lyles Station.
Jamerson’s father, Norman Greer, is the patriarch of the operation. He is 87 years old but still drives his John Deere through the historic farmland tending to the corn and beans.
“The land that Greer Farms is on has been in my family since 1855. Farming is in our blood. My dad has been a commodity farmer since the 1960s, and my uncles grew and sold produce like watermelons and cantaloupe,” Jamerson told My Indiana Home in a 2021 article about the family’s history.
The newest aspect of the family’s farming commitment is Legacy Taste of the Garden. The operation began in 2021.
Jamerson’s son, DeAnthony, grows that enterprise. It is driven by the family’s desire for fresh, nutritious produce for the region.
The family lays out the purpose like this:
“Legacy’s mission is to Empower Indiana BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) farmers, individuals and communities to become self-sustaining and economically sound through Education, Networking, and Providing Information toward a Healthy, Sustainable, Empowered Life. We provide training on obtaining a lifestyle in agriculture, entrepreneurship, and self-sustainability.”
To discuss the two farm operations would be overlooking much of what the family does outside its agricultural productions. Legacy Taste of the Garden doesn’t just grow tomatoes, corn, greens, watermelon, and cantaloupe to sell at its farm stand or area farmers’ markets.
It also distributes the produce to food pantries and schools. The family focuses on opportunities in various ways: nutrition and sustainability, both environmentally and financially.
“When you go from having close to a million African American farmers in the 1920s to where we’re roughly 40,000 African American farmers today…this is a system that is not geared for the promotion of Black farmers,” John Jamerson, Denise’s husband, told Farm Aid in a profile piece that the organization did on the family’s commitment to supporting other Black farmers across the country.
John Jamerson travels the country and counsels other Black farmers (and potential farmers) on how to find resources to support development and growth. He also takes part in monthly Zoom calls with other farmers and community, academic, and agricultural leaders where they share knowledge on what it takes for smaller family farms to survive and thrive.
The outreach hopes to help African American farmers overcome discrimination and hardships that have hampered their livelihoods for generations.
“The 1999 lawsuit alleged that in myriad ways the agency discriminated against Black farmers resulting in uneven distribution of farm loans and assistance. This caused many Black farmers to lose their land and farms to foreclosure,” a National Public Radio story reported in 2023 about the class action lawsuit on behalf of farmers like Lucious Abrams of Georgia.
Abrams said that he couldn’t get the federal loan that he needed to buy the seeds for the coming year’s crop. Read Abrams’ story in the NPR report here.
RELATED: The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act passed during the Biden-Harris administration provided $2.2 billion in financial assistance to 43,000 farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners. The payments were designed to offset some of the economic suffering that generations had endured in the USDA’s farm lending programs.
Denise Jamerson said that too often Black farm families don’t know what resources are available. The Inflation Reduction Act can provide some support. “Being there to say, ‘It’s o.k. This will work. This is going to work,’” she said of the advice that she and her husband try to share with other farm families as they work to navigate the complexities of farming.
Her family has persisted for six generations through trial and error, ups and downs. She wants the family’s legacy to be to keep the farm diverse, so that several income streams support its financial foundation. But she also wants the family outreach to stretch to as many others as possible, so other families can also spread roots in the industry.
“Farming has done me, has done us well,” she said, “I tell people our legacy is not money. It's not the money. It is the relationships, and the family, and the wealth of love, and community.”
A community that grows far beyond the Jamerson-Greer fields in Indiana.
