By — Ashley Moss/KFOR
HOLDENVILLE, Okla. (KFOR) – In our United Voice series, we’re shining a spotlight on the plight of Black farmers in Oklahoma.
Once a thriving industry, today there are fewer than two thousand Black farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers across the state, and even fewer make a profit.
George Roberts said he and his family might represent the last, Black-owned farm in Holdenville.
“[We] fit into the 1 percent that’s left in the U.S.,” he said of the Circle ‘R’ Ranch.
“We’re the fly in the buttermilk [and] it’s challenging, trying to be a Black farmer … I would say the United States, but especially Oklahoma.”
His family has their original forty acres they were granted as a freed family after slavery.