It is my distinct joy to honor brilliant Black women and other brilliant women of color across our Diaspora who will leave lasting legacies as agriculture, farming, food justice, gardening, homesteading, land reclamation, land sovereignty, and ranching champions through the Sisters and Soil story series.
Ivy Leaf Farms: Reimagining Urban Agriculture in Houston
Houston is known as the "Bayou City" because of the number of low lying areas of bayous, marshes, and swamps that mark its immense cityscape. There may be more than a few individuals who would not initially identify such areas as suitable, let alone ideal, for sustained farming inside of the corporate limits of the fourth largest city in the country. They only need to complete a tour with Ms. Ivy Walls on her Ivy Leaf Farms near the historic and predominantly Black Sunnyside community to deeply reimagine the appearances and feel of Black urban farms and homesteads.
Ivy Leaf was one of several community gardens and farms featured as rural and urban farm tour locations during the Black Urban Growers (BUGs) 12th annual Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners national conference. The proud Prairie View A & M University alumnus matches her poise with her technical knowledge and work ethic when she shares the details of how her family has made key adjustments to maintain their productivity over two decades in direct opposition to increased industrialization.
"The land was broken up into heir properties that were five to ten acres in size. My parents purchased this five acre lot for $20,000. Now it's $300,000 an acre. (Ivy referred to the current price per acre value.) They're (the Walls' white Canadian neighbors) trying to sell this 2.5 Acres right here behind us for $660,000. So, when you think about that, one of my biggest focuses lately has been protecting the homesteading lifestyle because it's for the Black and Brown folks. The people who have purchased their acre next door and who still have it. The Hispanic folks over there have dancing horses. They have an arena back there. They have their own culture. In this whole neighborhood there's a culture of riding horses. In Sunnyside we petitioned for horse lanes instead of bike lanes because the children ride the horses everywhere. There's just this agricultural feel on the south side and the north side of Houston. I've been working with the city and (Harris) county officials because there's no urban agriculture tax valuation. That means that we're getting taxed at residential or commercial rates. There are farmers who are paying $5,000 a month for water just to keep their fields irrigated. There are folks who have already been priced out of their land ownership and have had to go lease, rent, or buy. There is industrialization happening around here. We're getting cement plants. We're getting truck yards. We're getting random businesses. A lot of money is coming in very quickly. And so we're just working on trying to get some urban agriculture tax valuation. Back in the day, you could get with your neighbor and you all could bail hay together. We used to do that with a neighbor and our taxes were $300. Now they're upwards of $18,000 to $20,000. They are being increased each year as the values of these properties are being increased."
Ms. Erica Bush asked, "I'm sure you're anticipating that after the (Presidential) elections that the aggression in this area is going to pick up, right?"
"I would say that Houston is a blue city surrounded by red folks. We're surrounded by red. Houston has a luxury. We've had a Black mayor. We've had a gay mayor. We've had a woman to serve as mayor. Houston is a beautiful place to live. I do believe that there will be an aggressive turn. What I tell folks is that I've lived in Texas my whole life. Texas is already what they (white Republicans) want America to look like."
"I would say that the folks who are not in the moment of progress will continue to make their own prisons."
"When you purchased a lot in the Black neighborhoods, you purchased the home and the acre next door. So, a lot of Black people have received their reparations through the sale of their land through the city of Houston."
