DEL MONTE That’s the quiet truth underneath the news that Del Monte Foods filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2025. Chapter 11 doesn’t necessarily mean a company shuts down overnight, but it does allow companies to ask the court to cancel certain ongoing contracts if keeping them would threaten the business.
For peach growers, that legal detail matters. Orchards take years to produce profitable fruit, which means farmers invest heavily long before harvest ever pays them back. Contracts with processors are often what allow growers to secure loans, buy equipment, and keep their farms running.
And when a buyer wobbles, the fruit keeps growing whether the contract exists or not.

The Black Agrarian Directory was created to help Black farmers, growers, educators, and agricultural professionals find each other again. For too long, the work has been happening in isolation—across states, specialties, and communities. This directory builds the missing connections by mapping the ecosystem of Black agriculture in real time, helping growers collaborate, share knowledge, and strengthen the future of our food systems.

Cotton is not the enemy. Exploitation is. For Black agrarians, cotton has always been more than a crop — it’s quilts that mapped our freedom, clothes that carried our dignity, and soil that still holds our stories. Today, genetically modified cotton is praised for reducing pesticide use and boosting yields, but it also raises questions about seed sovereignty, health equity, and who controls our future. By grounding this conversation in both science and history, we can reclaim our narrative: honoring our past while cultivating a future where cotton uplifts, rather than binds, our communities.

Whether you're growing tomatoes in clay soil or flipping philodendrons on Etsy—getting a USDA farm number makes it real in the government’s eyes.”
— Erica Plants, Plant and Heal Co.