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W ord is getting around about UAPB’s “Keeping it in the Family” Sustainable Forestry and Land Retention Program.
The program is aimed at helping Black landowners and those with limited resources to hang on to the land that has been passed down to them. A story in Sunday’s Pine Bluff Commercial told of how an African American lawyer, whose academic career came through UAPB, just discovered the school’s program and is now on a mission to help others as he helps himself and his family.
The interesting part is that the lawyer is 74 and now retired, and he says he now understands better how he can be of assistance to others in these matters.
“I believe the timing was divine,” said the retiree, Woodson Walker. “Here I was looking for options to revitalize our land, which had been left dormant. And just by chance, by word of mouth, I hear about UAPB’s ‘Keeping it in the Family’ Program, which helps small landowners preserve their family land for future generations.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Walker said his first foray into the program was to be invited to a three-day conference in Texas.
“There, my eyes were opened to just how relevant this topic is,” he said. “There is a real push to ensure African Americans are retaining their land and enhancing its sustainability. I was quite overwhelmed by the amount of resources and assistance available through organizations such as the Sustainable Forestry and Land Retention Network.”
The UAPB team got together with Walker and helped him put together a plan for his land, leading him to expand a beef cattle operation.
“I am now aware of the U.S. Department of Agriculture programs I can take advantage of for implementing conservation practices in alignment with my family’s goals for the farm,” he said.
Copy, paste, copy paste. That’s what the folks in the program would no doubt like to see, with other people in Walker’s shoes becoming aware of the help the university has to offer and the services the individuals can avail themselves of.
Walker has gone so far as to create a nonprofit organization to raise money to pay for attorney fees for people dealing with such issues.
“My mission is to ensure Black landowners have the legal means to actively manage and profit from their land,” he said.
According to online sources, Black farmers have lost many billions of dollars worth of land that has slipped away from them over the decades because of heirs’ property issues. Programs like the one at UAPB have a goal of halting that loss of property. And people like Walker are needed not only to use the programs available but to amplify them to others. This chapter of the program definitely goes in the win column.