Uncle Invents Farmer Brown Character After Niece Says Hamburgers Come From Trees
Educational Hip-Hop Based on Agriculture and Natural Sciences.
Meet Trevor Claiborn, the farm technician. However, Claiborn isn’t your average agriculturist. He is a 4-H Cooperative Extension Assistant at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky. But when he’s out educating kids about food and farming, he becomes Farmer Brown Tha MC.
Mission
Co-founder of “Black Soil: Our Better Nature,” throughout his career Claiborn has continuously sought new ways to use lessons in agriculture to connect with younger generations.
“Farmer Brown is a culmination of a bunch of different experiences I’ve had during my time at the College of Agriculture at KSU as well as personal experiences,” says Claiborn.
“Farmer Brown Tha MC was created to develop more practical, efficient, holistic approaches in engaging and informing Black and other underrepresented groups in urban and rural communities of the concept of sustainability and the opportunities and resources available through a culturally palatable understanding of agriculture and natural resources. The overall goal is to assist people in these communities in improving their quality of life and cultivating a more efficient sustainable workforce.
Vision
In 2017 Claiborn and Ashley C. Smith co-founded Black Soil: Our Better Nature to help reconnect Black Kentuckians to their heritage and legacy in agriculture. Black Soil fosters the next generation of Kentucky Black farmers and chefs and leads efforts to address racialized disparities and barriers.
“My coolness ain’t on the line,” he says. “The concept of putting the shades and the overalls on, it really wasn’t anything. I will say the first day I filmed one of my Farmer Brown videos, my niece was there, and she said, ‘Uncle Trevor, you look crazy.’ So for a brief moment I thought to myself, okay, what have I gotten myself into?”
Through his character and program Farmer Brown has engaged more than 10,000 students and parents through in-class presentations about the 2nd largest sector for employment in America, farming.
The educational hip-hop model provides exploration and self-discovery for paths around agriculture and natural sciences. The farming business model can lift a family out of generational poverty towards the means of self-sufficiency.
Call to Action
Claiborn combines his knowledge of and experience in agriculture with his passion for music to further his mission of educating kids. He’s been writing and producing music since he was a teenager. The character of Farmer Brown might not have been how he imagined himself back then, but he’s found that it works for what he wants to do now.
Author, musician, environmental educator, youth program director, and public speaker, Claiborn shared the story about his niece asking where hamburgers came from.
“I asked her where does she think the hamburger she’s eating came from, and without thinking, she said it came from a tree,” Claiborn remembers. “It was one of those epiphany type moments where I realized, this isn’t cool. When I explained to her how meat is processed and how we get it from animals she thought it was a crazy thing. So just thinking back to how we got so detached from farming, just within the context of my family, a lot of it boils down to how people see farming, how it’s introduced to them.”
Today Claiborn travels the country where he performs for classrooms. He found that his approach to educational hip-hop learning based around agriculture and natural sciences is sometimes the first to expose children to agriculture at all. Since then he has incorporated ideas about urban farming and sustainability into his presentation.
Release the Funds of The American Rescue Plan to Black Farmers Immediately!
On March 11th, Biden signed The American Rescue Plan which included $4 billion in debt relief payments for farmers categorized as “socially disadvantaged” by the United States Department of Agriculture, primarily farmers who are Black, Hispanic, American Indian, or Asian American.
Nearly 16,000 minority farmers are supposed to have their debt paid off in full by the American Rescue plan, in what Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has called “a major civil rights victory.” However, white farmers filed a lawsuit claiming reverse discrimination and the Justice Department lawyers passed up the chance to appeal the lawsuit.
We demand the agreement to payoff lingering debt of those systematically left behind be held up and funds be released immediately! If you agree, consider supporting this petition and give Black farmers a chance at winning! We need less than 11,000 signatures to reach the next goal — can you help?
Black Americans were told that we are not Black if we don’t vote for Joe Biden. So if he needed the Black vote so much to win the election, how can he not appeal a judge’s decision that directly affects Black Americans in negative manner. The USDA announced loan payments was supposed to begin in June, in stages, beginning with farmers with direct FSA loans. However, the opportunity to appeal was in August.
Resources for story:
Using Hip Hop to Explore Minority Youths’ Critical Consciousness of the Food System
