The Loss and Persistence of Black-Owned Farms and Farmland: A Review of the Research Literature and Its Implications *
A method of forming an improved planarization mask for shallow trench isolation process area in integrated circuit manufacturing is disclosed. The planarization mask is generated automatically by using actual mask data as a reference. The invention discloses an algorithm which measures the geometric and relative separation distances of the active areas and performs the necessary merging, deletion and differential biasing to produce the planarization mask which has relaxed geometric boundaries, thereby allowing low cost and simplified manufacturing.
“A Privilege and a Challenge”: Valuation of Heirs’ Property by African American Landowners and Implications for Forest Management in the Southeastern U.S.
African Americans have historically struggled to retain land that has been held in their families for generations as heirs’ property, or land held collectively by heirs of the original owners without clear title. Ethnographic interviews with sixty landholding African American families in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama reveal the cultural meanings associated with family land, forestland in particular, and the role of heirs’ property in inhibiting forest management, including the threat of land loss, intra-family conflict, and legal limitations on forestry activities. The majority of interviewees have a strong desire to pass family land on to their heirs, but they also need the land to be economically productive. Sustainable forest management offers both an incentive to obtain clear title to heirs’ property land and a means of paying property taxes and generating intergenerational wealth within families. The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities is currently collaborating with local institutions in several states in an innovative program designed to help African American landowners navigate the legal system in order to obtain clear title and provide educational workshops about the financial and ecological benefits of sustainable forestry as well as site visits by consulting foresters. Analysis of the situations faced by African Americans with heirs’ property adds to the diversity of our understandings of the complex relationships between land tenure and forestry, with potential application for other minority communities in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Limited Resource Farmers and the Marketing System
tifying and finding solutions to the problems they face.' Much of this effort has focused on identifying enterprises that are profitable on a small scale; that is, enterprises which require little land and capital but provide a high return to the producer. These alternative crops include new and improved varieties of traditional cash crops and other nontraditional enterprises, such as fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices, ornamentals and specialty animals (French, Whatley). The success of fruit and vegetable producers in California, Florida, Texas, and Arizona has triggered discussions as to whether other areas in the United States, particularly the southern states, could compete with these major producing states (Capps, Babb and Long). Coupled with this push for diversification is the belief that LRFs may benefit from alternative enterprises because they suffer adversely from price fluctuations and low net returns from production of traditional crops. Colette and Wall allude to the high income potentials of vegetables but argue that these crops tend to be very risky enterprises and that LRFs usually have insufficient cash reserves to carry them over a bad year. Efforts have also been directed toward the marketing problems facing LRFs (Christy, Dagher, McLean-Meyinsse). While much attention has been given to alternative enterprises, a full understanding of the marketing system, including market risks, strategies, and alternative market outlets, requires more attention by producers, policy makers, and our profession. Most farmers allocate more time, energy, and resources to production than to marketing. Limited-resource farmers, in general, have not invested the resources required to identify and use viable marketing plans and strategies that can exploit the full potential gains these markets offer sellers of agricultural products. In some cases, LRFs have identified marketing niches and developed innovative marketing strategies (Wysong and Handwerker). The strategic behavior exhibited by small farmers has profit performance implications, such as (a) providing the consumer with high quality, usually fresh products, and (b) gaining the net margins that accrue from performing specific marketing services or functions.