Louisiana rice producer and rice mill owner uses agriculture as a form of reparations.
On Old Baton Rouge Highway there sits a queendom of 17 acres called Jubilee Justice. A farm, market and rice-grower incubator site, Jubilee Justice is the only black-owned, USDA certified farm in Louisiana. It is governed by Konda Mason, the only Black woman to own a rice mill in the U.S. In fact, she is one of three Black-owned rice mills.
Many sticky days along the bayou, between rows of grain and vegetables, you will find Mason—a California native with Alabama roots who moved to Louisiana some years ago. Jubilee Justice operates on one of the largest white plantations still standing in Louisiana. In an act of reparations, the heirs to the property carved out land for Mason to establish a farm, mill and marketplace. The mill and the land it’s on is fully owned by Jubilee Justice.
Regularly, Jubilee Justice sells at local farmers markets. Right now, they set up at a market in Lafayette, which is in the southern part of the state; and are gearing up for their seasonal multi-sited CSA. Included are weekly Friday sales at the company store in Alexandria where you can purchase freshly picked produce year round. Soon, you will also be able to purchase rice and other grains harvested by a handful of growers.
Over the years, Mason has built her rice and produce farm, and mobilized growers across the south, all the while, working to re-establish clean, healthy rice growing methods in an environmentally-fraught landscape. Louisiana’s Republican-majority rule is known for welcoming and supporting energy and manufacturing corporations that set up shop then blatantly and regularly violate the natural ecosystems of the state with air and water contamination. In fact, it was the high reports of diseases caused by their pollution that is behind the naming of an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River as the first “Cancer Alley.”
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Agriculturalists, and specifically, Big AG have a record of using farming techniques and employing supplies filled with harmful chemicals, including rice production. During the Antebellum south, rice was a coveted agriculture. Grown in South and North Carolina, a region known as the lowcountry, rice was a profitable 18th Century crop, but took many lives in the process. Historian Melissa Cooper points out in her writings how rice fields were swamps and “marshy fields.” Under these conditions—including the unsafe and unsanitary methods enslaved workers were forced to labor—diseases such as malaria flourish. Some of those unsavory conditions exist today.
At a recent conference called, SOWTH by Georgia Organics, Mason spoke about U.S. rice production in its early years. “For many years it was the cash crop of the country … but it cost a lot of lives,” said Mason in her talk.
Replacing the dirty rice growing process found in commercial agriculture, Mason adopted a method out of Madagascar called SRI which stands for System of Rice Intensification. A more climate-friendly approach, it uses less seeds and less water; thus, producing less methane gas. Grain farmer, Dr. Nazirahk Amen told Ark Republic that rice fields rather than cow patches, are the top producer of methane gas in the world.
Along with SRI, Mason takes on another feat—using organic growing practices. In 2024, Mason’s farm became the only Black-owned organic green patch in the state. A huge feat as there are only a handful of farms with the gold standard.
With an agreement in place with Lotus Foods, Mason has been tirelessly reconfiguring an old crop with contemporary adjustments for mass production. To assist, she recruited agronomist Erika Styger from Cornell University who studies rice growing around the world. Styger co-presented with Mason at the SOWTH Conference intimated that there has been a lot of research conducted in the area, but much room for experimentation. Because growers have to consider a number of factors such as soil health, weather and seed resilience, the SRI technique is implemented from a localized lens.
Mason, who is a Grammy-award winning producer, looks at the challenge with determined eyes, while simultaneously making adjustments. One of them was to open the collective’s growing portfolio to include wheat and corn—all of which she will be processing at her mill. In addition to expanding their crops, Mason offers classes on growing rice and staying within the organic standards of the USDA. The collective meets annually at Jubilee Justice.
Economic parity is muddy waters
For decades, Louisiana has experienced some of the grossest forms of economic inequities. The state ranks as last place or close to it when it comes to education, healthcare, economic stability and infrastructure growth. “I tell people all the time that there are people in this state who love to be first as the worst,” opined Gary Chambers, Jr. on the Roland Martin show. “I think we have to make a collective decision that you won’t allow people with small thinking to have a big impact,” Chambers is an activist and former candidate for one of the state’s senate seats.
Some of the largest producers and politicians can trace their family lineage to notorious plantation owners—some of whom are on record for enacting or supporting massacres against Black farmhands and farmers who resisted harsh working conditions and exploitative labor practices.
Yet and still, this is where Mason decided to plant roots to see through her mission of justice through land and farming. On any given day, Mason is running a tractor or carefully embedding plantlings of rice. Small in stature, but big in spirit; she carries out a purpose she works to ensure will last for generations.
Mason has been working with a collective of farmers in several southern states. Last year, they inducted a growers coop for grain producers. Most of them are older farmers who are planting rice for the first time, but have adjusted and provided feedback in hopes that their coop will grow.
Mason, an advocate for decades in many circles, has lived many lives. One of them found her working in the entertainment industry. As the manager for Caron Wheeler from the 1980s British soul group, Soul II Soul and at another point, musical mastermind, Michele N’degeocello, she saw the disparity in the entertainment world.
So in 1985, Mason, along with Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid and songwriter Greg Tate founded the Black Rock Coalition. Precursor of the famous Afropunk Movement, a main thrust was to etch into the annals of rock history that it started with Black folk, yet they were still being marginalized in the industry.
Later on, the native of Riverside, an inland-city within the Los Angeles metro, Mason moved to the Bay Area where she became ensconced in philanthropic investment capital. This form of fundraising uses funds for both social impact and financial returns. Under her co-leadership, Mason formed Hub Oakland, a non-profit that worked to build a green infrastructure for the city. While Hub Oakland is closed, Mason moved from greening buildings to cultivating her green thumb.
Nowadays, Mason goes between board rooms, USDA meetings and rice fields. She and her company’s manager, Farah Lopes, work closely with the collective of farmers to produce their first full harvest of rice, wheat and corn.
Ark Republic Note: The reporter of this story works with Black Farmers Index, an organization that serves as the sister organization to Ark Republic. The Index has featured Mason on their social media channels and received a grant from the Food and Justice Fund, of which Konda Mason serves on the board. This article is unrelated to the grant.
