In the Mississippi Delta, honoring a family's agricultural past and tapping into a more sustainable future

When Harvey Williams Jr. started brewing distilling vodka from sweet potatoes in Phillips County, Arkansas, in 2017, he didn't know his grandfather's story. "We were setting up the distillery, and [my dad] came in and said, 'Hey, your granddad used to do moonshine, and this is one of his jugs.' Then he went on to tell the story about how we came by way of getting the farm."

It’s a story that stretches back over five generations, from the brutal era of slavery in the United States right up to today. Like many freed enslaved people, members of the Williams family transitioned after the Civil War to sharecropping, working on plantations in exchange for a share of the crops they harvested. Despite systemic racism and economic exploitation, the fertile soil of the Arkansas Delta provided an opportunity. The Williams family managed to purchase their land, aided by income from moonshine brewed, distilled, and sold by UD Williams.

Mostly, Harvey leaves the farming to his brothers and spends time in the Delta Dirt Distillery he and his wife Donna built in Helena, Ark.'s historic Cherry Lane Street, about 20 miles from their land. "We had to trust ourselves, each other, and our instincts," he said. There were a lot of closed doors, from financing to locations to distributors. "There are barriers in the spirits industry for Black people, just like they are in everything else. And you don't learn those until you go through that,” he said.

Despite these hurdles, Harvey was inspired by his family's ingenuity. He liked the idea of having a business that used the farm's produce and maintained his link to the land and his family. "My younger brother mentioned a guy making sweet potato vodka. That fascinated me. I said, 'Let's figure out how to do that.'" Harvey and his son began experimenting in their garage, eventually perfecting a blend of sweet potatoes and corn. "It doesn't taste like a root vegetable. It goes down so smooth, with a subtle earthy taste," Harvey explained.

He credits his youngest son Thomas, who went to Distillery School, with getting the ratio right. And it was also his sons who put the product on the market, entering competitions. In the first one, they won double gold. They have since won the highest award in every competition they've entered winning “three or four double golds, triple gold, and best in class from the American Craft Spirits Association.” And then this year, they were certified platinum at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Harvey's family is part of the small group of people farming differently in the Delta. Just 0.19% of planted acres in the mid-Delta area are speciality crops. These earn more for farmers than row crops, generating 1.08% of Mid-Delta revenues. This is also true nationally, with speciality crops making up 1.9% of planted acres across the country but 14.2% of revenues. While increasing speciality crop production in the Delta offers an economic opportunity, it also comes with higher production costs, intensive management, and consideration of diverse soil types and climate conditions.

That's partly what excited Harvey about The Next California project, a World Wildlife Fund initiative that aims to create an ecosystem where Delta farmers can grow speciality crops and access cold storage, processing, markets, and distribution. "It's about de-risking the process for farmers and creating a supportive infrastructure," said Julia Kurnik, Senior Director for Innovation Startups on WWF’s Markets team.

The Williams family exemplifies what's possible. "Meeting Harvey was inspiring," said Julia. "His journey shows that innovation and resilience can lead to success. Our goal is to support more farmers like him." Racial inequity remains a problem in agriculture. Black farmers own just 1% of farmland in the Delta, with farms earning only 33% per acre compared to others. Changes in agriculture must not further negatively affect Black farmers already hurt by systemic racism and the history of slavery, she cautions. And conservation objectives need to ensure justice for human communities and the landscape.

Back in the distillery's tasting room, that old moonshine jug is filled with a stem of cotton bolls and stands next to a picture of UD Williams, Harvey's granddad. "I think he would be proud of what we're doing. We're the only Black-owned farm-to-bottle distillery in the US. When we release our bourbon, the Arkansas Brown product, that bottle and that label will all be about him. If you drink that bottle, you'll see a copy of the picture of my granddad. We are filling bottles with his story, so his name and the legacy of our land will persist for a long, long time.”