The editors were Leon Ray Harris and James P. Davis, the president of the NFCF, Head Field Officer of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and a member of President Roosevelt's “Black Cabinet.”[1][2] The NFCF was founded by four African American men that attended the Tuskegee Institute.

The goals of the NFCF were to increase agricultural entrepreneurship profits in African American farmers by creating cooperatives that allowed them to increase African American farmer access to urban industrial cities' wholesale markets in the Great Lakes, particularly Chicago.

That gave members access to a cooperative that would market produce and purchase farm supplies for resale at reduced rates.

[8] He was appointed a special field agent by Cully A. Cobb, administrator of the for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) Cotton Section in the lower South, and travelled the lower South relaying complaints to policy makers in Washington D.C. about Black farmers not receiving loans or information.

The ninth annual convention was attended by 4 representatives appointed by governors in Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois and Iowa.

[4] The Modern Farmer newspaper, in accordance with the goals of the NFCF, promoted cooperative marketing and purchase schemes of farm supplies, diversified agriculture, and the values of land ownership.

The goals published in the first issue of the organization's newspaper, The Modern Farmer, emphasized self-help and racial separatism, a philosophy that promoted economic initiative, often linking success with physical isolation in all-black communities and race-conscious businesses that catered to black clientele.

In the years leading up to the election, United States Southern farmers had suffered catastrophic floods, followed by periods of drought.