Black female cattle rancher from Fresno breaks stereotypes as she blazes new trail

When you first meet Rizpah Bellard of Fresno, you can’t help but notice her crisp white Stetson straw hat, her fancy western belt buckle and perfectly pressed jeans.

She’s a cowgirl, and one of the few, if not the only, female Black cattle ranchers in California.

At 30-years-old, Bellard is president of Nova Farming, a cattle company she runs with her father, pioneering Black farmer Cleveland Bellard.

Their cattle, a cross between Angus and Wagyu beef cows, are kept in Kern County, marketed to schools and institutions. They already have a contract to supply ground beef to four schools that make up the Beardsley School District in Bakersfield.

When not tending cattle, Bellard visits elementary schools in Fresno with her menagerie of livestock animals, two goats, a pig, and a miniature horse. She uses the animals as a way to educate students about farming.

“This is my way to teach kids about their food, where it comes from and why agriculture is important to everyone,” she said.

The livestock animals are kept on the property of one of Bellard’s other projects. She runs an independent living home on the outskirts of central Fresno. She was honored by the Independent Living Association of California last year for operating an exemplary home.

It may seem like being a cattle rancher, operator of an independent living home, and a substitute teacher all conflict. But, in her words, “it all flows.”

Cowgirl Magazine recognized Bellard this year in its 30 under 30 awards for her leadership and contributions to agriculture.

Bellard, whose warm smile puts strangers at ease, said all of her life experiences and education have prepared her for the entrepreneurial path she’s now on.

As a child, Bellard spent some time in the small community of Guinda in Yolo County. It was rural, largely white and had a population of about 150.

“There was some racism there, but we didn’t experience it as much because our dad shielded us from it,” she said. “But now as an adult, I mean, I’m just doing what I do and there’s some push back. I think it’s because I’m new to the town, and I am black and a woman, there is a little bit of skepticism about what I have to offer.”

In Fresno County, Bellard is one of a handful of Black farmers. According to the United States Department of Agriculture 2022 census there were 9 Black farmers in Fresno County, down from 20 in 2017.

Farming advocates applaud the work of Rizpah Bellard for sowing the seeds for the next generation.

“There is a real sense of wanting to reclaim the narrative in the Black community that agriculture equates to sharecropping and that it’s something you need to escape from,” said Evan Wiig, director of membership and communications for the Community Alliance for Family Farmers. “The reframing of that narrative is that there is power in food sovereignty, there is autonomy and the ability to feed yourself and the community. And that is empowering.”

Bellard graduated from Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences after earning a Bachelor of Science in 2015.

She later earned a Master of Arts from The University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies in International Studies with a concentration in Human Trafficking and Forced Labor and a Certificate of Global Health. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholar in 2020.

After working in the Bay Area for several years, the pandemic hit and Bellard returned home. She decided to blaze her own trail in agriculture, in part, because of her family’s background in farming.

She moved to Fresno in 2021.

Her father, Cleveland Bellard graduated from Fresno State in the early 80s and was the only Black student majoring in animal husbandry, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed.

“I had one professor who asked me why was I even in the program,” Cleveland Bellard said. “ ‘You should be a police officer or a teacher,’ he told me.”

The young Bellard, who was 18 at the time, got advice from an older sister who was also attending Fresno State.

“She told me, ‘Cleveland, no matter what is going on, you stick with it. And from that point on, I didn’t give up,” he said.

Cleveland went on to become a sought after cattle breeder for some of the industry’s most influential farmers, including Bill Jones of Coalinga, a former California assemblyman and secretary of state.

The elder Bellard has also worked extensively in Africa, helping farmers develop better breeds of cattle. Rizpah Bellard has also taken several trips with her father to Africa and plans to do more.

In her southwest Fresno neighborhood, Bellard is known alternatively as the cattle rancher and “Miss Bellard” the teacher.

To supplement her income, Bellard is also a substitute teacher for Fresno Unified. She is so well liked by the neighborhood kids that they asked her if she could help them during the summer.

“A lot of them didn’t go to summer school because their parents didn’t sign them up, or they just didn’t know about it. And so they just asked if I could help them read or help them get ahead,” she said. “So I started out with just my neighbors, then it was their cousins who live in their grandma’s house. And then they started telling the neighbors across the street and the kid who lives down the block. And now I am up to 13.”