A Request for Information from USDA about the Farmer’s Rights Concerning BIPOC-Growth Program & Debt Relief for Distressed borrowers
The department was ordered to create a brand new program to give out money by Congress. The program was put in the hands of one or more nongovernmental organizations, instead of the USDA. A Democratic staffer familiar with the legislation said that was done to address farmers’ concerns of USDA bias in such a program.
The farmers of color network was formed several years ago to assist the growers with grants to support their operations and make them more viable. “The years and decades-long history of discrimination against BIPOC, and especially Black farmers, is well documented.”
Black farmers have trouble getting a start, because of discrimination and biases by the USDA, and the drop in population totals is due to that.
There are two provisions in the recently passed reconciliation bill, one relating to discrimination and the other to debt relief for distressed borrowers, which include white farmers.
USDA has yet to announce how it will structure the latest debt relief effort. But the department has reviewed blowback over the delay to implement the promised financial relief — even while it was stalled.
Thursday’s move – known as a request for information – offers an opportunity for farmers, advocates, lawmakers and more to provide advice on selecting the third-party program administrator and to provide recommendations, conducting outreach to farmers who borrowed from USDA and how the department should even identify who has been discriminated against.
There is a 30-day comment period for the public along with weekly listening sessions hosted by the department. After the comments are collected and reviewed, the department will look to select the third parties to administer the program, according to a USDA official, and design the program while recruiting the organizations to run the program.
A request for information has questions that are very specific but the USDA would like to know what makes the program work for people who have different lived experiences. “We want a program that will work in ways that others don’t.”
Indigenous Farm Service Agency – Settlement in the 1999-2017 Pigford v. Glickman Class Action Suspense Against the USDA
There are only 48,697 producers who identified as Black, making up about 1.4% of the nation’s 3.4 million producers, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, the latest federal dataset on American farmland demographics. Most of the people live in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic states.
This systemic discrimination was at the center of the 1999 class-action lawsuit Pigford v. Glickman, which resulted in a $1.25 billion settlement to Black farmers in 2010 — though some farmers say they never received their settlements.
The leader of the Farm Service Agency is a member of the tribe and first Native American. He was the executive director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council, an advocacy group for Native American farmers. Indigenous farmers have long been left out of programs despite having high loan acceptance rates, even though they were a part of their own lawsuit that accused USDA of discrimination.
There are barriers to access to programs ranging from incorrect denials to cumbersome paperwork.
The program was blocked by about 12 lawsuits including one out of Texas, led by Stephen Miller, a former advisor to President Donald Trump. They argued the program was discriminating against them for being white.
In an unusual move, the Justice Department let the deadline to appeal the injunctions that froze the program slide, opting to continue the court battle at the local level.
The $5 billion provided in ARPA remained frozen because of the injunctions, according to the press secretary at the USDA. The litigation would likely not have been resolved for a long time.
For some farmers, that means complete cancellation. For others, it means partial assistance, even after they were promised full cancellation one year ago.
Lucious Abrams is the third generation to take over the family Georgia farm, an operation that has long grown cotton, corn, and soybeans. When he did not receive a loan in time to buy the seeds and supplies he needed, he joined the Pigford v. Glickman class action lawsuit against the USDA.
Agriculture Association of Minnesota Hmong Farmers: Farmers are persistently left behind behind from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Lending Branch
In 2010, Congress appropriated an additional $1.2 billion in a second round of payouts. Many did not receive them due to denials of claims and processing issues.
Many say there needs to be a bigger culture shift at the department because farmers don’t trust the process when it comes to loan applications.
Black and Asian-identifying farmers were the most successful in getting a direct loan during the first two years of the Biden administration.
In Minnesota, a majority of Hmong farmers lease land but do not receive a written contract that they need to qualify for loans, according to the leader of the association.
Farmers keep records and file taxes, but not in a way suitable for the Farm Service Agency, USDA’s lending branch. It’s complicated by not having bilingual employees, documents and training materials.
They can enroll in a farm business management class, but it is only done in English. They don’t understand, they can’t read or write English, so they pay $2,000 annually for the farm business course, and what do you think they walk away with? Stress,” Janssen said. “They walk out without any adequate information to really enhance or fund operations here because it is done in a language that they’re not familiar with.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/19/1156851675/in-2022-black-farmers-were-persistently-left-behind-from-the-usdas-loan-system
Learned lessons from Indian Country: What’s been taught in the USDA, where we are now, how we’re going to improve and what we can do about it
“I’ve been trying to get them in the door since I got here, so I’m very upset about that” Ducheneaux said. “My personal goal is to get all of these to as close to 100% as we can.”
Lessons learned in Indian Country are what inspired some of the department’s solutions. USDA is trying to work through agreements with organizations that represent different producers in order to get information to farmers.
“We see this as a chance to leverage the trust that we don’t have in these communities. Ducheneaux said that in some cases, they were rightfully so. Agreements are spread across veteran farmer groups, young farmer groups and the Intertribal Agriculture Council.
The agreements have allowed the organizations to increase staff, expand outreach, and give feedback to the USDA.
He said that in order to rebuild trust, we must acknowledge the fact that we have treated people badly in the past and discriminated in the past. We’re never going to rebuild that trust at the agency or department level because of the inherent trust in that non-profit. So we’ve got to start somewhere, and that’s a great place to begin.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/19/1156851675/in-2022-black-farmers-were-persistently-left-behind-from-the-usdas-loan-system
USDA Agriculture and Food and Agriculture Research: a USDA Equity Commission and its Report on USDA Loans to Agricultural Producers and Debt Relief Programs
In order to reduce the paperwork, speed up decisions and get payments out the department announced this month its plan to shorten the applications from 29 pages to 13.
The department launched an online program last year to help producers understand which loans they can qualify for in an effort to reduce denials and withdrawals. A separate USDA Equity Commission, born out of a Biden executive order calls for federal departments to address racial equity and underserved communities.
The group met earlier this month to vote on over 30 recommendations ranging from reducing the number of years of experience needed to participate in conservation programs to making the language in FSA loans more accessible – actions they believe the department can get a head start on. A final report is due by year’s end.
“We haven’t gotten any relief as far as these lawsuits or debt relief, and that will impact me severely,” said Rod Bradshaw, a farmer in Kansas, adding that the rising costs of fuel and production are thinning his margins.
A $3.1 billion debt relief program for “economically distressed borrowers” was created by a provision in the Democrat-led spending bill.
According to Ducheneaux, about 11,000 people who were 60 days or more delinquent on their USDA loans were made automatic payments by the department. NPR analysed the USDA data and found that over 11,000 producers received a payment on their accounts as of January 30.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/19/1156851675/in-2022-black-farmers-were-persistently-left-behind-from-the-usdas-loan-system
Racial Equity: Where Do We Stand? Where Are We Going? What Is Wrong with Prior Discrimination and Where Is It Coming From?
“If there are solutions that can be brought to the table that can address some of the cumulative impacts of prior discrimination, we should be open minded enough to do so,” said DeWayne Goldmon, the first senior advisor for racial equity at the USDA. “That has to be an important part of the process.”
When I no longer need the position, the efforts will be successful. When you don’t need an adviser for racial equity,” Goldmon said. “And I’m not being naive, but I have to keep that as a goal.”