Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights
Black farmers have been fighting for almost 20 years for the government to pay out a $1.25 billion settlement over discrimination from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The payments, for years of documented discrimination -- everything from loans to equipment subsidies -- amount to about $50,000 a farmer.
But a new study from the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group says that large farms could receive anywhere from $100,000 to $787,000 if the USDA pays out $1.5 billion in disaster aid for the loss of crops last year as Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln (pictured above) has promised.
The largest farm in Lincoln's home state of Arkansas, Ratio Farms, could receive $787,000 in disaster aid on top of the $874,000 in subsidies it was already paid by the government last year, Environmental Working Group reports. The Environmental Working Group also reports that about 270 Arkansas farms could receive payments of more than $100,000.
Lincoln, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is in the midst of a tough re-election fight.
"Fifty-thousand dollars, in most cases, is a minimal payment to these farmers. The farmers getting disaster aid are going to get that many times over," Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, told Aol Black Voices in an interview. "This is a one-time payment to make things right. It doesn't even mean all farmers will get it."
Lincoln has defended the payments, which are set to come directly from the USDA.
"Payment follows production, and if we're going to feed the 6.6 billion people on the face of this earth, I think we need everybody that farms out there. ... We're feeding and clothing the world, and it's important that we make sure we keep our domestic producers competitive,'' Lincoln said.
The settlement, however, has angered black lawmakers who have been fighting for back payments to the black farmers. A measure to fund the settlement has been approved twice by the House but has been stripped three times from bills in the Senate. Another attempt to pass the bill on Thursday once again failed in the Senate. It was unanimously supported by Democrats, but Republicans questioned how the bill would be funded.
John Boyd Jr., a farmer and president of the National Black Farmers Association, told Aol Black Voices that the bill is caught in the bipartisan politics of the midterm elections, with Republicans who support the bill fearful of voting for it because they want to firm up their credentials as fiscal conservatives. Boyd says he has requested a standalone bill from Sen. Harry Reid.
"We are not alleging discrimination; it's been proven in federal court and in many studies. If we were a group of white farmers asking for help on Capitol Hill, this would have been resolved by now," Boyd said. "It's only by the grace of God that black farmers stay on the farms. The government is still not lending us money and not letting us take part in farm subsidy programs. We still have many challenges to tackle even after the settlement."
Black farmers waiting for the settlement, like Philip Haynie, a fourth-generation farmer from Virginia, whose family has been farming since the end of slavery, says he gets even more angry because the $50,000 payouts are inadequate in many cases. For example, a 2007 study shows that black farmers receive between one-third and one-sixth of the crop subsidies allocated to white farmers.
"I wasn't able to do all the things I wanted to do for my children. We are trying to farm, and the government is not loaning us money or we are paying 24 percent interest, while white farmers are paying 5 percent," said Haynie, who says he was once threatened with a gun for seeking aid.
"I feel like the whole intent of the USDA is to leave us out of farming and leave us out where we can't get into the business, because this represents generational wealth and they have no intention of us passing down generational wealth."