Dear White People:

The rhetoric has been loud and rowdy since President Biden signed The American Relief Act Plan of 2021. Most of us know very little about what is actually inside the bill, but some of us know about the “Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act,” introduced by Senator Warnock as part of the Bill. This particular part of the bill will remove the debt of minority farmers, classified as Socially Disadvantaged Farmers (or SDF), specifically covering 120% of their debt which includes state and federal taxes on the forgiven amount.

White people, farmers, and congressional folks are calling this discrimination against white farmers, or reparations, or that it will create a divide between Black farmers and white farmers.

For those who want to read just a few words, here is the summary. For those who want more information, please read on. The short verse is that the USDA has a history of systemic racism in which Black farmers (and other minority farmers) have been discriminated against. Such discrimination leads to indebtedness which leads to foreclosures which leads to land loss and the generational wealth which goes with it. Period. End of discussion. Warnock’s bills are timely as more Black people lose their land and as more Black farmers die before justice is realized.

I think we need to get our whiteness under control. That’s perhaps an impossible task. Inherent within the whiteness factor is that all farmers are treated equally by the USDA. Wrong. Very, very wrong. Also, within the whiteness factor is that if a minority farmer is foreclosed upon, then they are just bad farmers. Listen to the 1619 Project and you’ll hear that said by a white sugar cane farmer in Louisiana. Also, inherent within the whiteness factor is the memory lapse, or convenient failure to remember that the overwhelming majority of dollars has gone to the white farmer. Nobody denies that small family farms are suffering, but when you consider that USDA funds go to white farmers and that Trump’s bailout money went to white farmers, the whiteness factor needs to be corrected. More details on that to follow below.

The USDA and its employees are much to blame. Administration after administration turned a blind eye to actions of discrimination on behalf of its employees. A local county agent could act with impunity toward a person of color knowing that there would be no price to pay for discriminating against someone. The system is designed that way. There is an absence of accountability and an absence of heart. The system is designed to protect itself. People, good people, know what’s going on inside the USDA; however, they cannot talk unless they retire because they know that if they do, they will be removed, demoted, or fired. More on this in a future post.

In August, 2019, the USDA Coalition for Minority Employees and the Justice for Black Farmers Group challenged Senator Elizabeth Warren when she was running for president. Black land loss is not explained, we asserted, by heir’s property issues. She invited us to the table, we went, we engaged, we informed, and they learned from us. From that effort came Senator Warren’s plan to address these grievances. You can find her full document here. Later, after Biden and Harris were elected, we received an email from Senator Booker’s staff and informed that the senator was working on a Black farmers justice bill. When we saw the bill, we were elated to read The Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2020 which has now been resubmitted to Congress in the current legislative session. It very much looked like Warren’s work several months earlier. In fact, it was very, very similar. Then, Senator Warnock was elected and since he knew the plight of Black farmers, he inserted his bill within The American Recue Act Plan of 2021 that Biden signed into law recently.

There is more background that white America needs to know.

In 1920, there were approximately 950,000 Black farmers and 5,500,000 white farmers. Blacks owned 22,000 farms, and whites owned 1,380,000 farms. Acreage owned by Black farmers peaked at 19,000,000 (in 1910), and white owned 62,000,000. In 1920, the average acreage for a Black farmer was 51 acres, but for the white farmer it was 166 acres. This is all from census data. It is organized in Hinson (2018). See the picture?

According to USDA census data in 2017, white producers farmed 1,973,006 farms totaling 849,816,725 acres, averaging 431 acres. The market value of products sold was $381,050,061,000; government payments were $8,851,913,000; and net cash farm income was $86,037,984,000. By comparison, Black farm producers farmed 35,470 farms totaling 4,673,140 acres, averaging 132 acres. The market value of products sold was $1,416,256,000; government payments were $58,807,000; and net cash from farm income was $124,459,000. This is all from the 2017 Census of Agriculture. See the picture?

In 1920, Black farmers comprised 1/6 to 1/5 of all farmers, but now they make up only 1.7% of all farmers.

Numbers are compelling.

White farmers and Republican congressional folks are fussing. Thanks to the Environmental Working Group, we can actually look at a variety of matters including who actually received how much of the $425 billion in farm subsidies from commodity, crop insurance, disaster programs and conservation payments paid between 1995 and 2020. That document is found here.

The congressman, Representative Graves, who fussed about it, what does his operation get? Is he being discriminated against? His district in Missouri received $5B during the 1995 to 2020 window. His farm received $661,153, including $57,089 in 2019 alone. Tom Philpott's article tells the larger story. 

And, during the Trump farmer bail out window, white farmers received 97% of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, $6.7 billion going to white farmers, $15 million to Black farmers, $100 million to Latino farmers, $76 million to American Indian farmers, and $17.6 million to Asian American farmers. Check out this document at this link. 

In terms of the Market Facilitation Program, a program designed to help offset the billions lost in Trump’s failed trade war with China, 99% went to white farmers, or an average of $10,674 for white farmers by comparison to $1,074 for Black farmers. White farmers $21 billion and Black farmers $38 million. See this link for more details. 

Nobody doubts that farming is a hard way to make a living. White people fail to realize the extra layer of challenges when farming is done by a Black farmer. Skin color makes things even harder.

The USDA has a myriad of ways of discriminating against Black farmers. From ignoring them to calling them “n****r” to overtly stating that “there’s no money here for you” to changing the numbers on a farm operating loan application to getting the money too little too late to selling rented land out from under them to denying opportunities for disaster payments to setting them up to fail and the list goes on and on and on. See this article and this article for a history of these things and more information. Foreclosures? That’s the way the system is designed to work, i.e., against Black farmers. Read Hinson and Robinson (2008) and Hinson (2018) for more history of the USDA and discrimination. 

Know any white farmers who received similar treatment?

It is estimated by a group at Harvard University that in terms of generational wealth denied Black farmers given that they have lose some 90% of their land, is in the range of $250-$350 billion. 

Some even point to the Pigford Class Action Suit as something that should have benefitted the farmers and paid off the debts. The short verse is that over 22,000 filed a claim under Pigford I, around 15,000 prevailed, and received $50,000. Some received a tax amount of $12,500. They were promised debt relief, but only 371 actually received debt relief. Only 371 farmers out of the 15,000 who won their cases. Lloyd Wright, a member of the Coalition with which I work says that Black farmers are worse off now than they were before. A high-ranking member of the Trump administration reported that 17,000 Black farmers are on the verge of foreclosure.

So, yes, the American Recovery Plan of 2021 signed into law by President Biden does include Senator Raphael Warnock’s “Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act” which contains $4 billion for debt relief and $1 billion for related services. These funds are for any minority farmer who owes money to the USDA via three means: a direct loan, a loan guaranteed by USDA, or a loan for property such as storage tanks. When interest is piled on top of interest, on top of interest, an indebtedness of $14,000 can grow into a couple of hundred thousand in a few decades.

The details are being worked out as we go. One suggestion by an employee within the White House, Dr. Dwayne Goldmon, is a tiered process and will take time. These smells fishy. The plan should be one that is simple and easily understood and can be managed by USDA and the farmers.

Yes, these funds are only for minority farmers. No, white farmers are not beneficiaries of these funds.

You see……white farmers have been the beneficiaries of government aid and support from the very beginning of the USDA, “the people’s department,” but for Black farmers, “the last plantation.”

White farmers have never as a group been discriminated against. In fact, white farmers are the favored face of the USDA. The system works well for white people.

These funds are the first step in leveling the playing field of farming, one that has never been level because policy and procedures, though they are “colorblind,” are administered by employees who are not colorblind. Farming should be the same level of complication for white farmers and for Black farmers. Farming should not be made more difficult because of skin color.

No, this is not reparations; this is justice. And, yes, these bills by Senator Warnock and The Justice for Black Farmers Act of 2021 are considered the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation since The Civil Rights Act of 1964.

So, white people of America, please get your facts straight, and reign in your white indignation.

You do not wear it well.