We are living in curious times. Sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Sometimes that lack of information is part of a sadistic plan. Sometimes it's incompetence.
Under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, section 1005 lined out $4B in debt relief to a group known as Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, a designation that has been around since 1990. Section 1006 prescribed $1.01B for outreach, training, education, technical assistance, grants, and loans as well as other matters.
Then, the white farmers across the country decided the the designation of "Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers," or 2501 of the 1990 Farm Bill, was unconstitutional. Their lawsuits, some 13 of them at last glance, stopped in its tracks the effort to relieve the indebtedness of historically mistreated farmers. In a recent post on this page, I jumped into the USDA data base and showed how the first six white litigants, including the ag commissioner of the State of Texas, benefited via three pots of money to the tune of over $523,000 and that the counties of those six litigants benefitted to the tune of $1.2B+. They are claiming reverse discrimination when the stats point out how white farmers have always had the upper hand in terms of subsidies, coronavirus relief funds, and the bailout from Trump's failed tariff war with China.
Provisions of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 were rewritten in the Reconciliation Bill of 2021 such that even white farmers, who have not been historically mistreated, would also receive debt relief. Whites gain advantages off of Black suffering is the way folks say it with whom I hang out.
Earlier this year a moratorium was placed on debt collections and foreclosures. You can read that release here.
But now, while we are waiting for the Senate to work its magic on the Reconciliation Bill, and as we wait to see what Manchin out of West Virginia is going to do, several egregious things are happening at the county level. Farms are being foreclosed on, loans are being accelerated, liens are being placed on crops, and other acts of malfeasance. For instance, a Black farmer has loans to plant and harvest his peanut and cotton crops. He owes the USDA some money and knows that he'll find debt relief around the corner, or at least he hopes so.
In a magic slight of hand, the company buying the Black farmer's crop has placed a lien on it. This is apparently at the request of the local county office. My questions are several. What right was it of this company to know what the farmer owed? What collaborative gig was set up such that the FSA gets the first dibs on the farmer's money. Did the farmer know about this possibility? The local county office has in some way, shape, or form, realized that this particular grain company is going to process that particular farmer's particular crop and found a way to put a lien on. This means that once the farmer has had his crop sold, the money will go not to him, but to the FSA and put against the loan. This smells like a rat.
So, there is a moratorium. It reads like this: if you have a direct loan, the USDA will work with you and will not foreclose on you. The USDA will not accelerate your loans. See the final sentence in Senator Reverend Warnock's letter to Secretary Vilsack below. He is quoting USDA that there will be no adverse actions taken upon any farmer who does not make payments while the debt relief thing is being resolved. There you have it. What USDA said in DC, a local FSA office can undermine. How much sense does that make? Who's guarding the hen house? A bunch of foxes? You know what I mean.
But then, here comes the foreclosure notice, here comes the loan acceleration notice, here comes the lien on your crops. Here comes all manner of things that the USDA said would not happen. Those decisions are being made at the county level.
We have advised various Senators as to these shenanigans. One of those Senators has written a strong letter to Secretary Vilsack to call off his dogs. Here is what Senator Reverend Warnock writes:
"In March 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law. This legislation includes targeted debt relief payments aimed at remedying USDA’s well-documented history of racial discrimination. As USDA prepared to implement this legislation, it told eligible farmers that they would not be subject to punishment for failing to make payments on forgivable debts. On a public-facing website regarding the American Rescue Plan Act debt relief payments, USDA states “USDA is not taking any adverse actions on any eligible borrower who does not make payments” on Farm Service Agency direct loans or farm storage facility loans." This letter was signed on December 10, 2021.
We are also in the process of gathering data across the country. We want to know whether or not this is happening just to Black farmers, and in what counties, and in what states. We want to know what other acts of malfeasance are being done to them. The data is being collected as we speak.
A lot of people are mad. A lot of people have every right in the world not to trust the USDA. These actions justify that anger and mistrust, if we ever needed more justifications.
White people, even white employees of the USDA, want to believe these types of actions are sporadic. Wrong. Remember the words, "systemic racism," "systemic discrimination," the system is at fault and the people who stand there with their hands in their pockets.
And we don't. Plain and simple. Period. Full stop. Period.
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