Co-Sponsored by Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy & the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA)
Washington, DC, May 8 - Black and small family farmers, accompanied by law makers, unions and small farms advocacy organizations, rallied outside the USDA building, demanding an end to "decades of racial discrimination."
In a non-violent rally, hundreds of African-American and small family farmers from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Pennsylvnia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, California, Texas, and Wisconsin, protested racist practices that are leading to the virtual extinction of black-owned farms and demanded support for all of America's family farmers. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), who held the first Congressional hearings on the issue in 1997, joined the demonstrators.
According to demonstrators, in 1999 less than 18,000 black farmers remained, down from 925,000 farmers in 1920. Since 1965, including a 1990 congressional committee, found that black-owned farms were going out of business at a rate five times that of white farmers and it was predicted that be the year 2000, there would be no black-owned land in the country.
"Each day black farmers lose 1,000 acres of land. Today they claim 53 percent of USDA land holdings formerly belonged to them," said Anuradha Mittal, co-director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First.
Further adding to farmers' woes, President Ronald Reagan cut the USDA budget in 1983 by eliminating its civil rights complaint division which ended any federal investigation of complaints filed by minority farmers.
In 1997, more than 1,000 Black farmers sued the USDA, seeking three billion dollars in compensation, covering claims from 1983 to 1997. Then in January 1999, the agency and attorneys for the farmers reached an out-of-court settlement calling for forgiveness of the plaintiffs' government debts and a one-time tax-free $50,000 disbursement to each farmer.
The process for payment of farmers is moving too slowly, however, and 40 percent of those who applied to receive payment under the settlement were rejected. "With over 40 percent of farmers already rejected, it will lead to the end of Black family farmers in this nation,'" said Gary Grant, president of the BFAA.
"Here we go again," said Representative Maxine Waters at the rally.
"Once again Black farmers have been forced to resort to demonstration and protest to secure what a court of law has previously substantiated: that Black Farmers have experienced discrimination at the hands of the USDA employees.
When will this travesty of injustice stop? We can no longer stand by and allow the rights of America's Black farmers to be trampled on by unjust policies."
Waters assured protestors that she and the Congressional Black Caucus would go through each farmers' complaints individually to ensure that the farmers received the funds they were entitled to.
Demonstrators, led by Waters, then marched to the entrance of the USDA where Waters, Gary Grant and Attorney Stephan Bowens, Darlene Smith and associate asked to talk with Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. The armed guards kept Congresswoman and the agreed upon delegation waiting out in 90 degree temperature for more than 15 minutes while they checked to see if the Congresswoman could enter the building. It was only upon Rep. Water's threat to enter the building any way, were they allowed to enter.
While this delegation met with Secretary Glickman, thirteen protestors including three women and a 73 year old farmer from Alabama who tried to enter the building were arrested.
The rally for Black and small family farmers was endorsed by over 60 organizations, both local and national, representing a wide array of interests and goals. Their common endorsement represented a broad-based support for Black and small family farmers.
The recent decline in the number of Black farmers has presaged the current drop in small-scale, family owned farms throughout the nation, said Mittal.
With federal subsidies overwhelmingly going to the largest and wealthiest factory-like farms, small-scale farms are feeling the crunch, she said.
"Black farmers have been the proverbial 'canary in the mineshaft' of US agriculture," she said. "Everything that happened to them, happened to all family farmers later."
The rally called for a healthy rural America, one that supports family farmers of all races and protects American farmland for future generations.
Gary Grant, president of the BFAA, promised to persevere. "We have achieved much today, but we will keep coming back until justice is served.
We are not going to stop before we get justice. We will not go away and the USDA needs to honor its signature on the Consent Decree and live up to its agreement. Justice will prevail!" exclaimed Grant.
For more information, please contact Anuradha Mittal at 510-654-4400. Visit Food First at www.foodfirst.org and BFAA at http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/bfaa.htm.
A background report on the situation of Black farmers in the US, can be found at: http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2000/w00v6n1.html.:
