Support Emergency Relief for Black
Indigenous and People of Color Farmers and Ranchers
Dear Leader Schumer and Leader McConnell:
We,
the undersigned organizations, including many who have worked for
years on these issues, have for decades vigorously represented
the financial and rural development interests of this nation’s
Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and People of Color farmers and
ranchers. We endorse and urge you to support the Emergency Relief for Farmers of
Color Act introduced by Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock
(D-GA), Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-
NM), and Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). We
further urge you to assure the emergency relief provisions drawn
from this Act as included by House Agriculture Committee
Chairman, Rep. David Scott (D-GA) in S. Con. Res. 5,
Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021,
are included in the final COVID Emergency Budget Reconciliation
Package.
Our
expressions of support for these family farmer provisions are
rooted in fairness and equity. American agriculture has a
long history of providing various forms of family farm debt and
other emergency relief. Yet the troubled history of farm loan
discrimination for Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and farmers of
color, coupled with their exclusion from the many farm programs
other producers depend upon to survive and thrive, weakens these
farm families, making it impossible to transfer farmland wealth
from generation to generation.
For
example, the $14.4 billion in trade adjustment assistance
provided in 2019 through the Market Facilitation Program[i] did
not address the needs of the small farm specialty crop and
livestock sectors of the market where their production is
concentrated. The emergency COVID relief provided through
the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, the Farmers to Family
Food Box Program, and the Small Business loan programs have
provided only minimal assistance to farmers of color. Several
BIPOC-led farmers groups who did participate successfully in
early rounds of the Farmers to Families Food Box Program were not
included in subsequent rounds. At the same time, these
producers have worked diligently throughout the pandemic to
increase production in uncertain markets and to do all they can
with little to no government support to meet the urgent food
needs of their communities.
Over
200 years of beneficial treatment positions the sectors of
farmers, who have benefited most from historic and recent
investments in federal farm programs, with more assets under
their control, more land base to leverage, and more market
stability to capitalize on and mitigate the impacts of economic
crises the likes of which we are currently experiencing. Farmers
of color were already leveraged to the hilt prior to the crisis
because their operations haven’t had the same multigenerational
investments. The carefully crafted support from Emergency Relief for Farmers of
Color Act provisions provides the urgently needed debt
forgiveness and technical assistance necessary to shore up this
sector of producers who do not enjoy extensive federal support
and an asset base to leverage. The legislation provides:
- $4
billion in direct relief payments to help farmers of color
pay off outstanding USDA farm loan debts and related taxes,
and help them respond to the economic impacts of the
pandemic, and
- Another
$1 billion fund to root out systemic racism by expanding the
capacity of USDA to provide technical and legal assistance
to agricultural communities of color and to fund
under-resourced programs that will shape the future for
farmers and communities of color, including:
·
Grants and loans to improve land access and address
heirs’ property issues;
·
Support for one or more legal centers focused on
agricultural legal issues of farmers of color (including
succession issues made more urgent when many families have lost
members to a pandemic that has claimed over half a million
lives);
·
Pilot projects focusing on land acquisition,
financial planning, technical assistance, and credit;
·
A racial equity commission and related activities to
address systemic racism across USDA;
·
Support for research, education, and extension at
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), 1994 Tribal
Colleges, and Hispanic-Serving and other institutions of higher
education that historically serve communities of color;
·
Scholarships at 1890’s land grant universities and
for indigenous students attending land grant institutions;
·
Support for outreach, mediation, financial training,
capacity building training, cooperative development training and
support, and other technical assistance in cooperation with the
community-based organizations and institutions of higher
education with the experience to provide it;
·
Assistance to farmers, ranchers, or forest
landowners of color that are former farm loan borrowers and that
suffered related adverse actions, or past discrimination or bias.
Black,
Indigenous, Hispanic and Farmers of Color continue to play an
important social and economic role in sustaining rural
communities while protecting the natural resources and producing
safe and affordable farm products. We, the undersigned, urge the
US Congress to ensure the urgently needed emergency relief for
BIPOC farmers remains in the final COVID Emergency
package.
[i] GAO Report
- The U.S. Department
of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) distributed
about $14.4 billion in 2019 Market Facilitation Program (MFP)
payments to farming operations in all 50 states and Puerto Rico…
to 643,965 farming operations. MFP payments for 2019 also varied
by type of commodity. Three types of commodities were eligible
for 2019 MFP payments: (1) nonspecialty crops (including grains and
oilseeds, such as corn and soybeans); (2) specialty crops
(including nuts and fruits, such as pecans and cranberries); and
(3) dairy and hogs… Less than 10 percent went to farming operations that
produced specialty crops or dairy and hogs.
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