Rural Laws: April, 1998 - Number #6

About 1.2 million or two-thirds of US farms have annual sales of $20,000 or less, and they produce about four percent of total farm sales. However, the largest 40,000 US farms, each with annual sales of $500,000 or more, accounted for 40 percent of US farm sales in 1993. The average age of US farmers is 58.

Fewer than one percent, or about 18,000, of the 1.9 million US farmers are Black, and on December 17, 1997, Black farmers told President Clinton that they had been subjected to discrimination under USDA programs. Under many USDA programs, including Farmers Home Administration loans, local committees of farmers decide on loan applications or eligibility to participate in the program. Over 1,000 Black farmers have sued USDA, seeking $1 billion in compensation.

In April 1997, USDA announced a "substantial" settlement with a southern Virginia farmer who filed a discrimination complaint charging that his farm loan application was delayed because he is Black. The farmer's request for a 119,000 loan to finance a poultry house was repeatedly delayed by local USDA officials.

The president of the National Black Farmers Association said that he remains angry with USDA because it will take another year to resolve the backlog of more than 500 similar discrimination complaints. A February Department of Agriculture report had set a June 6 deadline for settling all the bias complaints in USDA loan programs. The USDA says that, because the Office of Civil Rights investigative arm disbanded in 1983, the agency must start over in many of the cases.

In 1997, Black farmers testified for several hours before Agriculture Secretary Glickman and several top aides at a special hearing called by Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat who heads the Congressional Black Caucus. Glickman told the assembled farmers that the biggest challenge the USDA faces is civil rights and promised to make changes. Prior to the hearing, several hundred Black farmers rallied in front of USDA, which has 90,000 employees.

There are an estimated 4,000 Latino growers in California, including 500 in Watsonville. The Watsonville-area growers, most of whom grow strawberries, are trying to form a cooler-shipper to represent about 150 of them who control 750 acres of strawberries. One-third of the area's strawberry growers are Latinos.

In the Fresno area, some 1,000 Southeast Asian farmers lease farm land for $300 an acre. Many sell their produce at street corner vegetable stands.

Ariana Chamercury, "Immigrants alter face of state's farms," San Jose Mercury News, August 25, 1997. Michael A. Fletcher, "Black Farmer Wins Settlement From the USDA," Washington Post, April 14 1997. Pamela Stallsmith, "Class-Action Lawsuit by Farmers Ruled Out," Richmond Times Dispatch, April 5, 1997.