Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

Justice for Black Farmers

Way back in May 2021, USDA announced a special program for socially-disadvantaged farmers. Meaning the Black, Hispanic, Native American and other non-White farmers usually ignored by banks and other lenders—and also ignored by their neighbors. These folks are usually isolated, marginalized and discriminated against. As the New York Times summed it up, “In 1920, African-Americans owned some 14% of the farms in the United States. But after a century of racial violence, foreclosures, migration into cities and farm consolidation, there are just under 49,000 left, representing 1.4% of American farmers. Most are concentrated in the Southeast and Texas.”

A state-by-state analysis has not, to my knowledge, been done, but in the Mississippi delta, two-thirds of farmers in the late 1800s were Black farmers but by 1910 most had lost their land to banks or tax sales and survived as tenant farmers. White planters had the connections, political and social, to accumulate. Here in my Missouri county, I know of only three Black families that still own farmland.

This is despite the fact that Black homesteaders were part of the settlement story in the West. Still, today’s Black organizations, like the NAACP, don’t have enough farming members to create agriculture committees in most states. Because they have lost their land through the years, America’s Black communities are now mostly urban. Here in Missouri, a few small landowners are trying to get the NAACP attention. The Biden effort will no doubt help.

Unfortunately, the news of the USDA initiative has sparked a backlash among White farmers. One of my neighbors whined that, being a White male, he’s part of the group most helpless in America today. But he’s still wearing his Trump hat, and benefitting from the USDA subsidies that keep my county going.

For the last couple of months, I’ve carried a list of my county’s big winners in the USDA lottery of subsidized agriculture. It’s easy to find this list … just get on the website of EWG.org and type in “Farm Subsidy Database.” To get familiar with the site, you might want to check out the tab called “Explore,” and from there you might want to look at the “Trump Farmer Bailout.” While you could spend the rest of the day exploring the $23.2 billion in handouts for products like wheat, hogs, sweet cherries and shelled almonds, you have bigger fish to fry (so to speak). You’re on a mission to find the winners in your county … remember?

So get out of the “Trump Farmer Bailout” category and click on “EWG’s Farm Subsidy Database” and you’ll see a map of the nation. Click on your state and see a pie chart with the types of subsidies in your state, then, at the top of the page, in a box called “pick a county,” click on your county, and then you can explore.

The list of big winners that I’ve been carrying around was found under the heading “Top Recipients.” Once you’ve seen it for your county, you’ll recognize the names. That guy owns a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation. And that one is on the Board of Directors of the bank. And there’s the name of the guy that started the Christian school in town. And so on.

They’re all big land owners, successful and Caucasian. According to EWG, my county winners got more than a whopping $67 million between 1995 and 2020. And that’s just in my county. Of course, we can think of that as much a subsidy for the banks and Wall Street — John Deere, Monsanto, Cargill and other big ag corporations that serve the industrial ag community — because these farmers are heavily in debt to Wall Street.

It’s important to remember that most farmers don’t get subsidies. The vast majority, like those selling at your local farmers’ market, are on their own. But check out the list of the big winners in your county and you’ll see how the game goes. In theory, a farmer is limited to $125,000 per year, but other family members can get their $125,000 as well. Put a kid into the “beginning farmer program” and there’s another kick in the bank account.

Back in 1999, there was a lawsuit known today as “Pigford” that sought to settle the decades of discrimination against Black farmers. The case was settled in favor of the 400 Black farmers that filed, proving they were discriminated against when it came to loans for seeds, fertilizers and other necessities to put a crop in the ground. Being denied the same funds that White farmers got, they were further marginalized by denial of disaster payments and other benefits.

After generations of discrimination, it’s high time Black farmers got some justice.

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. She also is a co-founder of CAFOZone.com, a website for people who are affected by concentrated animal feeding operations. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History”. Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2021

Populist.com