OH HAPPY DAY FOR BLACK FARMERS: Biden's pandemic relief legislation offers debt relief to rescue Black farmers
BY MONA AUSTIN
Black farmers in America have lost more than 12 million acres of farmland over the past century, mostly since the 1950s, a result of what agricultural experts and advocates for Black farmers say is a combination of systemic racism, biased government policy, and social and business practices that have denied African Americans equitable access to markets. (Washington Post)
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In an interview with WBUR radio John Boyd Jr., a fourth-generation farmer from Virginia and president of the National Black Farmers Association, who has protested and won legal battles related to back pay to farmers in the past explains the importance of the measure.
Said Boyd, "We've been slaves. We've been sharecroppers. We have survived the discrimination from the Department of Agriculture that everyone knew about. . .When a farmer loses his farm, he loses his sense of dignity. . ."
The Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act will forgive 120 percent of the value of loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or from private lenders and guaranteed by the USDA, to “Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic farmers and other agricultural producers of color,” according to a release from the bill’s sponsors. The amount is small compared to the historic cost of struggle and racism for Black farmers who have been stripped of their livelihood over the years.
Blacks farmers have a history of experiencing delays in loans getting processed, lacking titles to the land on which they harvest and being denied government assistance.
The Washington Post gathered responses from some who have been affected by hardship in an article about how the funding from the ARP will provide relief to Black Farmers around the country. Black farmers are lauding the provision as an answer to years of advocacy to recover losses from longstanding inequities as well as form the pandemic. Experts are calling the legislation the most significant since the Civil Rights Era.
“This is the most significant piece of legislation with respect to the arc of Black land ownership in this country,” said Tracy Lloyd McCurty, executive director of the Black Belt Justice Center, which provides legal representation to Black farmers. Of the $10.4 billion in the American Rescue Plan that will support agriculture, approximately half would go to disadvantaged farmers, according to estimates from the Farm Bureau. The bill will provide $4 for debt relief and $1 billion for to equitably spread out various resources via USDA programs.
“It does my heart good to know that my 91-year-old father is alive to see what he’s been trying to accomplish for the last 30 years come to fruition,” said Abraham Carpenter, a Black farmer from Grady, Ark. He said this debt relief represents a lifelong dream for many Black farmers.