Black farm leader says USDA should halt farm foreclosures

"Senators were wrong in repealing a program for $4 billion in debt relief for socially disadvantaged farmers, said John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, on Tuesday," Chuck Abbott reports for the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

"A Virginia farmer, Boyd called on President Biden to declare a moratorium on [Agriculture Department] farm foreclosures while Congress worked on a new relief plan. The program has been tied up in court for months by lawsuits claiming it was unfair to white farmers. The Senate repealed the 2021 language on Sunday at the same time it approved $5.3 billion to help financially distressed farmers and farmers who suffered discrimination in USDA farm lending programs. The new package was tucked into the USDA section of the mammoth climate, health-care and tax bill that was passed by the Senate and faces a House vote on Friday."

The $5.3 billion approved Sunday would disproportionately help farmers of color, but does not address race directly. Instead, Abbott notes, "it offers $3.1 billion in 'immediate relief' to 'distressed' borrowers of money through USDA direct or guaranteed loan programs, and $2.2 billion, in payments of up to $500,000 per producer, to 'farmers, ranchers or forest landowners determined to have experienced discrimination' in USDA farm lending programs before last Jan. 1."

USDA has acknowledged that it has discriminated against non-white farmers in administering its programs, Abbott reports. So it's appropriate to offer such farmers direct loan forgiveness, Boyd said: "To acknowledge and correct racism is not unconstitutional or racist."