It's Black History Month: Educator talks about teaching America's history, all 'the good, the bad, and the ugly'

DeWitt-King Barn in Vernon County, Wisconsin
(Painting by Patsy Alderson)

Would you like teach U.S. history to high school students? Many people would say "No." But veteran teacher Kevin Alderson and his wife Patsy, both rural Wisconsin natives, found a way: "Together, they are lifelong educators, and Kevin’s 30-year tenure teaching middle- and high-school history add to their credentials as stewards for their region’s history," reports Sara June Jo-Sæbo for The Daily Yonder. "Committed to uncovering and safeguarding the racial and ethnic diversity of rural Wisconsin, the Aldersons offer educational community programs to ensure that our inheritance with diverse American experiences isn’t lost."

Jo-Sæbo writes, "I wanted to talk to Kevin about ways he engaged high-school students in the classroom and to get his opinion about how teaching history has changed over the last 40 years. I also wanted to hear about how country schools and school consolidation affected rural students and racial diversity." Here are her questions and his answers:

As a history teacher, what did you observe in the classroom when students learned local history?
While my approach to teaching family and local history didn’t reach every student, for many of them, being able to connect national and world events with their families and local events – and seeing that they (the students) were part of the story – was the best method. It was about making a personal connection to that history.

Much of American history involves colonizing this continent through the use of impoverished Europeans and enslaved Africans. Our history also involves the persecution of Indigenous people. Does teaching about these traumatic experiences harm students? I accept the argument that we may not be responsible for what was done in the past because we weren’t alive then, but we are responsible for learning the truth about what happened. We fail when we don’t admit that this history happened and we fail when we don’t know the truth about what happened.  . . . If you’re truly trying to teach history – difficult history – you have to teach the greatness, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Unfortunately, the systemic tendency is to teach the great and the good and whitewash, or erase and ignore, the bad and the ugly. And there are a lot of people who have paid a heavy price for being overlooked.

Most people don’t know that Wisconsin has a substantial history of successful Black farmers who were also our earliest American pioneers. Tell me how you were exposed to Wisconsin’s African American history in your own childhood. I was not exposed to Wisconsin’s rural African-American history as a child. . . . Most of the rural Black history I’ve learned has been since I retired from teaching.

Vernon County, Wisconsin (Wikipedia map)

As an adult, what motivated you to help to preserve Wisconsin’s African-American and Indigenous history? This awareness of rural Black history in Wisconsin came to us through our interest in round barns. My wife, Patsy, is an artist who paints structures and landscapes. Of course, here in Vernon County we have the most round barns, as far as I know, in the nation. She began to make paintings of all the round barns that remained. I began researching the barns and, built upon what the Vernon County Historical Society had compiled, discovered the history of Wisconsin’s Black settlements.

Getting into the 1900s, what made it difficult for Wisconsin’s rural Black communities to remain in Southwest Wisconsin? Interestingly enough, a lot of the settlement faded away with the elimination of country schools. Instead of having your own little school and settlement – which were integrated Black, White and Native American – as soon as they were closing those schools as early as the 40’s and 50’s, they bussed those students to towns and any time new folks are brought into an environment – even from the country to the town – it often created an “us and them” situation.

How can educators teach this complicated story of American history? Intentionally or unintentionally, racism is systemic. There’s a conflict right now between recognizing the truth [of our American history with racism] and suppressing the truth. And how does an individual, or society, or nation move forward into something better if you don’t recognize the mistakes that have been made? Especially if you continue to perpetuate those mistakes. . . .We don’t have to attack our ancestors because it was a different day and a different age…. There are certain things in our history that were evil. Period. But there’s [also] a force of survival: looking for land and looking out for their families.

As a descendant of European settlers, why is it important to you to preserve the history of Black Americans who settled your home state of Wisconsin? Because the complete truth matters. I want to know the complete truth of all facets of American history. And, in fact, it goes beyond preservation. Most people are probably unaware of Black American settlement in Wisconsin during pioneer days. . . . History cannot be preserved if people don’t know it in the first place.

Black-owned acreage has fallen by almost half since 1900, partly because whites exploited informal land ownership

A map based on the 1910 census shows farms owned by African Americans; a dot represents 50 farms.
(Image from Ag Census Library at Cornell University; for a larger version or to download, click on it)

Black-owned acreage fell from 15 million acres in 1900 to 8 million acres in 2017. "Black Americans lost land in the 20th century for a variety of reasons, including violence, intimidation, immigration to the North, and discrimination by the USDA. But legal experts also blame vulnerable forms of land ownership, such as heirs’ property," Sarah Melotte reports for The Daily Yonder. 

About one-third of Black-owned land in the South is considered heirs' property, in which each heir owns an interest in the entire property and any one of them can force a sale. It "leaves the heirs more susceptible to losing the land and to not realizing its full economic potential," Melotte reports. "Heirs’ property rights are one way developers walked away with some of the region’s most desirable and profitable land at bargain-basement prices."

Legal snarls from heirs' property still prevent many rural Black landowners from accessing government programs today. "Organizations are trying to fix that problem. The Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention Network, for example, supports Black landowners with the goal of keeping land in the family and increasing wealth through forestry. But there are still pressures that threaten land ownership for Black Americans," Melotte reports. "As development sprawls from an urban center, adjacent rural areas face higher demand for housing and other resources."

Black farm owners in the southeastern Black Belt and the Gullah Geechee Corridor from North Carolina to Florida have been particularly vulnerable to the heirs' property problem.

Quick hits: Gardening through a drought; Delta farmworkers claim discrimination; just how rural is your place?

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Baby formula is coming back, but it's still harder to find in rural areas than cities. Read more here.

Here are tips for keeping your garden going during a drought. Read more here.

Demand for electric and hybrid-electric vehicles is growing faster in rural America than in metro areas (perhaps because there was more ground to make up). Ford is hoping its fully electric F-150 Lightning, comparably priced with its gasoline-powered cousin, will win over rural audiences. Read more here.

An investigation found that some farms in the Mississippi Delta paid their primarily Black local farmers less per hour than foreign workers with H-2A visas, who were most often white men from South Africa. Some Black farmworkers have filed suit, alleging racial discrimination. Read more here.

Determining just how rural a place is can be complicated, since federal agencies use different, often conflicting, definitions based on various criteria. The Rural Health Information Hub has an interesting interactive widget that allows you to see whether where you live is considered rural and by which federal standards. Read more here.

Farmers' markets have been around for a few millennia, and they continue to play an important role in communities today. Read more here.

Lawsuits from conservative groups drive up price tag, timing of Biden minority-farmer relief program, now at risk

"A string of legal defeats for a groundbreaking program to forgive the debts of minority farmers is presenting the Biden administration with a stark choice. It can continue the fight and risk further setbacks or give up and disappoint activists and lawmakers who have championed the cause," Josh Gerstein and Ximena Bustillo report for Politico. "The estimated $4 billion program is under siege by conservative legal groups — including one founded by close aides to former President Donald Trump — who have filed at least 13 lawsuits arguing the debt relief effort unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of race."

Preliminary injunctions from three judges have blocked the program nationwide until the lawsuits are resolved. The Justice Department usually appeals in such cases, but hasn't yet. "Legal experts say the Biden administration’s best move at the moment might be to huddle with congressional allies and come up with a program more likely to pass muster," Gerstein and Bustillo report. "Otherwise, they say, there’s a danger of provoking court rulings that might undermine other programs aimed at remedying past discrimination." Several legal experts told Politico the program would be overturned if a case reached the Supreme Court.

Loan program to help Black farmers keep land they inherited informally, authorized in 2018 Farm Bill, is finally starting

The Agriculture Department will implement a loan program for farmers who inherited their land informally to resolve ownership issues so they can hold onto their land. Heirs' property issues have particularly threatened Black farmers in the South.

"The Heirs’ Property Relending Program will provide $67 million for loans to resolve property issues that have long kept some producers and landowners from being able to access USDA programs and services," Ximena Bustillo reports for Politico. "The program’s provisions were included in the 2018 Farm Bill, but it wasn’t implemented during the Trump administration."

Under the program, landowners can borrow up to $600,000 to "buy out other people with claims to land, consolidate a title and clear the titles on the ground. Those farms would then become eligible for other USDA agricultural programs as well," Chris Clayton reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer. "Lenders such as cooperatives and credit unions can apply for up to $5 million at 1 percent interest when a two-month sign up window begins in late August. USDA will loan the money to those intermediate lenders who will then loan out the funds to the farmers."

About one-third of Black-owned land in the South is considered "heirs' property," or property passed down without a will or other clear documentation. Black families have often lost land to speculators and developers because they couldn't prove ownership, Clayton reports.

"The rising frequency and severity of natural disasters also poses a threat to heirs’ farms and other rural property. The Federal Emergency Management Agency more commonly denies disaster aid requests because of title issues in the South in counties that are majority Black," Bustillo reports.

USDA to hold online listening sessions this week on racial-justice and equity efforts in under-served communities

The Agriculture Department will hold online listening sessions Wednesday and Thursday to hear how the agency can advance racial justice and equity in under-served communities. Specifically, the agency wants help identifying barriers that can keep people of color and others in under-served communities from accessing USDA programs, services, committees, and decision making.

On Wednesday, July 28, USDA will offer three listening sessions: 10 a.m.-1 p.m., 1-4 p.m., and 4-7 p.m. (all ET). On Thursday one listening session will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. ET. Register here.

"Registration guarantees that participants have a reserved spot in a queue to offer their thoughts," Xandr Brown reports for The Daily Yonder. "Each speaker will have five minutes to touch on their interactions with the USDA as well as ways the USDA can remove barriers and engage more with under-served communities. Participants are also encouraged to touch on topics like access, enrollment, and general customer service experiences."

The listening sessions are part of wider agency efforts to execute President Biden's order to advance racial equity and support for under-served communities. USDA also moved the deadline to submit public comments from July 15 to Aug. 14. 

"Within a year of the signing of the order, federal agencies will create a plan outlining how they will promote and enact programs with equity and fairness at the forefront," Brown reports. "In the coming months, the USDA will take the public input gathered from the listening sessions and written comments and submit them to a newly created Racial Equity Commission."

U.S. has very few millennial farmers; only 9% are 35 or younger, and only 4% of those are non-white, USDA says

96% of young producers in the U.S. are white
(Investigate Midwest chart; click to enlarge it)

In 2017, the most recent year for which data are available, farmers and ranchers age 35 and under made up only 9 percent of all American farmers, according to the Department of Agriculture.

"Nearly all, 96%, of the young producers were white. This left 14,111 young producers of color in the U.S. Socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, those who have experienced racial or ethnic prejudice, have additional funding opportunities through the USDA’s 2501 program," Mary Henningan reports for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. "About 80% of the young producers started farming in the last 10 years and about 50% started in the last five years. Most young producers reported a primary occupation that was not farming in 2017. The USDA’s Farm Service Agency offers support to beginning farmers and ranchers through direct and guaranteed loan programs."

Quick hits: rural migrant health; covering critical race theory; Biden rejects free-trade doctrine of Dem. predecessors . . .

A former pet goldfish pulled from a lake near Minneapolis.
(City of Burnsville photo)

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Experts offer journalists four tips on covering critical race theory. Read more here.

The Rural Health Information Hub has a new backgrounder guide to rural migrant health. Read more here.

More than 7,500 have applied for a program that promises incentives for remote workers who move to West Virginia. Read more here.

Wildlife officials are asking people to stop dumping their pet fish in lakes; the former pets grow so large that they could disrupt lake habitats. Read more here.

Though President Biden has not fully shifted away from President Trump's protectionist policies, Biden is the first modern Democratic president to reject "the dogma of free trade," George E. Condon Jr. writes for the National Journal. Read more here.

In a first for a federal criminal trial, prosecutors used tree DNA to prove that defendants had stolen valuable bigleaf maple trees from Olympic National Forest in Washington and sold them to local lumber mills. Read more here.

The industrial hemp boom has largely gone bust; experts speculate on what could happen next for growers, processors, and the hemp market in general. Read more here.

A Black family farm is fighting climate change and racism in agriculture. Read more here.

Black farmers the least likely to get USDA direct loans over past three years, also got lower share of pandemic relief

Black farmers were denied USDA loans at higher rates than
other groups in 2020 (Politico chart; click to enlarge it)

"Not only have Black farmers received the least amount of direct loans of any ethnic and racial group over the past three years, but also that the number and share of direct loans hit a 10-year low last year," Ximena Bustillo reports for Politico's Weekly Agriculture. That matters because Agriculture Department direct loans "are supposed to be a sort of last resort for farmers who cannot get credit elsewhere. Yet, white farmers have an acceptance rate that is nearly twice as high."

The issue goes beyond loans. Also, though farmers of color represent about 5 percent of American farmers, they got less than 1% of Coronavirus Food Assistance Program funding, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Bustillo reports.

"The department continues to fight legal battles in multiple courts to ensure that a congressionally authorized program to provide about $4 billion in debt relief to farmers of color is carried out," Bustillo reports. "But advocates for Black farmers say USDA needs to take steps beyond debt relief to address barriers at the Farm Service Agency level including racial bias, inexperienced personnel and lack of bandwidth to help with applications. Farmers recalled FSA agents misleading them about available loan applications and being overall absent to help guide the process."

White farmers have voiced widespread resentment of the program, who say they are also suffering during the pandemic. Under the plan, a farmer who meets the 1990 Farm Bill's definition of "socially disadvantaged" could be paid 120% of the amount owed on a USDA loan (the extra to cover taxes on the money) without having to prove discrimination.

"USDA is conducting internal and external investigations, which are supposed to review all programs and agencies of the department to pinpoint where access may be lacking not just for Black farmers, but all producers including beginning farmers and other socially disadvantaged producers and ranchers," Bustillo reports. "USDA has previously said it plans to start reviews with the consumer-facing branches, which includes FSA. The external review is not expected to start until the fall, but the internal one is underway and is expected to wrap up over the summer."

Panel of rural experts say Biden administration needs more rural voices

"Rural perspectives should be present in every office in the Biden administration, said a panel of rural policy experts convened by students at Kenyon College. When decision-makers don’t understand rural communities, bad policy can be the result," Olivia Weeks reports for The Daily Yonder. "The biggest takeaway from the panel, said Daniel Napsha—founder of The Rural Cause initiative at Kenyon, is the need for rural voices in policy discussions. A non-representative body of policymakers has resulted in major structural problems, he said." The Rural Cause, which sponsored the panel, is a student-led advocacy group seeking to strengthen ties between Kenyon College and its rural Ohio surroundings.

The Feb. 18 panel, called "The Future of Rural America Under President Biden," also discussed the need for direct rural-development funding, the importance of data collection, the dangers of stereotyping rural America, and the policy implications of misunderstanding rural America.

Another common problem in discussing rural needs is that too many lawmakers conflate "rural" with "white" or "agricultural," which often means racial and ethnic minorities, including Native Americans, get left out of the discussion. "One way to help policymakers differentiate between rural America and farmers, said Zoe Willingham, research associate at the Center for American Progress, is to decouple rural policy from the Department of Agriculture, which houses non-agricultural rural-development programs in housing, broadband and utilities infrastructure, and a range of other community-development activities.

Increased broadband access would help overall rural resiliency, said John Windhausen, executive director of the Schools, Health, Libraries Broadband Coalition. Direct funding is needed to make that happen, he said, noting that it will cost an estimated $80 billion to bring broadband to all rural Americans. However, he also said it's difficult to assess rural broadband reach because of faulty Federal Communications Commission data maps.

Chuck Abbott of FERN covers Vilsack's to-do list, climate-change farm subsidies, and minority farmer debt relief

Chuck Abbott of the Food & Environment Reporting Network has a trio of articles this week about agricultural issues. Here's a short summary of each:

Tom Vilsack, confirmed in a landslide Senate vote Tuesday for his second stint as agriculture secretary, is coming out of the gate with a "blockbuster" to-do list, Abbott writes in the first article.

Vilsack, who will be the Biden administration's chief link to rural America, "has a panoramic approach to farm prosperity and rural economic development as a cabinet secretary with initiatives that include biofuels and broadband access," Abbott writes. "He also argues that Democrats, for lasting political success, need to be more active in rural areas and find areas of agreement with rural voters, who are heavily Republican. The rural vote was instrumental in Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016."

Under Vilsack, he Agriculture Department aims to further President Biden's goal to make the U.S. the first country to achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions from farming through initiatives such as paying farmers to conserve land and plant cover crops. Vilsack said in his Feb. 2 confirmation hearing that he believes farmers are "prepared" and "anxious" to adopt greener practices as long as they're voluntary, market-based, and incentive-based, Abbott reports.

Abbott's second piece explores farmers' views on eco-friendly farming practices, as reported by farm leaders at the USDA's Agricultural Outlook Forum last week. Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest agriculture group, said farmers expect to be paid for climate-change initiatives but not if they take money from traditional crop subsidies.

Chuck Connor, president of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and a former USDA deputy secretary, agreed: "You cannot do climate on the backs of the American farmer . . . They just simply don’t have the resources for that." Abbott notes, "Farm country opposition was a prominent factor in the defeat a decade ago of a cap-and-trade program to combat climate change."

The USDA "spends from $10 billion to $15 billion a year on farm supports, including $7 billion to $8 billion on crop and dairy subsidies and around $6 billion for land stewardship," Abbott reports. "Climate mitigation on the farm could require a federal contribution, possibly creating a squeeze on existing programs unless new funding is provided."

Abbott's third article explores controversy over $4 billion of debt relief for socially disadvantaged farmers that the House Budget Committee approved Monday as part of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. The USDA definition of socially disadvantaged farmers includes racial minorities and sometimes women.  Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee objected to the proposal, saying in comments submitted to the CBO that the plan was too hasty and that it needed more study to ensure there were no unintended impacts." They also questioned whether disadvantaged farmers' financial woes were pandemic-related. Rep. Trent Kelly of Mississippi called it reverse discrimination.

"The relief plan also allots $1 billion for land access, 'heirs property' issues and legal aid for socially disadvantaged farmers," Abbott reports.

A look at the little-known, but critical, work of Depression-era Black workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps

Black CCC workers built a bridge at White River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas. (CCC photo)

Just in time for Black History Month, Dan Chapman of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides a look at the little-known history of Black workers—many of them from rural areas and working in rural areas—in the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps.

FWS archaeologist Richard Kanaksi is compiling information about their role in creating national wildlife refuges across the South, hoping to highlight the "major, yet largely hidden role played by African-Americans in rebuilding this country from the depths of the Great Depression," Chapman reports. Read more here.

Vilsack, in line for confirmation as secretary, says he will have 'a serious focus on getting stuff done quickly' at USDA

Tom Vilsack
(Getty Images photo by Alex Wong)

Tom Vilsack is one step away from another term as agriculture secretary, following the Senate Agriculture Committee's unanimous voice vote for his nomination Tuesday. The virtual hearing "was full of references to climate change, greenhouse gas mitigation and carbon credit programs, and lessons learned from the pandemic about the vulnerabilities of our food system," Laura Reiley reports for The Washington Post.

Vilsack was the only cabinet member to last all eight years of the Obama administration. The former Iowa governor and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council didn't want to come back at first, President Biden said in December, but Biden said he persisted because Vilsack knew the department "inside and out."

Vilsack said recently that he would arrive at USDA with a "serious focus on getting stuff done quickly" and would have the advantage of understanding the breadth of what the department can do and the challenges it faces, Chuck Abbott reports for the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

Vilsack will face a new challenge in the pandemic, but will have considerable latitude in taking action to help those hurt economically, Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's Weekly Agriculture that USDA is sitting on a $30 billion (for now) war chest that . . . Biden could tap to prop up struggling restaurants, pay farmers to implement climate-friendly production and potentially much more."

Policies have changed little since Vilsack left, University of Tennessee agriculture economists Harwood D. Schaffer and Daryll E. Ray write: "With the exception of the trade payments and the Covid-19 payments, the farm policies Vilsack inherits as he returns to the agriculture secretary job are essentially the same ones he shepherded through Congress when he previously served."

But other things have changed, so Vilsack's familiarity will be critical, said Ben Lilliston, director of rural and climate strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "USDA was decimated by the Trump administration, including the attempt to end the undersecretary for rural development and the decision to physically move two key research agencies [the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture] resulting in a major loss of research capacity," Lillston told Jan Pytalski of The Daily Yonder. "Vilsack knows the department and will rebuild USDA’s capacity and function in the short term."

Schaffer and Ray write that critics have called Vilsack ineffective, but "one could argue that in developing farm policy Vilsack had to deal with a Republican Congress that limited what he could do" after 2010. "For instance, he worked with chicken farmers on contracting issues and held a series of high-profile hearings, only to have Congress fail to fund the writing of new rules."

Progressives worry Vilsack is too cozy with Big Agriculture and has a poor track record on race. "A two-year investigation by Nathan Rosenberg and Bryce Stucki of The Counter unearthed a series of other concerns related to Black farmers, including alleged manipulation of census data to cover-up historic discrimination and to falsely claim there was a renaissance in Black farming under Vilsack’s leadership," Martin Longman writes for the Washington Monthly.

Lilliston told Pytalski, "In terms of setting a new course for rural communities, one that isn’t primarily extractive and tied to the interest of often multinational companies, there are reasons to be skeptical that Vilsack will shift much from the Obama years." But Oleta Garrett Fitz, regional administrator of the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic and Social Justice, told Pytalski that Biden’s inital USDA appointments "give a semblance of hope that this administration will pay more than lip service to the rest of the department’s mission to support the health and economic wellbeing of all of rural America, including its most diverse populations."

Biden courts Black farmers in Southern swing states

Joe Biden knows he's not going to win the overall rural vote, but narrowing President Trump's lead in rural areas, especially in battleground states, could make a big difference in the electoral college math. So the Biden campaign has been pursuing rural voters, especially Black farmers, who make up a small but potentially significant share of the rural vote, Ximena Bustillo reports for Politico. 

"Black farm producers, who number almost 49,000 nationally, are concentrated in Southern swing states, including North Carolina, Florida and Georgia. When combined with other farmers of color, also a focus of the Biden campaign, the total swells to 260,000 producers. Many say it's the first time in years a presidential nominee has paid attention to their needs," Bustillo reports. "Black farmers have long struggled to get equal access to USDA programs that help build credit and address civil rights complaints. They have pushed the government for more enforcement to retain land that has been in their families for generations at a time when farmers, generally, are facing unprecedented economic headwinds due to the pandemic and trade war disruptions." Biden has released a plan meant to help non-white farmers better access credit and capital, campaign senior policy adviser Seema Sadanandan told Bustillo. 

Though Trump likely has a narrower lead in rural areas this year than he did in 2016, Biden still has an uphill battle to win over rural voters, especially farmers. A poll conducted in late July found that 75 percent of farmers surveyed said they would vote for Trump.

Quick hits: movement seeks to increase number of young Black farmers; hope outlasts prosperity in oil-bust town

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Movement seeks to increase number of young Black farmers. Read more here.

Smaller specialty flour companies are helping revitalize local economies; could other industries copy their model? Read more here.

Hope outlasts prosperity in N.D. town flattened by oil bust. Read more here.

Could pandemic make it even harder for rural students to go to college? Read more here.

The Environmental Protection Agency has canceled its paid subscription to Energy & Environment News, one of the largest publications dedicated to covering the EPA. That ends EPA employees' free access to coverage about the agency, including reporting on EPA's "union-busting" actions. Read more here.

Execs at Pilgrim's Pride and Claxton Poultry Farms indicted in alleged price-fixing scheme; others could be charged

"The chief executive of one of the country’s largest chicken producers was indicted on a price-fixing charge on Wednesday along with three other current and former executives at companies that supply chicken to groceries and restaurants across the United States," Cade Metz reports for The New York Times. "The indictment, by a federal grand jury in United States District Court in Denver, alleges that senior executives at Pilgrim’s Pride, based in Colorado, and Claxton Poultry Farms in Georgia fixed prices and rigged bids from 2012 to 2017. The charges are the first in a still-open Justice Department investigation involving several other major chicken producers."

The DOJ began investigating U.S. meat processors in recent weeks after farmers and ranchers complained that processors have been paying them extremely low prices for their livestock, even though meat prices (especially beef) surged for buyers, Leah Nylen and Liz Crampton report for Politico.

Man who left NFL to run a farm seems to be doing well

In 2012, NFL player Jason Brown left a thriving career to buy a farm. Brown admitted he knew very little about farming, and that he got most of his know-how from YouTube videos. So how are things working out for farmer Brown? Pretty well, according to CBS News, which caught up with him recently. The former offensive lineman now owns and runs a 1,000-acre farm in Louisburg, N.C., and donates part of every harvest to local food banks. Click the video for more:

Minority farmers, especially Hispanics, on the rise

While recent studies have shown that the overall number of farmers in America is on the decline, the number of minority farmers, especially Hispanics, is on the rise, growing by 15 percent between 2007 to 2012, according to a preliminary report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Census of Agriculture, taken every five years. The number of minority farmers "is defined as principal operators who are Hispanic, American Indian, black and Asian," Tim Marema reports for the Daily Yonder. One of the pressing issues of immigration reform is the high number of undocumented workers in agriculture jobs.

Minority farmers increased by 21,000 from 2007 to 2012, the census found. Hispanic farmers increased by 11,000, or 22 percent, with a total of 67,000 Hispanic principal farm operators in 2012. Asian farmers increased by 2,485 to 13,699, an increase of 22 percent, African American farmers increased by 9 percent to 13,700, and American Indian farmers increased by 9 percent to 37,857. "Overall, people of color were the principal operators of about 7.3 percent of the nation’s farms in 2012," Marema writes. "That’s up about 1.2 points from the 2007 survey." (Read more) The full report is scheduled to be released in May. To read the preliminary report click here.

African Americans with Southern farming heritage bring farmers' market to Chicago's South Side

The south side of Chicago has become a magnet for African American farmers in Northern Illinois to sell fresh fruits and vegetables at an affordable price to mostly black residents. But the back story of how the markets came to be is a fascinating one, rich in tradition, Samuel Freedman reports for The New York Times. (NYT photo by Nathan Weber: T. C. Barker, 73, and his grandson, C. J. Dodd, 14)

Many of the sellers were born in the rural South, some into families that owned or worked farms, before circumstances (such as one family losing its land after the patriarch died with no will) forced them to move to Chicago as part of the great Northern Migration of black Southerners. After retiring from years working in the city, a handful decided to return to the country, buying property 60 miles south of Chicago in the Pembroke Township, which had been settled by freed slaves and is now home to a host of black farmers, Freedman writes. On Saturday mornings in the summer a small group sells their goods at the market, which is sponsored by one of Chicago’s most formidable black churches, Trinity United Church of Christ, which has 8,500 members, and once counted President Obama as a member.

"It helps support the precarious livelihood of the farmers, and it addresses the congregation’s need for fresh produce in an expanse of the South Side considered a 'food desert' for its paucity of supermarkets and greengrocers," Freedman writes. The market was created by the Rev. Otis Moss III and his wife Monica, "a mother of two with a fervent interest in health and wellness. She pointed out the difficulty that Trinity members and other neighborhood residents had finding fresh fruits and vegetables close by at affordable prices. On a typical summer Saturday, about 150 customers patronize the farmers, who make as much as $150 for a five-hour stint." (Read more)

Program to compensate minority farmers for past discrimination is 'a runaway train,' NYT reports

A 2002 protest (NYT photo by Stephen Crowley)

Minority farmers may be abusing a program that allows people to get money based on alleged discrimination by biased federal loan officers, and lawmakers and lawyers are also reaping the political and financial rewards of the program, reports Sharon LaFraniere for The New York Times.

In 1999, the Clinton administration awarded $50,000 each to African American farmers who claimed they suffered such discrimination. In response, Hispanics and women also claimed discrimination, and the government opened the doors for thousands to claim money, with little or no evidence required to qualify, LaFraniere reports. As a result, the program "became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees," she writes. "In the past five years, it has grown to encompass a second group of African-Americans as well as Hispanic, female and Native American farmers. In all, more than 90,000 people have filed claims. The total cost could top $4.4 billion."

Since it is nearly impossible to verify an accusation of discrimination, the program seemingly encourages people to lie, LaFraniere writes. "Claimants were not required to present documentary evidence that they had been unfairly treated or had even tried to farm. Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination."