Ag May Add Black Farmers to Subsidy Panels

Ira Dreyfuss / Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Agriculture Department plans to put more black farmers on the committees that have oversight in how federal farm subsidies are allocated.

The increase in black voters on the committees should happen soon after the November election, Vernon Parker, the department's top civil rights official, said Tuesday.

Parker spoke on a street outside the department's headquarters while about 75 demonstrators rallied against what they saw as the department's continuing refusal to rectify a history of discrimination. The department has settled one major class-action discrimination suit and faces the possibility of another.

The planned expansion of minority participation focuses on county committees elected by farmers. The committees review eligibility for programs administered by the Agriculture Department's Farm Service Agency.

The department's plan is a step in the right direction, said John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, but is "a dime too late." If the change had been made a decade or more ago, "it could have saved a lot of black farmers," he said.
Black farmers contend that white-dominated panels of three to five members in many counties have used their power to force the foreclosure of many black farms, which then are purchased by whites.

The committee system is undergoing "a severe overhaul," said Parker. The department announced plans to change the committee structure in August.

The department currently has the option of appointing nonvoting minority members to county committees if farmers do not elect them to voting seats on the panels. Under the proposed changes, the department could independently nominate members from minority groups to run for voting seats. It also could appoint voting members from minority groups to the committees if none run or win election, said Ed Loyd, a department spokesman.

Placing minority group members on the committees would be an option if, for instance, a committee has been the target of bias complaints, Loyd said.

Speakers during Tuesday's demonstration also accused the department of obstructing the process through which claims are paid under a landmark discrimination class action settlement in 1999.

In that case, black farmers complained they were denied loans and other assistance because of a pattern of discrimination. A new federal lawsuit contends discrimination has continued since the last settlement, and seeks class action status on behalf of 25,000 blacks who farmed or attempted to farm between 1997 and 2004.

At a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, lawmakers said the 1999 class action settlement did not help most of the farmers in the class. About 65,000 black farmers were excluded because they did not file claims in time, said subcommittee chairman Steve Chabot, R-Ohio.

"We cannot in good conscience allow a settlement that leaves out more potential claimants than it allows in to go unexamined or remain unresolved," Chabot said.

Court-appointed administrators of the settlement countered that their hands were tied by the settlement's own restrictions. To qualify for an extension, farmers had to show they were delayed by extraordinary circumstances such as a hurricane or serious illness, and most could not, said Michael J. Lewis, the settlement's arbitrator.

Congress could pass a law to let the excluded farmers try again for restitution from the Agriculture Department, said Alexander Pires, the class action's lead lawyer. But if he asked the court simply to change the terms of the settlement, the department would object, he said.

Congress of Black Farm Organizations (CBFO)
Rally at USDA & Congressional Hearing