American Rescue Plan Provided Real Wins for BIPOC Farmers. It’s Time To Go Even Farther.
By Mackenzie Feldman
Earlier this month, President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) into law, a sweeping pandemic relief package that will provide immediate relief to the American people. But for Black farmers, this stimulus bill wasn’t just historic because of COVID relief: it’s being called the most significant legislation for Black farmers since the Civil Rights Act.
The Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act, introduced by freshman Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia and incorporated into the American Rescue Plan, provides $4 billion dollars for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to forgive direct or guaranteed loans given to socially disadvantaged farmers as well as allow the USDA to provide farmer grants, training, college scholarships, and other forms of assistance to help minority growers acquire land. Senator Cory Booker’s bill, the Justice for Black Farmers Act, originally introduced in 2020, also laid the ground work for these recommendations to be adopted into the American Rescue Plan, socializing ideas around historical discrimination and the needs for loans, services, credit, and for restructuring land-grant universities (the nation’s agricultural colleges).
Aspects of both Warnock and Booker’s bills adopted into the official American Rescue Plan outline issues similar to those we covered in our Data for Progress Memo: Land Access For Beginning and Disadvantaged Farmers. Our memo, issued in March 2020, points out the hurdles that socially disadvantaged farmers face when trying to acquire land, and recommends policy that would improve access to land, increase access to training and technical assistance, and address racial discrimination in the USDA.
Some of the key findings from our memo include:
In 1910, one in seven farmers was African-American and held titles to approximately 16-19 million acres of farmland.
Over the next century, 98% of Black farmers were dispossessed through discriminatory practices at the USDA and various federal farm programs.
These farmers were often denied loans and credit, lacked access to legal defense against fraud, and experienced “outright acts of violence and intimidation” resulting in a 90% loss of Black-owned farmland in the US.
A lot of the policies in regards to increasing access to land and rectifying historical injustices for socially disadvantaged farmers that were implemented in the American Rescue Plan resemble the policies we proposed in our 2020 memo, such as advocating for training, grants and loans, and establishing an office to address racial equity issues. Below we indicate the wins we achieved in this package from our policy proposals, and show what work still needs to be done.
(Checkmarks indicate elements we proposed in our Land Access for Beginning and Disadvantaged Farmers memo that were adopted in the American Rescue Plan. See footnotes to see the exact policy recommendations we provided).
□ Over $1 billion going towards USDA assistance and support for socially disadvantaged farmers, ranchers, forest land owners and operators, and groups;
✓ provide outreach, mediation, financial training, capacity building training, cooperative development training and support, and other technical assistance on issues concerning food, agriculture, agricultural credit, agricultural extension, rural development, or nutrition to socially disadvantaged farmers, ranchers, or forest landowners, or other members of socially disadvantaged groups; [1]
✓ provide grants and loans to improve land access for socially disadvantaged farmers, ranchers, or forest landowners, including issues related to heirs’ property in a manner as determined by the Secretary; [2,3]
✓ fund the activities of one or more equity commissions that will address racial equity issues within the Department of Agriculture and its programs; [4,5]
✓ provide financial assistance to socially disadvantaged farmers, ranchers, or forest landowners that are former farm loan borrowers that suffered related adverse actions or past discrimination or bias in Department of Agriculture programs, as determined by the Secretary. [6]
Perhaps most excitingly, the American Rescue Plan and Warnock’s Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act gives solutions discussed in our memo and provides $4 billion of direct debt relief to marginalized farmers — up to 120 percent of the outstanding indebtedness of each socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher (the amount over 100% is to pay off tax liabilities associated with paying off loans.)
But there is always room for improvement. The American Rescue Plan does not change the underlying issues that made land access, sustainable farming methods, and credit access difficult or impossible for BIPOC farmers to begin with. The memo outlines the following policy recommendations that would significantly improve land access for marginalized farmers:
Restructure subsidy and credit programs to exclude large corporations and prioritize independent, small and mid-scale resident farmers
USDA should appoint a “land commission” to conduct a periodic national-scale participatory land tenure study every farm bill cycle, anchored by BIPOC community-based institutions. This will provide a holistic perspective on the socio-economic, political, and market-based factors limiting BIPOC access to land and equal land rights and provide policy recommendations on how to address these trends
Establish federal & state land banks of properties to make available below market rate to new farmers and BIPOC-led farmer cooperatives under special sustainable agriculture covenants (Example Legislation: California AB936 - REEAL Act of 2019)
Limit land investment by large corporations and lower barriers to entry for new farmers from disadvantaged communities. (Example Legislation: North Dakota Cent. Code § 10-06.1-01 to -25, recently upheld in state court; South Dakota Codified Law 47-9A - Corporate Farming Restrictions)
Implement a mandatory supply management program for agricultural commodities, consisting of price floors, reserves and coordinating with conservation programs to reduce acres planted, that ensures parity (indexed fair agricultural pricing mechanism that was central to New Deal-era Farm Bill programs) pricing for producers who implement strong conservation practices.16 (Example Legislation: Canada - Dairy & Egg Supply Management System, which restricts whom can supply dairy for the province based on proximity of producers’ residency. For additional information see the National Family Farm Coalition’s Food From Family Farm Act)
Pass comprehensive immigration reform that provides pathways to citizenship. The proposed “blue card” legislation in California provides a template for a bare minimum approach that would protect farm tenants who are currently undocumented.
We have the power to use this momentum from the ARP to push the USDA beyond just simply providing pandemic relief for socially disadvantaged farmers and truly right the wrongs of historical discrimination. Sen. Booker’s bill, the Justice for Black Farmers Act, has been reintroduced in Congress and contains a lot of the long-term structural changes needed to correct the history of discrimination in the USDA. Yet even that package wouldn't go far enough. As John Boyd, a Black farmer in Baskerville, Virginia writes in an op-ed last week, “The only way to correct the long history of discrimination is to undo it completely. Justice requires land restoration for farms that were taken away under a century of unfair laws, and an end to the disparities in the treatment of Black and white farmers."
Congress should heed that call and continue to work towards enacting full justice and equity for farmers all across our nation. This month’s wins offer a good start, but there’s much more work to do.
Read our 2020 memo here.
Mackenzie Feldman (@mackenziekfeld) is Executive Director of Herbicide-Free Campus and a Data for Progress fellow.
[1] Increase funding to the USDA Conservation Programs. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) will require increased on-ground staff and technical assistance capacity to successfully service their regions, where the staff are trained in the principles of agroecology. Additional information for the necessity of this funding can be found in Data for Progress’ Regenerative Farming and the Green New Deal brief.
[2] Examine the role of heirs property in the loss of land for Black farmers, and offer education and technical assistance for families to retain property.
[3] Expand FSA grant & loan guarantee programs for land acquisition for beginning and socially disadvantaged resident farmers under sustainable agriculture covenants; establish lending guidelines for SBA & private loans to low-income resident farmers and BIPOC-led farmer cooperatives.
[4] Empower the new office to legally address claims of discrimination in agricultural credit, land credit & markets; conduct oversight of USDA practices. (Model: National Labor Relations Board).
[5] Create an office of equity at the USDA to review policy proposals and mandate BIPOC participation on farm bureau decision making boards.
[6] Earmark funds for down-payment assistance and financial support grants for new farms practicing sustainable agriculture through the first 10 years of operation.