BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN AND VED DOOKHUN
EPES, Alabama - Some 250 people, most of them Black farmers, attended the 31st annual meeting of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund (FSC/LAF) held here August 14-15 at the Rural Training and Research Center. The meeting announced plans for activities, including a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., in the fall to protest government and bank discrimination against farmers who are Black.

A press conference and prayer vigil is set for September 10 in Washington, where the final announcement will be made about the pilgrimage. The protest action is being called by the Coordinating Council of Black Farmers, a coalition that represents a number of farm organizations, including from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Many participants came to hear an update on the Pigford v Glickman class-action discrimination suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The $2.5 billion suit was filed on behalf of 400 farmers in August 1997.

A second lawsuit - Brewington v Glickman - is also under way on behalf of an additional 150 farmers who did not file complaints with the USDA before the February 1996 deadline.

Larry Vanderbilt, a veteran of a 23-day sit-in organized by 12 Black farmers at a government loan office in Covington, Tennessee, in 1981 attended the FSC/LAF meeting. He explained the urgent problems farmers faced then and now in trying to get government loans necessary to farm their land. "Here's the problem," Vanderbilt said. "If you grow cotton you have to plant in late April or early May; corn has to go in March. You need the money in advance to buy your seed and fertilizer, to get your equipment ready. When we finally got our money from the government, we always got it too late. The loan officers actually held our checks in the desk drawer until the last day before the check was due to expire." Several others who were part of the 1981 protest also attended the meeting. "Only one of us is still farming," Vanderbilt noted, "but all of us will be involved in the class action lawsuit."

J.L. Chestnut, an attorney for the farmers, announced that both the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed bills that would waive the federal statute of limitations on the Equal Opportunity Credit Act for farmer discrimination complaints filed between 1983 and 1996. The government attempted to use the statute to prevent farmers from filing discrimination complaints, arguing that some farmers did not make their complaints within two years of suffering discrimination. Chestnut noted that in 1983, the Reagan administration abolished the USDA Office of Civil Rights where farmers could have filed complaints.

Charles Lee, 53, works a full-time job off his farm in Montezuma, Georgia. A plaintiff in the suit, he explained that he has been forced to buy back his own farm. His paycheck is garnisheed $165 each week by the bank, leaving him $124 to get by on. If he meets this arrangement over the next four years he will be able to own his farm. "But I should not have to pay a thing," Lee said. "Why am I paying for the fact that the county boys at the loan office `lost' my file for 10 years, including my check for repayment on crops and equipment loans. When they finally found it in 1993 they never applied the money against my debt. Whose fault is that?"

Richard Rominger, deputy secretary of the USDA, also addressed the meeting. While stating that it was intolerable that Black farmers were going out of business three times faster today, he cautioned that "progress is measured slowly."

During the question and answer period, several farmers pointed to difficulties that have been exacerbated by the 1996 farm bill - from staggering prices for agricultural implements and equipment, to onerous debt payments on loans, to continued discrimination in receiving financial assistance. "The only way to help farmers is to keep the prices up," said Mattie Mack, a 62-year-old tobacco farmer from Kentucky. She explained that without better prices for their production, family farmers "couldn't go on much longer." Another farmer from western Tennessee asked Rominger to explain how is he going to survive, when a harvester costs 10 times as much as it did 20 years ago, but he is still getting the same price for cotton two decades later.

Solidarity with the increased strikes and struggles of workers was also a topic of discussion. Drawing a parallel between the attacks on Black farmers and coal miners, William O. Mack, a 66-year-old farmer from Kentucky, said, "Now that miners are old they are trying to take away their benefits just like they are trying to take away from farmers." He was referring to the recent attempts by the government and coal bosses to gut Black Lung compensation.

The July 1998 newsletter of the National Family Farm Coalition reported that on July 9, striking auto workers and their families in Flint, Michigan, received 1,200 pounds of beef from ranchers in Montana. The Northern Plains Resource Council (NPRC), an organization that represents family farmers, organized the act of solidarity. The newsletter reports that union members on the picket line appreciated the gift. Charles Brown, a 32-year veteran at the General Motors Metal Fabrication Center, said, "It's the thought more than the actual gift - that they are behind us."

For more information on the September 10 protests contact the Black Farmers & Agriculturalists Association, P.O. Box 61 Tillery, North Carolina, 27887 and the Federation of Southern Cooperative/ Land Assistance Fund, 2769 Church Street, East Point, GA (404) 765-0991.

Ved Dookhun is a member of the United Steelworkers of America. Arlene Rubenstein is a member of the International Association of Machinists.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home