BY ANDREA MORELL
HARDWICK, Vermont - Robert Houriet is struggling to hold
onto his land. He is one of many farmers fighting against
foreclosures in this dairy state. Family farms have long been
the backbone of agricultural production here, but now dairy
farmers are hard hit by falling milk prices that don't keep up
with production costs. Houriet estimates as many as 200 are
facing the loss of their land and livelihood over the next
year.
Houriet invited Militant reporters to his 55-acre organic vegetable farm, which is being foreclosed on by the federal Farm Services Agency (FSA), to discuss the fight of working farmers in Vermont. A group of them are taking aim at the FSA, a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), whose policies they say force farmers into foreclosure. The FSA makes loans to farmers refused credit by banks and other lending agencies. But, says Houriet, "the FSA functions largely as a collection agency for loans it wants to liquidate, and for farmers who are increasingly viewed as `marginal' to global agribusiness."
Farmers threw a spotlight onto practices of the FSA in testimony before the state legislature's House Committee on Agriculture April 29 in Montpelier. The hearing was held in response to demands by Houriet and others that they be allowed to rebut remarks made at a committee hearing February 11 by Ronald Albee, the FSA state director. Albee testified against a bill that would allow a farmer who has been foreclosed to buy back his farm at the selling price and develop a new plan to pay off the old debt while continuing to work the land. The FSA opposes the bill. Albee outraged Houriet and others by implying that debt-ridden farmers are bad managers who are asking for a government handout.
Much of the hearing focused on Randall Munger, a dairy farmer whose nearly decade-long fight to save his farm has won him public support. His attorney, Edwin Hobson, helped draft the proposed legislation.
Munger's problems began in 1980 when stray voltage from electrical power lines owned by Central Vermont Public Service Corporation began to strike his cows, disrupting their ability to drink or graze properly. Eventually Munger's herd of 70 Holsteins was reduced to 26.
Dogged by low milk yield, Munger was driven deeper into debt to the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA, the predecessor to the FSA till 1994), which held the mortgage on his farm. When his house caught fire in 1988, the FmHA took the fire insurance money for partial payment on the loan. The house remains in ruins.
In 1992 Munger was presented with formal foreclosure proceedings and given 60 days to file an appeal requiring completion of vast and complex forms. On day 59, the farmer was told time was up and payment due. Munger's appeal of this abrogation of his rights was upheld, but nine months later the agency notified him they were now restoring the one day. They demanded he produce all his records, current within 90 days, in just 24 hours. This bureaucratic maneuver was stopped but has never been fully reviewed, stated Hobson at the hearing.
Inspired by Black farmers' fight
After southern farmers who are Black filed a nationally
known civil rights law suit charging racial discrimination by
the USDA, Munger appealed his case to the USDA civil rights
office, saying he was being discriminated against by the
agency as a small farmer. When the agency ruled small farmers
are not a legally protected category, FSA foreclosure
proceedings against him resumed. Munger went into federal
court against the agency where he recently lost a key ruling.
Patrick Freeman, the FSA's chief loan officer in Vermont was present April 29 to defend the agency's record of dealing with Munger. He summed up the FSA stance by opining, "The only thing that will sustain a farm is profit. There are some major, major management problems here."
Several other farmers told their stories, showing that Munger is by no means alone. Fred Flint, a farmer from Braintree, detailed his experiences with the FSA appeals process. Flint said that when he received the packet of forms from the FSA on which to formulate his appeal he was "depressed and bedridden for a week. I did not feel I was getting help, only paperwork."
Two attorneys present, including one expert on federal agriculture law said the FSA rules are too difficult for farmers, and many lawyers, to understand.
Flint has spent two decades struggling to save the farm he bought from his parents in the 1970s. He said he and his family receive food stamps, which he had been reluctant to accept because he "did not think a farmer should have to."
Jerry Kill of Middlesex said he lost his farm to the federal agency, even though he had never missed a loan payment. He was working three jobs to keep the farm but was defeated by a succession of appraisals that valued the farm way below his outstanding loans. He now rents a farm.
Belinda Blass, in her 20s, described herself as having been a farmer until May 23, 1997. Her family's herd was taken from them after an FSA inspector and sheriff department cops suddenly showed up at her farm that morning at 5:30 a.m., announcing they were acting on a tip that her cows were being underfed. After refusing all her entreaties to let her keep the cows and reinspect them in a few months, the FSA bought them from her for $10,000. Ten days later, the government agency sold the same herd at auction for $20,000.
Karen Shaw told committee members the FSA is "antagonistic" to farmers. She testified that FSA had once held up her loan servicing trying to coerce her and her husband, both of whom are dairy farmers, to plant soft wood trees on their land. Shaw protested to the committee that the government "has money for the International Monetary Fund to bail out Mexico and Brazil, and bombs for Clinton's little war in Yugoslavia," while frustrating financing for small farmers whom she termed "socially disadvantaged" as a class.
Shaw and dairy farmer Sherry Kawecki coedit a newsletter called "Farm Connection," which they project as a forum by and for small farmers. In it they expose environmentally unsafe practices by agribusiness and the production of adulterated food products harmful to consumers.
Houriet said he regards the bill as a modest step and one that by itself would not necessarily save many farms. He thinks more public, visible actions by farmers and their supporters will be needed.
Andrea Morell is a member of United Transportation Union Local 898.