"We've been out here farming all our lives. Now we can't get money from the Farm Services Administration (FSA) or the banks. We're being frozen out."

Farmers and their supporters stepped up activities this week to build the January 17 march in Atlanta. They are looking toward another rally called for Washington, D.C., February 28, in their continued fight to defend their land and ability to farm.

The Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA), which is sponsoring the march, issued a flyer outlining a day of activities including a breakfast, press conference, march, and rally as part of the Martin Luther King Day events in Atlanta.

Black farmers in the rural area northeast of Memphis are fighting to get out the truth about a growing scandal. It involves the federal government's actions around the March 1999 settlement of the lawsuit against discrimination by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Some are members of Concerned Black Farmers and the Tennessee BFAA. They raise cotton, soybeans, and corn, and some also raise cattle.

These toilers have fought together for many years to defend the right of Black farmers to keep their land and for equal access to government loans, disaster relief, and other programs.

In 1982, some of them occupied the Farmers Home Administration offices in nearby Covington, Tennessee, for 21 days to protest the unequal treatment faced by Black farmers. Most recently, they participated in the December 13 rally in Washington, D.C., to protest the USDA's racist practices, and are planning to join other farmers and supporters in Atlanta. A group of seven farmers and farm activists recently met at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant near Brownsville, Tennessee, to discuss with the Militant what's happened to Black farmers in this area since the consent decree settling the lawsuit was approved last spring.

"Not one farmer from Hayward County has been approved," explained Fred Sanders, a former farmer who now works full time as a truck driver. "You have a situation where the local [Farm Services Agency] county committees are reviewing farmers' files to see whether their claim should be approved.

"They pull out all the 'bad' information about the farmer and send it to Washington," Sanders said. "Meanwhile, the farmers themselves are being denied access to their own files in filing their claims." Sanders was denied farm loans in 1989-90, and forced to file bankruptcy in 1991When you file a claim, you have to put your whole farming history in a couple of paragraphs," Sanders said. "But the USDA has access to your whole file."

"I know one farmer who was told that he could just tell his story," added L.V. Jackson, a University of Tennessee extension agent who works in Tipton County. "Then his claim was denied, because he 'didn't provide records.' We're going to Atlanta on January 17, to find out if what's happened in our area is consistent with what's happening to the Black farmers in other states." Jackson is concerned that the word is not getting out that many farmers are having their claims denied.

"The guilty party is selecting who is eligible to have their claims approved," Thomas Burrell added. Burrell is a leader of Concerned Black Farmers and Tennessee BFAA. At a formal "Fairness Hearing" held last March in Washington, D.C., Burrell and other farmers pointed out that the settlement did nothing to change the county commission system responsible for carrying out decades of discriminatory practices. Now these very same commissioners are the ones issuing recommendations on the farmers' discrimination claims, using records that are kept secret.

"The letters farmers are getting explaining why their claims have been denied are giving a very different story than what was explained to farmers by the lawyers in the lawsuit," Burrell explained. In the meetings held last year around the country aimed at selling the proposed settlement— known as the consent decree— to Black farmers, the degree to which these local records would be used was downplayed to the farmers, he said.

Those who filed Track A claims, the farmers were repeatedly told, would need only a minimal amount of documentation for claims to be approved. It was one of the reasons, the attorneys said, why farmers should file Track A claims and not Track B. Track A claimants would receive $50,000 and debt relief, the lawyers said, with a minimum of hassle.

While a Track B settlement held out the possibility of a larger settlement, it would require much more proof of discrimination and more documentation. In fact, farmers have discovered that a lot of documentation is required, even for a Track A claim. For example, a Black farmer must prove that a white farmer in their area, under similar conditions, was granted loans or other funds, while theirs were denied or delayed.

The Tennessee farmers attended several consent decree meetings last spring in Memphis and elsewhere, carrying signs to protest the proposed settlement. They talked to hundreds of farmers, pointing to the dangers of accepting the government's plan and urging them to opt out of the settlement in order to push ahead and have their day in court. "Avoid the spring round up— OPT OUT," was one of their signs.

So far, more than 40,000 farmers have requested claims packages. Farmers have returned only 18,000. Of those, few have actually received any payment, and of those, even fewer have gotten the promised debt relief. At a strategy session organized by BFAA after the December 13 protest in Washington, farmers agreed to push for a six-month extension of the deadline to file claims under the consent decree.

The settlement— far from providing relief to the Black farmers— has become part of perpetuating the long-standing discriminatory practices that over the years have driven tens of thousands of small Black farmers off the land, explained Burrell. "Now that we've found out that we've been lied to, we're trying to figure out what to do. We're committed to fighting this outcome."

In a telephone interview with the Militant, David Howard said, "When farmers got the letter of approval on Track A claims, they would go to the local FSA office to see about the relief on their debt. People there would say that they hadn't got notice from Washington. yet. Basically, this means you have to give the settlement check right back to them for debt payment. Initially, when we were told about the consent decree, we thought it and debt relief would help us get our land back, but there's really nothing in there to help us and we see that now."

Howard explains that the market price of cotton is currently at about 38 to 40 cents per pound and beans are receiving around three to four dollars a bushel.

"We need at least 70 to 80 cents per pound to break even on cotton, six or seven dollars a bushel for beans to keep our head above water," he said. "The FSA states for a farmer to raise 100 acres of cotton they would need between 20 and 30 thousand dollars in a year. A settlement of $50,000 is no money for a farmer today."

Howard, who farms 150 acres, was rejected under Track A. He said the reason the government gave for rejecting him is that he'd been denied a loan because of his "inefficiency," not racial discrimination, as he claims. Howard knows of about 30 to 40 farmers in his area whose Track A settlement payments have been turned down.  
 

Caravans to Atlanta

In Florida, activists report plans are underway for a car caravan to weave its way northward to Atlanta from the southern tip of the state. Those driving from Miami are planning on meeting some small farmers from around central Florida on Sunday, January 16, at a fund-raising barbecue at Carl Butts's farm in Plant City.

Butts, a small vegetable farmer, is part of a group of U.S. farmers going on a fact-finding trip to Cuba in February. People in Miami and Tampa are helping raise money so he can go. The announcement for the barbecue says, the "event will also be a sendoff party for farmers and their supporters going to Atlanta for the national day of protest on Martin Luther King Day."

Butts will be attending a technical training session for Plant City strawberry farmers, a number of whom he knows, to get out the word on the barbecue and the January 17 protest.

"As a small farmer who is white, I completely support the ongoing fight of farmers who are Black against the U.S. government," Butts explained. "The policies of the United States Department of Agriculture favor big capitalist farmers at the expense of small working farmers. All small farmers are in this together."

Some industrial workers in Birmingham are finding they have a stake in this fight also. Quinton Earl, a sheet metal mechanic at Pemco and a member of United Auto Workers Local 1155, attended the March 2 "fairness hearing" last year to join farmers and workers in protesting the proposed settlement.

Earl said, "There's more than one reason I am going [to Atlanta]. One is because I feel the small farmer is becoming extinct, especially the Black farmer. I think big business and industry should not be allowed to take farming over. I believe that's what is happening.

"The second reason is I feel a connection to them because some of my ancestors were farmers. I feel that they lost their land and their livelihood because of misdealings, and lack of support from governing bodies and institutions that were supposed to enhance the quality of farming, but instead they created restrictions and policies that were stumbling blocks. I want to go because I feel the need to stand behind this cause."

Eddie Slaughter, vice president of the BFAA from Buena Vista, Georgia, summed the matter up saying, "We are in a David and Goliath situation. The United States government has an economic embargo against Iraq. The United States government keeps a full-scale blockade of Cuba. But that's not enough for them. Now, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of Justice are trying to put an embargo on Black farmers in America. Farmers need a sling and five good rocks. It's time for us farmers to develop a strategy and improve our fighting skills." Slaughter will be attending the January 17 event with farmers from his region.

Susan LaMont is a member of the United Steelworkers of America in Fairfield, Alabama. Bill Kalman in Miami, Ardella Blandford in Birmingham, and Arlene Rubenstein in Atlanta also contributed to this article.  
 
 
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