BY RICH STUART AND KRISTIN MERIAM
EPES, Alabama - More than 200 people gathered here
August 15-16 for the 30th Annual Meeting of the Federation
of Southern Cooperatives (FSC). Participants included
working farmers and their families, most of whom are Black,
FSC staffers, and members of other farm-related
organizations. A large contingent of government
representatives from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) also took part.
The conference discussed the plight of Black farmers and how to stop the ongoing decline of their numbers, as racist discrimination and the workings of the capitalist system result in more and more of these exploited producers being driven off the land.
The number of Black farmers and land owners in the South of the United States has dropped from 100,000 owning 6 million acres in 1969 to less than 19,000 today owning less than 2.5 million acres of land.
Founded in 1967, the FSC has a history of fighting for the rights of working farmers who are Black. The Federation also provides aid to Black farmers - including debt restructuring, technical assistance, cooperative credit unions, and marketing programs. According to a brochure distributed at the conference, the aim of the FSC is to "save, protect, and expand the landholdings of Blacks in the South."
In his address to members and guests, FSC executive director Ralph Paige reviewed the history of the federation and pointed to previous years when it organized caravans and other protests against government policies. "We couldn't even get in the door," Paige said, referring to those earlier battles. "Now we are in the door," he added, pointing to a tighter relationship between the Federation and government agencies. This includes funding by the USDA and state and local governments that amounted to 55 percent of the Federation's budget last year.
One of the featured guests at the two-day meeting was Pearlie Reed, the government's assistant secretary of agriculture.
Testifying to the urgency of the rapid loss of land owned by Blacks, one farmer after another confronted Reed in the discussion.
"Is there still a moratorium on farm foreclosures?" one farmer asked.
"Basically, there is a moratorium on foreclosures and where there is a civil rights issue involved there will not be a foreclosure," Reed responded. "But I can't give you an absolute answer on that because there are about 15 definitions of foreclosure."
An angry peanut farmer from southwest Georgia told the meeting that a new quota system for peanut farmers threatened to drive him out of farming. "I'm farming land my ancestors had since 1887," he said. "My brothers and sisters all live out of state and buy quotas and give them to me, but the USDA makes me produce all kinds of deeds and plats to show I have enough land to grow the quota. I have debts from taxes and equipment. Not only minority farmers in general have a problem. The USDA shouldn't try to outmaneuver farmers - they have enough problems with weeds!"
Reed promised a private meeting with this farmer to address his concerns.
Another farmer, whose wife and children also attended the meeting, also confronted Reed. "I've been farming since we used mules," he said. "I farm my family land. I wanted to switch from cotton to sweet potatoes because I saw some money in sweet potatoes. I went to the USDA to get equipment for harvesting. The USDA said to borrow equipment when someone else was done. I lost my crop in the field while I was waiting to borrow the equipment." This farmer said that due to delays in getting loans earlier this year he may not be able to send his two children to college this fall.
Kenneth Thompson, a 37-year-old farmer from Lauderdale Country, Alabama, told the meeting that as a younger farmer working inherited land he soon found himself deep in debt due to natural disasters and delays in getting loans. Getting no help from the government, he said, he had to borrow from a commercial bank at high interest rates. "I had to take a public job for the last seven years to make the payments to the bank."
Thompson told Militant reporters he strongly supported the Teamsters who struck UPS recently. He also took part in an unsuccessful union organizing drive last year at the poultry feed mill where he works.
Melbah Smith, a Black farmer from Brandon, Mississippi, challenged Reed saying, "Minority women are not being taken seriously." Smith said she had only gotten token "courtesy visits" but no serious attention when she asked for help to confront a bad soil erosion problem on her land.
A USDA representative told Smith he would see her "first thing Monday morning" after the conference. Smith demanded that he see the whole groups of minority women, saying she was not just speaking for herself. The USDA man told Smith he would start with her and then see the others.
"They blame the Lord for so much but the Lord doesn't have anything to do with these things," said Pearl Long, 76, another woman who runs a 300-acre cattle and peanut farm in Marianna, Florida. "We as farmers have got to start stirring up dust."