BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN
ATLANTA - Georgia farmers are not facing "dust bowl"
conditions like their counterparts in Maryland, Virginia, New
York, and elsewhere at this moment. "That happened to us last
year," according to Willie Adams, a poultry farmer from
Greensboro, Georgia, when all but four of the state's 159
counties were declared agricultural disasters. "This year Íd
say we're basically at 40 percent loss in this
county - better than last year when we couldn't grow a
thing," said Adams, who lost 6,000 chickens due to the heat
this year.
While weeks of no rain and relentless heat affect all farmers, the heaviest toll is on working farmers. Driving in the Georgia countryside, you can see fields that are parched for water, next to farms where the plants are green and healthy. Whether or not a farmer has the capital for an irrigation system and enough money to pay the high fuel costs determines this summer's yield.
According to Steve Brown, a cotton specialist with the University of Georgia, two-thirds of the 600,000 acres of unirrigated cotton in Georgia are in danger of going under this summer. Even before the drought, the drop in cotton prices to about 48 cents per pound, 17 cents below the cost of production, had left many cotton farmers on the brink of bankruptcy. Cotton seed companies have also laid off workers in rural areas.
In two counties in Georgia and one in Arkansas, Black farmers have filed complaints that they were denied disaster assistance by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) due to racist discrimination. "I got a phone call from a South African TV reporter trying to find out the names of these farmers. I don't know who they are but Íd like to find out," continued Adams, who was a part of the recent two-year battle by farmers against the USDA to defend their land and against racist discrimination. The U.S. government was compelled to make some concessions to the Black farmers in a consent decree, with the hope that this would cut off their deepening radicalization and fighting capacity.
Since Judge Paul Friedman's decision approving a settlement to the farmers' lawsuit in April, government discrimination has continued. "Black farmers get less disaster relief from the USDA," stated Adams, "because they generally have smaller farms. That's the case because Black farmers often have trouble getting loans to expand in the first place. Then when the disasters hit they don't get enough to resume their previous level of farming, which causes them to qualify for even less assistance the next time around."
Melvin Bishop is one of the two Black cattle farmers left in Putnam County, the dairy center of Georgia, and president of the Georgia Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association. He stated that the bulk of disaster aid, such as agricultural loans, goes to rich white farmers. These are the farmers who make up the county committee, and their first aim is to maintain their wealth and power at the expense of poor and working farmers. "When it comes to Black farmers, they aren't contacted until the money has already run out." Bishop had warned that county commissioners would go after farmers they deemed "troublemakers" in the aftermath of the class action suit.
Although the USDA sets up programs on a national level, a county committee system with broad powers administers policy on the local level. "You have to understand, a good `ole boy system is already in place. These people are in the bank, they're in the feedhouse, they're in the loan offices downtown, they're in the loan offices uptown. This is still Georgia - rural Georgia. When you leave Atlanta, you're in a for a rude awakening," declared Alvin Walker, who is in a fight to get his dairy farm back in Putnam County.
Willie Head of the South Georgia Vegetable Producers' Cooperative reports that between 15 and 20 farmers from Brooks, Lowdnes, and Thomas counties met with USDA lawyers in May to document continued racist discrimination by the Farm Service Agency office in Moultrie. "Discrimination continues, so we are going to have protest as hard or harder than we did before to stay on our farms." He referred to an article from the Aug. 11, 1999, Macon Telegraph, quoting John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Organization concerning complaints from Black farmers who have been told by their county offices that they do not need loans or disaster aid because they are already benefiting from the consent decree.
Gladys Williams, also a member of the cooperative, added, "Although white farmers have more resources, small white farmers are going through the same thing. We have to organize some meetings and see what our problems are and what we can do together."