In April 1999, the farmers' class-action lawsuit, Pigford vs. Glickman, was settled through a consent decree signed by federal judge Paul Friedman. Tim Pigford, a farmer from North Carolina, was the lead plaintiff in the suit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), claiming decades of racist practices by the agency, such as denial of loans and disaster relief. Daniel Glickman was the secretary of agriculture at the time the suit was filed. Thousands of Black farmers have lost their land because of the racist discrimination they face at the hands of USDA officials.

At the FSC conference, some 200 farmers and others attended the session devoted to an update on the lawsuit. The consent decree stipulates that Black farmers who present evidence of discrimination in applications for loans and other assistance between 1981 and 1996 will receive a payment of $50,000 and debt relief. According to the USDA, of the 21,350 claims filed and processed under this provision, nearly 40 percent have been rejected by a panel of judges called adjudicators. Farmers whose claims were approved say payments and debt relief have often been slow in coming. The delays especially affect those who have managed to continue farming and are most in need of the relief.

Those who have their claims rejected can appeal the decision to a monitor appointed by the court to oversee the settlement. Lawyers from the monitor's office told the farmers attending the conference workshop that they review an appeal, and if they determine that the adjudicators made an "error" in their decision, they send the appeal back to the same group of judges for a second and final decision. So far the adjudicators have not made a decision on any of the cases sent to them by the monitor's office. Farmers peppered the lawyers with questions, asking if the appeal goes back to the same judge, what the timeline for appeals is, and if the adjudicators are paid by the government, won't they be biased toward the government?

Another concern of farmers was how late claims were being handled by the government. The original deadline for filing a claim under the consent decree was October 1999. Late claims were accepted July through mid-September 2000 for those who could show "extraordinary circumstances" prevented them from meeting the first deadline. Showing the scope of discrimination faced by farmers, some 65,000 submitted late applications for relief under the lawsuit. According to the monitor's office, 32,000 of these applications have been so far turned down on an unappealable judgment that they did not provide evidence of "extraordinary circumstances." Several participants in the FSC conference raised questions about this process, including elderly farmers who were in the hospital at the time of deadlines.

Many farmers pointed out instances where the lack of competent legal help to navigate the provisions of the consent decree has led to many rejections of compensation claims. Farmer Mattie Mack from Kentucky said many farmers had claims rejected because of sloppy work by lawyers. Ernest Howard, a hog farmer from South Carolina, stated, "It looked to me like the cases approved were those that were worked on by a lawyer. I know people who couldn't meet the 120-day deadline to appeal because they couldn't find a lawyer" to take their case.

Farmers were also outraged by the tax bills they receive when they do win a settlement. Each farmer who receives the $50,000 payment gets an additional $12,500 to offset taxes. But the Internal Revenue Service is demanding farmers pay taxes on the entire $62,500. Others complained that some receiving settlement checks had their Supplemental Security Insurance checks and other government assistance terminated.

Rose Sanders, a lawyer who represents many of the farmers in the suit, noted that the FBI has been harassing some of the plaintiffs, alleging fraud. She stressed that no one should speak to the FBI about their own case or anyone else's without a lawyer present.

The FSC adopted a resolution on the lawsuit expressing concern over the high denial rate, the long delays in deciding claims, the fact that many USDA employees who discriminated against Black farmers in the past remain at the same posts and have not been penalized in any way, and many other problems with the settlement.

In the discussion, Charles Sherrod, a minister who would like to farm, said he supported the resolution but "there is going to come a time when we'll have to put our bodies on the line again. We've got to march again, brothers and sisters." His remarks were greeted with applause.  
 
Squeeze on farmers continues
The fight by farmers to gain access to essential loans and disaster relief from the government, and to end the humiliating racist discrimination by USDA representatives, is part of a larger battle against worsening conditions of exploitation farmers face. Low prices paid by large agriculture companies for the food and fiber they produce, combined with the rising price of fuel, implements, and other inputs, is driving the worst crisis in the countryside in decades. Several conference sessions, such as "Trends and Issues in Sustainable Agriculture" and "Black Farmers and the 2002 Farm Bill" were part of the discussion on how to address this situation.

The theme of the Trends and Issues workshop was to urge farmer members to move away from traditional crops such as tobacco, cotton, peanuts, corn, and soybeans to instead rely on higher-priced organic produce, cut flowers, and "value-added" products, such as washed and packaged vegetables. Farmers understand that making this shift to high-input horticultural crops would require increased debt and a long-term learning curve, as well as hundreds of hours of their additional labor to produce the added "value" to their product.

In the workshop discussion, several farmers pointed to the continued cost-price squeeze that is driving more small farmers off the land. Among the first to speak was William Mack, a member of the Kentucky Minority Farmers Association, who explained that the government cuts the amount of tobacco farmers can grow as the cigarette manufacturers are pushing farmers into contract arrangements. Many small farmers depend on tobacco plots for a large portion of their cash income. There's "nothing that can make money like tobacco," Mack noted. "It's not that we agree with smoking; we're just trying to make a living."

William Mack and his wife Mattie Mack have 100 head of cattle and grow 1.5 acres of tobacco. "We used to raise 8–10 acres" of tobacco, he said in an interview. But now the market is "so competitive the small farmer can't make anything," he said. The shift to contract farming, where a farmer commits to sell the crop directly to the cigarette manufacturer, is rapidly killing the warehouse system where farmers traditionally have auctioned their crops. The companies pay a little more than the warehouses now as an enticement, Mack said, "but you don't know if that will hold up. So the minority farmers are sticking with the warehouses."

Paul Alexander, also a tobacco farmer and member of the Kentucky Minority Farmers, said he now has to travel 60 miles to the nearest warehouse to sell his crop. "They've cut a lot of jobs at the warehouses," he added. Alexander's tobacco quota has been slashed in recent years, and when the government eliminates the price support on tobacco, currently $1.54 per pound, many small farmers like himself will be further devastated.

According to Leon Crump, a leader of the FSC in South Carolina, 80 percent of tobacco production in that state is now grown under contract.

The program on the 2002 Farm Bill, currently being considered in Congress, centered on how to stop the lion's share of program benefits from going to large capitalist farm operations. Today, three-quarters of agricultural subsidies go to the top 10 percent of farmers, FSC program operations director John Zippert noted. The average annual payment to the wealthiest 1 percent of farmers is $200,000; for the bottom 90 percent the average is $6,000. As uneven as this distribution is, government moves to phase out commodity support programs will make conditions even worse for small farmers.

David Center of the American Corn Growers Association noted with concern that the support price for corn has fallen to $200 per ton. He also argued that the increased import of crops such as peanuts is one of the major reasons for the crisis farmers face in the United States. He and Zippert were both scheduled to speak at a press conference against "free trade" agreements in Montgomery, Alabama, the following week.

Among the main legislative proposals of the FSC is increased funding for the Section 2501 Minority Farm Outreach Program, which helps provide technical support and information on government programs to minority and small farmers.

The July 2001 issue of The Rural Agenda, the FSC's paper, features the organization's proposals for the 2002 Farm Bill. The paper also includes a report on a visit by leaders of the FSC to Cuba earlier this year. Photos from the delegation's visits to cooperative farms in Cuba were on display during the conference.

Karl Butts is a farmer in Plant City, Florida.
 
 
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Oregon family farmers fight for water rights  
 
 
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