The $20 billion lawsuit charges the USDA with discrimination in loans, processing of credit applications, and failure to promptly investigate racist discrimination complaints of farmers between January 1997 and August 2004. Plaintiffs in the suit include BFAA, Inc., 13 individual farmers, and a class of nearly 70,000 farmers.

James Myart, attorney for the farmers organization, told the Militant the suit was filed to address the ongoing racist discrimination farmers have faced since the settlement of Pigford v. Glickman. Daniel Glickman was secretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration. In that case, a federal court issued a consent decree in 1999 to settle out of court a similar class-action lawsuit by tens of thousands of farmers. In that settlement, the government agreed to give each of the farmers who could provide minimal evidence of discrimination between 1981 and 1996 a $50,000 tax-exempt payment, debt forgiveness, and preferential treatment on future loan applications.

Even though the farmers’ organizations leading the fight to defend their land and right to farm rejected the consent decree, the judge in Pigford approved it on April 14, 1999.

Myart described the consent decree as a “total failure.” He pointed to a joint report by a farmers’ organization and the Environmental Working Group, which said that of the 94,000 farmers who sought restitution under the 1999 settlement, about 13,000 were approved and 81,000 were denied. Of that number, 7,800 were turned down because they supposedly failed to meet deadlines. On its web site, the USDA says that as of September 4 it had processed 22,113 claims. Of these, it has denied 8,612.

Over the past year, BFAA Inc. has held meetings of thousands of farmers and their supporters in cities throughout the southeast. At those gatherings farmers and their successors filled out surveys and gave testimony documenting the government’s failure to implement the consent decree, giving examples of being told they could not file complaints because the deadline had expired, and of having claims denied because of “insufficient documentation” or failure of attorneys to meet deadlines. In some cases, farmers described how they were awarded a favorable ruling but never received compensation. In other cases farmers received compensation, but banks and seed and fertilizer companies to which they were in debt immediately seized the funds.

Among the participants in the September 9 workshop was Vernon Parker, USDA Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. This post in the USDA was created by the Bush administration. Parker is among those being sued by the farmers’ group. During the workshop, he declined to answer questions regarding the BFAA Inc. suit.

Representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus made available to the audience letters from other USDA officials declining invitation to participate in the workshop. Since its founding, the caucus has been composed almost exclusively of Democrats. Prominent Democratic Party politicians backed the 1999 consent decree settlement.  
 
 
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