[asia-apec 1444] Representative Maxine Waters calls for end of "USDA's Foot-dragging Tact

[Anuradha Mittal]

MAY 10, 2000    Contact: Anuradha Mittal

510-654-4400

**Representative Maxine Waters calls for end of "USDA's Foot-dragging
Tactics"**

Black and Small Family Farmers Rally Against Discrimination

Co-Sponsored by Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy
& the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA)


Washington, DC, May 8 - Black and small family farmers, accompanied by 
law makers, unions and small farms advocacy organizations, rallied 
outside the USDA building, demanding an end to "decades of racial 
discrimination."

In a non-violent rally, hundreds of African-American and small family 
farmers from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, 
Pennsylvnia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, 
California, Texas, and Wisconsin, protested racist practices that are 
leading to the virtual extinction of black-owned farms and demanded 
support for all of America's family farmers. Representative Maxine 
Waters (D-CA), who held the first Congressional hearings on the issue in 
1997, joined the demonstrators.

According to demonstrators, in 1999 less than 18,000 black farmers
remained, down from 925,000 farmers in 1920. Since 1965, including a 
1990 congressional committee, found that black-owned farms were going 
out of business at a rate five times that of white farmers and it was 
predicted that be the year 2000, there would be no black-owned land in 
the country.

"Each day black farmers lose 1,000 acres of land. Today they claim 53
percent of USDA land holdings formerly belonged to them," said Anuradha 
Mittal, co- director of the Institute for Food and Development 
Policy/Food First.

Further adding to farmers' woes, President Ronald Reagan cut the USDA
budget in 1983 by eliminating its civil rights complaint division which 
ended any federal investigation of complaints filed by minority 
farmers.

In 1997, more than 1,000 Black farmers sued the USDA, seeking three 
billion dollars in compensation, covering claims from 1983 to 1997. Then 
in January 1999, the agency and attorneys for the farmers reached an 
out-of-court settlement calling for forgiveness of the plaintiffs' 
government debts and a one-time tax-free $50,000 disbursement to each 
farmer.

The process for payment of farmers is moving too slowly, however, and 
40 percent of those who applied to receive payment under the settlement 
were rejected.  "With over 40 percent of farmers already rejected, it 
will lead to the end of Black family farmers in this nation,'" said Gary 
Grant, president of the BFAA.

"Here we go again, " said Representative Maxine Waters at the rally. 

"Once again Black farmers have been forced to resort to demonstration 
and protest to secure what a court of law has previously substantiated: 
that Black Farmers have experienced discrimination at the hands of the 
USDA employees.

When will this travesty of injustice stop? We can no longer stand by 
and allow the rights of America's Black farmers to be trampled on by 
unjust policies."

Waters assured protestors that she and the Congressional Black Caucus 
would go through each farmers' complaints individually to ensure that 
the farmers received the funds they were entitled to.

Demonstrators, led by Waters, then marched to the entrance of the USDA 
where Waters, Gary Grant and Attorney Stephan Bowens, Darlene Smith and 
associate asked to talk with Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. The 
armed guards kept Congresswoman and the agreed upon delegation waiting 
out in 90 degree temperature for more than 15 minutes while they checked 
to see if the Congresswoman could enter the building. It was only upon 
Rep. Water's threat to enter the building any way, were they allowed to 
enter.

While this delegation met with Secretary Glickman, thirteen protestors 
including three women and a 73 year old farmer from Alabama who tried to 
enter the building were arrested.

The rally for Black and small family farmers was endorsed by over 60
organizations, both local and national, representing a wide array of
interests and goals. Their common endorsement represented a broad-based 
support for Black and small family farmers.

The recent decline in the number of Black farmers has presaged the 
current drop in small-scale, family owned farms throughout the nation, 
said Mittal.

With federal subsidies overwhelmingly going to the largest and 
wealthiest factory-like farms, small-scale farms are feeling the crunch, 
she said.

"Black farmers have been the proverbial 'canary in the mineshaft' of US 
agriculture," she said. "Everything that happened to them, happened to 
all family farmers later."

The rally called for a healthy rural America, one that supports family 
farmers of all races and protects American farmland for future 
generations.

Gary Grant, president of the BFAA, promised to persevere.  "We have
achieved much today, but we will keep coming back until justice is 
served.

We are not going to stop before we get justice. We will not go away and 
the USDA needs to honor its signature on the Consent Decree and live up 
to its agreement. Justice will prevail!" exclaimed Grant.

For more information, please contact Anuradha Mittal at 510-654-4400. 
Visit Food First at www.foodfirst.org and BFAA at
http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/bfaa.htm.

A background report on the situation of Black farmers in the US, can be 
found at: http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/backgrdrs/2000/w00v6n1.html.

###
Join the fight against hunger. For more information contact foodfirst at foodfirst.org.
___________________________________________________________
T O P I C A  The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16
Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics