Successful Farming has a piece discussing this bill, introduced by Sens. Booker, Warren, and Gillibrand. Warren's statement of support is here. The legislative language is here . (I'm not sure the bill has actually been introduced--the draft language doesn't have a number and I can't find it at Congress.gov.) Mother Jones has an article on it.
It includes several reforms and programs, most of which are focused on black farmers (defined as American-born).
The biggest ask is a program to give qualified applicants of up to 160 acres of farmland, representing from $400,000 to $800,000 in value (using Farm Bureau's average farmland value of $4,100) at no cost.
Other provisions seem to oust OGC from civil rights matters, to put additional layer(s) of authority and/or review over the existing civil rights structure and the FSA county committees, and call for an extensive research and statistical work by ERS and NASS. In addition to the provisions on black farmers there are changes relating to packers and stockyards, conservation, and local markets.
There's an "Oversight Board" focused on current and future USDA/FSA operations and an "Equity Commission" focused on historical and structural issues to do a report within 2 years, and a Civil Rights Ombudsman.
I'm still trying to understand everything in this. Some things which struck me:
- while I don't see anything about the composition of the Oversight Board, the Equity Commission is specified in detail--black farmers, NGO members, and HBCU faculty.
- there's a discrepancy--the title is for "Black Farmers" but some of the language is "socially disadvantaged".
- Alcorn State's Policy Center is written into the bill. It's headed by Eloris Spight, who seems to have moved from the HR side at NRC to policy before moving to the education world in 2014.
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