Chris Clayton who writes for Progressive Farmer has more clout than I do, or is smarter in the ways of USDA press. He got data from USDA on the size and number of farm loans which FSA has made or guaranteed, plus the breakdown by socially disadvantaged farmers. Here's his writeup.
If you're interested, you should read it. Things which strike me now:
- He lists the top states in socially distanced loans. As always, assumptions will mislead--Oklahoma, California, and Wisconsin are on the list, but Alabama and the Carolinas aren't, and Mississippi is the last one listed. I've nothing better to do than speculate, but my guess is some states, like Oklahoma, jumped on the legislative changes for such loans, and promoted them (or maybe they had especially active NGO's among minority groups). With that in mind you can guess that many loans have not gone to black farmers, but other groups.
- Much of the publicity around the debt forgiveness payments seems to have been centered around black farmers associated with the Pigford suits. I haven't seen any discussion of a seeming paradox: farmers claiming their loan applications were denied because of discrimination but now working for forgiveness of their loans. (I wrote "seeming" because I can imagine circumstances in which it would make sense, at least for some.)
- I wonder if women's groups will push for a "correction" to the law to include them as "socially disadvantaged".
- I hope there will be good data from the implementation of this provision. If my speculation is right will there be discontent among the black advocates for it? I remember seeing one activist commenting that the lawyers made out well from the Pigford suits, but not the farmers. He might find a similar problem now--other minorities getting more money and black farmers less than they had expected.
