USDA Appointments

 The Livingston County News picks up a CQ piece on the appointment of Jewel Bronaugh as deputy secretary for USDA. It notes the criticism of Biden's nomination of Vilsack to return as secretary due to the Sherrod firing.  Includes an endorsement from the VA Farm Bureau, and hopes from John Boyd.

FSA employees may be pleased that she was previously FSA state director in Virginia under the Obama administration.

[Updated: DTN piece on the same.]

Divisions Among Black Farmer Organizations

 I have a Google Alert set up for "black farmers", dating back to the Pigford days. Today it showed two hits:

"National Black Farmers Association Announces Boycott of John Deere"

"Deere forms new coalition to assist Black farmers with property rights"

No text for either, so I'm left guessing at the story behind the scenes. 

I'll take this opportunity to note that the NBFA (headed by John Boyd) has seemed to be a lot more active in recent months than they were for a while.  

Boyd and the 109,000

EWG reports John Boyd's testimony before a House Committee on Financial Services:

"John Boyd is founder and president of the 109,000-member Black Farmers Association. Testifying before the House Committee on Financial Services, Boyd said the Trump tariffs are “a national crisis” for farmers – and that small minority farmers are hurting the most:
It seems as though many have turned a deaf ear to America’s small farmers and black farmers alike. . . . Anytime the government gets involved, when they say it’s going to be a speedy payment to farmers, it’s always last for African American farmers, it’s always last for Latino farmers, for small-scale farmers and for women farmers."

That's the National Black Farmers Association,, not Thomas Burrell's 20,000 member Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association.

Not sure about those membership counts.  Might be as inflated as the Farm Bureau's.

Boyd and Equipment Prices

John Boyd continues to get into the national media.  Here's an Atlantic article citing his views on the rising prices of farm equipment.  Again, while southside Virginia isn't close to DC (roughly 200 miles from Reston), it's closer than Ottumwa, Iowa.  Boyd's activity seems to have picked up, as here his group is opposing a bank merger.

Northam and Boyd

John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association, met with Gov. Northam and offered support, according to this.

John Boyd on BBC

Since I mentioned Boyd's appearance in a Post article, I should give equal time to the BBC, where a sound bite from Boyd was included in their piece on the impact of the partial shutdown of the government.

In fairness to Boyd, I suspect he has a reputation for giving good quotes to the media--he's articulate.  In the last century I was  bit dubious of him, thinking he was more a paper farmer than a real one.  But apparently he's (re?)married with kids now and still going with soybeans, getting older along with all the rest of us.

John Boyd and the Shutdown of FSA

When the Post wanted a farmer to talk about the hardships caused by the shutdown of FSA one of the ones they found was John Boyd.  See yesterday's article.

Forgive me for finding it ironic that Boyd still depends in part on the agency which he sued.  Just another proof that life is complicated, as are people.

Scholarships for Black Ag

Apparently the National Black Farmers Association linked up with Chrysler to sponsor scholarships for students in agriculture.

Boydton

I've blogged often enough about John Boyd to have a tag for him.  He lives near Boydton, VA, formerly a tobacco growing area.  Now it's servicing another addiction, the Internet addiction as noted by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution.

Late Viriginia Springs?

That's what John Boyd says:

For many years on my Virginia farm I had my corn crop in the ground by the end of March. But that has not been the case for the last 10 years. Spring planting season has become more and more delayed because of changes in our weather patterns. Nowadays, I find myself planting corn in May.

He's in southern VA and I'm in northern, but I don't  think that's right, at least if I compare my vegetable garden to his field corn.  There's been a good deal of variability recently (and I can only remember "recently"), but I don't see climate change as delaying planting.