Black Farmers in the Biden Administration

 There's been a number of pieces relating to black farmers recently.  Some are keyed to the new administration and controversy over whether Vilsack is a good appointment. Several quote statements from different black farmer organizations.  There seems to be more these days than there were when the original Pigford suit was filed. 

I found this Politico piece interesting, especially including this paragraph:

Horne said her data shows there was a 57 percent decline in the number of Black farmers in North Carolina from 1954 to 1969, with the number dropping from 22,625 to 9,687. During the same period, farms operated by white farmers dropped from 201,819 to 106,275 — a 47 percent decline.

 It's the first time I've seen a direct comparison of this kind.  Maybe somewhere there's an economist who has gone a bit deeper into the statistics. What I'd particularly like to see is a breakdown by farm size.  I suspect the distribution of black farms was proportionally weighted towards smaller farmers, and I suspect the farms which survived were proportionally weighted towards the larger farmers.  If that was true, what should one conclude?  

Justice for Black Farmers-- A Systemic Problem

 One of my problems with the draft legislation S.4929, JBF, is it is piling new programs on old programs. (The text has been posted on Congress.gov.)

In a rational government Congress would evaluate the success or failure of existing rural development and farm loan programs, change the law where needed, and reorganize the bureaucracy. If current programs are successful we could add resources, if they have weaknesses we could reform them, if they're too bad we could kill them.  But such changes wouldn't convince the advocates that reforms were real  and therefore wouldn't reward the Congressional sponsors. So instead we get more programs, with somewhat different approaches, 

Bottom line: it makes life more difficult for the bureaucracy.

Getting Ahead of Theirselves--JBF

 I've been checking Congress.gov for the actual text of the "Justice for Black Farmers" Act sponsored by Sen. Booker.  Today I found it; it's Senate S4929, but while it's been introduced and a number assigned, the text is not yet available.

The  bill is getting some publicity, both pro and con.  I may continue to post on it.

Justice for Black Farmers Act--First Take

 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.

For now, that's what I have.