These days, I don’t speak very often about Summer 2020 because it is difficult to do so without a familiar feeling of frustration creeping up and permeating my entire being. For over 3 months throughout that summer, Black Americans laid out the generational trauma - and all of its physical, emotional, and financial manifestations - that we have suffered as a direct result of centuries worth of systemic racism. Things had obviously reached a breaking point for several reasons, but I think we also sensed that people were actually listening for once. And I believe that many of us hoped that the listening we sensed might actually lead to real change.

Of course, it led to a lot of talk about change, and a lot of performing. Lots of grand displays of ‘allyship’. But as I sit here today, we’re all hard pressed to find concrete evidence that any segment of our society, be it public or private, has actually made strides toward dismantling the tall fences that maintain systemic discrimination toward Black Americans.

And among those who have arguably been most impacted by the real-time consequences of these empty promises over the last two year are this country’s Black farmers.

What Happened to Justice for Black Farmers?

Just over a year ago, I wrote a blog on the Justice For Black Farmers Act, reflecting on how the legislation is unique in its efforts to hold government institutions accountable for admitted historical and ongoing acts of discrimination against Black farmers. Around the same time, a new proposal to provide $4 billion in debt relief to farmers of color was being integrated into the Biden Administration’s Build Back Better Framework and American Rescue Plan.

To this date, neither bill has led to compensation for or alleviation of the institutional harms that Black farmers face. Despite being introduced multiple times, the Justice for Black Farmers Act has never made it through Congress. The USDA and Secretary Vilsack have made no indication of taking direct action outside of Congress, and efforts to determine a path forward for the Justice for Black Farmers Act have taken a back seat to the more nefarious controversy swirling around the American Rescue Plan debt relief bill.

How to Maintain a System of Oppression: 101

Black Farmers have lost more than 12 million acres of farmland over the last century, with the majority of that loss taking place in the last 75 years. Farmers of color as a whole, including Native American, Latinx, and Asian farmers, have lost 90% of their farmland over the same time frame. It is fact - not opinion - that this dispossession is the result of a long history of discriminatory lending and land-grabbing practices from the USDA.

The lasting impact of the USDA’s systemic racism is still felt today. Experts estimate that Black farmers have suffered an economic loss of up to $350 billion. According to 2017 census data, the average size of a Black-owned farm is 70% smaller than the average size of a US farm. And yet, in spite of clear evidence on top of an actual admission of guilt by the USDA, banking groups and a collective of white farmers have fought tooth and nail against the debt relief bill.

While the USDA has mostly owned up to its role in displacing Black farmers, banks have been less forthcoming about their own part in this pattern of systemic financial discrimination. Last year, the three largest bank lobbying groups penned a thinly veiled threat to the USDA, warning that if guaranteed loans were relieved, then they would hesitate to approve any future loan applications to minority farmers. For financial institutions to further weaponize loans - the very tool that has been used to paralyze Black farmers and strip them of their land - to avoid having to atone for discriminatory lending is beyond words. Especially considering that banks have been known to receive bailouts for financial troubles that were of their own doing - but of course, government relief that maintains the system’s power structures are acceptable, right?

Standing in alliance with the banks against the debt relief bill are a group of white farmers across four states who have successfully put the bill in legal limbo through suing the USDA. In their lawsuit, these farmers argue that providing debt relief based on race is an act of discrimination and a violation of the Constitution. Interestingly, these farmers had no issue when nearly all - as much as 97% - of the $9.2 billion in the Trump administration’s pandemic farm bailout funding went almost exclusively to white farmers.

So what now?

Where does all of this leave Black farmers today? It seems that the Justice for Black Farmers Act has been largely forgotten. While the Build Back Better Act passed last year, the debt relief program is still tied up in the court system where it will likely remain for years to come. As the New York Times reported earlier this week, for Black farmers that took the first relief announcement as a sign to keep investing into their business, the lack of any relief fruition has left many of them in an even more precarious state.

The banking groups were successful in their lobbying and the USDA has adapted the relief bill to exclude farmers with debt from guaranteed loans. This means that 15% of farmers of color who were told they would receive debt relief will no longer meet the criteria if and when the program resumes.

Many Black farmers and other farmers of color continue to be unable to access direct loans and emergency funding from the USDA. In 2021, 42% of Black farmers were rejected from USDA direct loans in stark contrast to the 9% of white farmers who were denied.

Of course, the stories of Black farmers are not solely that of hardship and struggle. Across the Black farming community there are stories of resilience, joy, and community support - as evident through the storytelling and work being done by F.A.R.M.S, Black Farmer Stories, and Natalie Baszile’s We Are Each Other’s Harvest to name a few. However, even as our community grows more robust and innovative in the ways we navigate around a system that does not value our livelihoods, it is important to call out the historical and ongoing patterns that necessitate workarounds.

Perhaps the lesson from this is one that rings true for our food system as a whole: ensuring institutions fail those who have long been pushed toward the margins is inherent to the way our system is designed. Changing that requires real system upheaval, which in turn requires people who have been in a position of power to be willing to level the playing field. In the absence of that happening, community is where we turn - mutual aid, local resources, and building together. If it wasn’t clear before, it’s more clear than ever - promises are not to be relied upon.