USDA Loans

In light of the landmark settlement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and African-American farmers signed last week by President Obama, National Public Radio’s Morning Edition yesterday did a startling piece highlighting the plight of Hispanic farmers with similar discriminatory complaints. In both cases, minority farmers filed complaints to the USDA Civil Rights Office due to inaction on applications made to the Farm Service Agencies for USDA loans. The difference is that when the USDA Civil Rights Office refused to investigate the discrimination complaints, federal judges in the black farmers’ cases conferred class status on their lawsuits. Not so in the case of the Hispanic farmers.

NPR’s Wade Goodwyn did the reporting, in part interviewing Noe Obregon, a Texas farmer. The emphasis is mine.

WADE GOODWYN: Noe Obregon is a third generation Texas farmer. His grandfather, a sharecropper, eventually earned enough to buy his own property. By the time Obregon graduated from high school, he'd already been farming with his father for years, plowing the land. Obregon went to the USDA's Farm Service Agency in 1980 because one of the agency's missions was to help young farmers get started.

Mr. NOE OBREGON (Farmer): I had asked for an application, and they said that I was too young to farm. Even though my background had always been in the farm industry, they denied me, saying that I was too young.

GOODWYN: Obregon says if the Farm Service Agency didn't turn him down outright, they would delay his loan for months. White farmers in Frio County got their USDA loans in January, Hispanic farmers in July.

Mr. OBREGON: By the time we would get our loans, it was super late. We couldn't put in our crops. Our rain cycles was gone. It was controlled by Anglo farmers, and they wanted Hispanic workers to work for them.

According to Stephen Hill, an attorney representing the Hispanic farmers, the federal government is offering Hispanic and women farmers about a billion dollars less than black and Indian famers, even though the pool of potential claimants is as much as 12 times larger. And he says that since the government’s proposal violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, his clients are considering a lawsuit on those grounds.

"It was controlled by Anglo farmers, and they wanted Hispanic workers to work from them."  Chilling words, but no doubt true.  You can listen here, or read the rest of the transcript here.