RALEIGH -- Farmers who say the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against them and their families joined Sen. Kay Hagan on Friday in urging federal lawmakers to make good on the promise to pay aggrieved farmers for their mistreatment.
"They can find money for Haiti, and now they have found money for Pakistan," William L. Neill said, referring to aid the U.S. provided after the earthquake in Haiti and recent floods in Pakistan. If the U.S. can help with international emergencies, it should be able to fund a legal settlement involving its own citizens, Neill said.
Neill was in Raleigh on Friday with his father, William D. Neill, who helped his own dad work the family farm in Bladen County and watched as his father was repeatedly turned down for loans by the USDA. Neill, who is black, said the department helped his white neighbors who had similar farming operations, but his family could never get money to expand the farm by ditching and draining some of the land.
The Neills are claimants in a class-action lawsuit referred to as Pigford II, named after North Carolina farmer Timothy Pigford, whose lawsuit helped bring attention to differences in the way the USDA treated black and white farmers as far back as the 1930s.
The government has acknowledged the abuses occurred. Black farmers often had to wait more than twice as long as their white counterparts to get answers about their loans; their loans were denied or the amounts slashed more often than loans for whites; and black farmers' properties were foreclosed upon faster. Without timely assistance from the USDA, many farmers lost their land. Pigford also lost his home.
In February, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the U.S. would establish a $1.25 billion fund to compensate farmers who suffered losses as a result of discrimination.
The U.S. House has approved money to fund the settlement. The Senate has not.
"More than 4,000 black farmers in North Carolina and 75,000 nationwide have been denied justice for decades, and it is incumbent upon us in Congress to right this wrong," Hagan said.
In the Senate, money for the settlement is tied up in what's being called the Small Business Lending Bill, which would also inject up to $30 billion into community banks. The banks could get a lower repayment rate if they increased lending to small businesses. The bill also would offer tax breaks to small businesses.
While Democrats support the bill, many Republicans regard it as another federal bailout and have opposed it.
If the bill is not passed, or passed without money for black farmers, it will likely be next year before legislators talk settlement again, Hagan said.
$50,000 settlements
When and if the money does come through, estimates are that farmers could get about $50,000 each, and some might be forgiven outstanding loans. In most cases, that would not get a farmer back into business if he was forced out years ago.
George Roseboro, 61, couldn't compete now with what's left of his family's farmland: 26 acres in Columbus County. And if he ever gets a check from the government for his claim under Pigford II, he'll have to split it with his mother and five siblings.
The land is still under cultivation - corn one year, soybeans the next - but not by the Roseboros. Another farmer rents it.
