Most experts expect the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill in the coming days, although negotiations will continue as Republicans use various procedural levers to amend some aspects of the bill.
This will be the third stimulus package passed by the United States Congress since the start of the pandemic, and like the previous two, this bill (the American Rescue Plan) will also include funding for agricultural programs (see agriculture provisions in the March 2020 CARES Act and the December 2020 stimulus package).
However, one new centerpiece of this round of agriculture funding is a $4 billion program of debt relief for “socially disadvantaged” farmers. More precisely, the program would provide farmers of color with direct payment to pay off U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) loans and USDA-guaranteed loans and provide an additionally 20% in funding to cover related taxes.
Today, 98% of agricultural land is owned by white people. Slavery and the Homestead Act of 1862 primarily benefitted white men and disadvantaged women. Further, outdated tenancy-in-common laws (sometimes called heirs’ property) that trigger land partition persist in many states, leading to widespread land loss for many racial and ethnic groups, particularly African American families in the South. Despite these giant obstacles, law professor Jessica Shoemaker notes, “[B]y 1890, African Americans represented 14 percent of all farmers and owned roughly 15 million acres.”
Yet, over the past century, Black land ownership plummeted dramatically. Black land owners lost 12 million acres of farmland, which has especially impacted people in Southern states as illustrated in the below graph from the New York Times. For example, Black farmers in Mississippi lost 800,000 acres of land from 1950-1964, which researchers have calculated would be a $6.6 billion loss today.
This bill merges a 2020 proposal by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker with a proposal by newly-elected Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.
Despite the bill’s likely passage, there is still plenty of pushback. Former Republican New York lieutenant governor, Betsy McCaughey, argues in an op-ed that the bill won’t solve any problems “because the restaurants that accounted for half the demand for . . . [farmers’] products aren’t buying.” What is noteworthy about this reasoning is its focus on the plight of New York restaurants—an urban-centered argument.
Additionally, Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott argues that the allocations are unjustified because there is no proof of discrimination against Black farmers. He offered as a better model the 1997 Pigford v. Glickman class action, which resulted in large settlements paid out by the USDA for discriminating in its allocation of farm loans. (For more background on the history of civil rights and the USDA, including Pigford, see this prior blog post.)
However, Scott’s argument only underscores the need for legislative action here because it shows Black farmers’ reasonable distrust in the USDA as an institution due to its historic discriminatory practices. As journalist Mark Bittman writes in an op-ed for the New York Times:
Black farmers understandably have called the USDA “the last plantation.”
Moreover, this bill reflects an important public policy interest in preserving Black agricultural land ownership, which is already at such low numbers. Many Black-operated farms are smaller and have less income, which can be precarious in an industry where farmers regularly rely on credit to finance operations. As a result, the USDA recently suspended debt collections for distressed borrowers, but this may not be enough wiggle room for some farmers.
Senator Booker believes this is only the start if the aim is to increase the number of Black farmers. Shoemaker observes that “10 percent of U.S. agricultural land— or roughly 100 million acres—will change hands over the next five years based on natural aging events,” which creates opportunities for meaningful intervention for the next administration. Bittman proposes the U.S. federal government can buy out “buy land from farmers cashing out for retirement so that rather than being absorbed by existing large landholders, the land can be redistributed to smaller or beginning farmers of color.” Additionally, law professor Thomas W. Mitchell recommends state legislatures adopt the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act to stave off Black land loss by updating tenancy-in-common and partition laws—a proposal that recently passed in Florida, Mississippi, and Virginia. Hopefully, this bill signifies potential political momentum.
4 comments:
This is very exciting news! Although I assumed the stimulus bill was primarily for individual and family specific stimulus payments, it is hopeful to hear additional support is being funneled toward farmers of color. It was interesting to read the comment from New York representative McCaughey about restaurants not buying food right now. Although this is surely true in most cities, in my visits around rural areas during the pandemic, including Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, I found most restaurants are operating business as usual. Further, farming isn’t a quick process, and farmers should be supported now so food is available when restaurants everywhere begin to open in the future.
I found the mass loss of Black-owned farms between 1920 and 2017 to be interesting. Did anything in your research mention why that exodus occurred? This seems like an issue that should gradually improve the further away we get from the Emancipation Proclamation, but rather this problem has regressed. Was this the effect of Jim Crow laws?
I think this provision is ultimately a good idea, as it will allow existing Black land-owners to better retain their farmland. But I do wonder how much this provision will encourage Black Americans to take up farming. It might have little effect on the "white Americans own 98% of farmland" statistic.
@Brandon-- I recently updated this post with a little bit more information about 20th century Black land loss that I thought you might find it interesting. Based on my research, it really seems to be the result of a perfect storm, but there are two factors worth highlighting. First, Black people suffered more from economic catastrophes, and not only that, crises were opportunities to further disadvantage Black people. For example, many New Deal initiatives actually deliberately harmed and targeted Black people (This is a great piece if you want to read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/this-land-was-our-land/594742/). Second, tenancy-in-common laws often led to partition of land for many families, sometimes at a fraction of the value. In intestacy, heirs become tenants-in-common and it only would take one person to initiate the partition (I recommend checking out the expert on this, Prof. Mitchell from TAMU: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1805&context=facscholar).
Thank you for writing about this! I had no idea that the stimulus plan included relief for Black farmers. I must admit, I was extremely shocked to find that 98% of the agricultural land was owned by white people. I expected the number of white agricultural landowners to be high, but I never expected it to be that high. I recall that in my Property class we discussed the loss of Black farmers' land and why that occurred, but I was unaware of the magnitude of the loss. The fact that Black farmers lost almost a million acres in the span of 15 years is shocking. Why didn't this raise any red flags for the government? I think this debt relief plan is a step in the right direction for the government to begin helping Black farmers, but I really liked the idea of having the government buy land from retiring land owners and redistribute that to smaller farms or to beginning farmers of color.
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