East Point, GA- The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/ Land Assistance Fund and The Institute for Economic and Racial Equity at Brandeis University are thrilled to announce a new partnership. Over the next two years, our organizations will be communicating with Black farmers and their descendants across the nation to understand better the impact of the Black farmer lawsuits, Pigford v. Glickman and In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation. This project will be the first nationwide effort to understand the impact that these historic cases had on farmers and their families.
We will investigate the experiences of Pigford claimants during and after the case, with an eye towards policy and narrative today. The past two years have seen multiple legislative attempts to foster equity in agriculture, including the Justice for Black Farmers Act and Section 1005 of the American Rescue Plan – Emergency Debt Relief for Farmers and Ranchers of Color, which conservative legal foundations with the face of white farmers are currently challenging in the court. This research focused on the experiences and voices of Black farmers will lend clarity and urgency to the problems these policies are meant to address. Beyond agricultural policy, our teams believe that the Pigford cases offer insight into policies around cash transfers and reparations, as well as the way that harmful narratives affect marginalized communities.
Just over 20 years ago, Black farmers sought legal justice in a class-action lawsuit against the USDA for racial discrimination in its farm and credit services. After a national organizing campaign, two class-action lawsuits, and an act of congress, just over 30,000 farmers received settlement funds for the discrimination they faced, mostly in increments of $50,000 per farmer. At the time the court settled Pigford v. Glickman, it was the largest civil rights settlement in the history of the United States. Today, the case is only surpassed by Keepseagle v. Vilsack, a case the Native American farmers brought against the USDA in the wake of the Pigford settlement.
Questions remain about the efficacy and impact of the Pigford cases. Some claimants maintain that they were denied the debt relief promised to them through the consent decree and that widespread foreclosures on black-owned land continued. Many Black farmers whose claims were denied still maintain that they faced discrimination and should have been eligible for settlement money. Finally, questions remain about whether the $50,000 awarded to the majority of successful claimants was enough, not only to remedy the real and documented financial harm that farmers experienced but also to retain the land they still owned.
Pigford v. Glickman was the culmination of years of discrimination against Black farmers. For decades, Black farmers experienced unfair treatment by their local USDA county committees when they applied for farm loans or assistance. They were denied loans, had to wait longer for approval and faced worse loan terms than white farmers. This drove a wave of devastating consequences, with many Black farmers facing foreclosures, high debt, and the potential loss of their profession. What’s more, when farmers elevated their complaints to the USDA, the agency was unresponsive. Between 1920 and 1999, 98.1% percent of Black farmers left their profession and 85% of the land owned by Black farmers was lost. In the same period, White farmers saw the number of acres owned collectively grow slightly and their operator numbers drop by approximately 66%.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is sponsoring this collaborative research project. For more information about the Pigford project and our work, please contact:
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The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund is a 54-year-old non-profit cooperative association of black farmers, landowners, and cooperatives. Our mission is to be a catalyst for the development of self-supporting communities through cooperative economic development, land retention, and advocacy. We envision sustainable rural communities supported by a network of farmers, landowners, and cooperatives based on local control and ownership. For more information, visit www.federation.coop
