Pig farming in Podunk (PRX investigation)

Michel Martin and James Doubek (Jeffrey Pierre and Natalie Winston produced and edited the audio interview), March 13, 2021 (npr.org); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

I love animals. I raise them, I kill them, then I eat them. I sell them, too. That's farming.

AUDIO: Losing Ground by Reveal on PRX

"This land is my land. This land is your..."

Tucked into President Joe's $1.9 trillion coronavirus [plandemic] relief law are provisions meant to help Black farmers, who have faced generations of systemic discrimination.

As part of the American Rescue Plan, $4 billion is going toward debt relief for "socially disadvantaged" farmers to pay off debts that have prevented their farms from growing, the Department of Agriculture said. Another $1.01 billion is being used to create a racial equity commission.

• "Losing Ground" by Reveal on PRX
• Better fields in the Midwest or South?
• Wanted "abundance," got working-poverty
• Wrong (micchā) Path is not the Way
• What is "wrong livelihood"? Killing or inducing others to kill -- raising animals for slaughter then paying butchers to take living beings and send back "chops." Right?
• Wrong livelihood: "deriving a living that brings harm to other beings, such as trading in living beings...slaughtering...etc."

Socially disadvantaged farmers are a group that includes African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said the plan is an "acknowledgement that acts of discrimination took place. And that you not only have the specific result of the act, but that there is a cumulative effect of being discriminated against that grows over time. And in order for us to have an equitable and a fair USDA, it's necessary for us to address that gap."

Over a century, official and unofficial policies and practices have decimated the number of Black farmers and the amount of land they farm.

Rod Bradshaw, Jan. 2021, says he's the last Black farmer in Hodgeman County, Kansas.

.

Despite plenty of Black people wanting to farm after the end of slavery, white people worked to prevent them from owning land.

Black farmers could be pushed off their lands by force or through tax fraud. Banks were unwilling to lend and farm equipment sellers wouldn't sell to Black farmers.

Local offices with the Department of Agriculture would also deny or delay loans to Black farmers, documented in a series of government reports starting in the 1960s.

In 1920, Black-run farms were about 14% of the total in the U.S. Today, Black farmers are less than 2% of all farmers. Their farms also tend to be smaller in size. As of 2017, Black-operated farms made up 0.5% of the total farmland in the U.S.

Previous to the American Rescue Plan, the last big payout to Black farmers only came after a class action lawsuit that began in 1990s.

Vilsack, who was previously agriculture secretary in the Obama administration, talked with Michel Martin on All Things Considered about the debt relief plan, how to increase diversity in farming, and how farmers could help fight climate change [instead of contributing so much to it]. Here are excerpts of the interview:

Why this approach? What informed it?

Turning back on wrong livelihood (Going Thailand: Golden Buddha at Wat Muang rice field)

.

True Success? (Espresso Theology)

I think there are two basic reasons for the importance of this and the necessity of it in the American Rescue Plan. First, the fact is that there was discrimination in the '70s and '80s and into the '90s at USDA that made it very difficult for socially disadvantaged producers to access fully and completely the programs at USDA. And the result, of course, is that over a period of time, they get further and further behind.

And the reason being is many of the programs at USDA are designed to benefit those who produce. And if your loan wasn't granted on time, if your interest rate was higher, if you didn't get a loan, then you couldn't necessarily keep up with your neighbor in terms of production. You weren't able to buy the newest equipment. You weren't able to get the best seed. You weren't able to buy the farm next to you to be able to expand your operation. So over a period of time, a system that basically rewards production created a gap between those who were advantaged and those who were socially disadvantaged. More

• The PRX program Reveal had an episode on Sunday 4/9/22 ("Losing Ground" by Reveal) about pig farming by a Black couple in NC that proves this problem still exists.
• AUDIO: LISTEN NOW • 9:14 (NPR)
• Back to work? Bingo! Take these cards with you and make the losers clean the fridge
• Pandemic anxiety was hard on IBS patients. Here’s how to find relief
• US citizens can now choose the gender ‘X’ on their passport applications