A letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture was waiting for Virginia tobacco farmer Lester Bonner when he opened his mailbox one morning in June.
The five-page letter said that he will soon have the $50,000 left on the government loan he had taken out to help him purchase his property forgiven.
According to Bonner, 75, “it was going to release the biggest burden of my life.” That’s been holding me back the entire time, I said.
Black man Bonner received that letter from the USDA more than a year ago, but his loan hasn’t been cancelled yet. He now thinks it can never be removed.
According to a national organisation of Black farmers, thousands of people in Bonner’s position are also pondering whether they will ever experience debt relief.
Because of a clause in the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed into law on Tuesday, less money is now available to farmers for debt relief. The bill also eliminated language that designated funds specifically for Black farmers to forgive their USDA loans.
A $4 billion loan forgiveness programme for farmers of colour was mandated by the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act, which was passed alongside the American Rescue Plan last year.
The emergency funding marked the first step in redressing decades of discrimination that some farmers claim they have experienced at the hands of the USDA, in addition to providing assistance to Black growers who have struggled during the pandemic.
However, before any money could reach farmers like Bonner, the loan-forgiveness programme was eliminated from the inflation measure.
The revised Inflation Reduction Act eliminates race as an eligibility requirement while providing $3.1 billion to “distressed borrowers” and another $2.2 billion to farmers who “experienced discrimination” from the USDA.
Breaking a promise
According to John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, by eliminating the “farmers of colour” language that was originally specified in the bill, the revised measure disadvantages Black farmers by making debt-relief funding available to farmers of all races.
Given that there are more White farmers than Black farmers overall, it will probably result in fewer Black farmers receiving forgiveness for USDA loans, said Virginia farmer Boyd.
A year after at least six federal lawsuits were brought by White farmers who argued that the statute was unjust since it prevented them from asking for the debt forgiveness because of their race, changes to agricultural financing have been made.
Small farmers in Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming filed the cases that are currently ongoing.
Boyd criticised the financing program’s modifications.
The U.S. government and Black farmers have betrayed a commitment and a contract, he said. “For us and other Black farmers who have been waiting for this, it’s a significant loss.”
Although it’s unknown whether other applicants who are now eligible for relief would overwhelm black farmers’ applications, it’s possible that they will still be qualified for a significant portion of the assistance offered under the inflation measure.
Boyd predicted that it will come down to how the USDA defines the standards.
According to CBS MoneyWatch, the USDA has not yet decided what evidence farmers will need to provide to demonstrate that they have experienced discrimination or are in distress.
A representative for the USDA told CBS MoneyWatch on Friday that the agency “intends to respond swiftly and our teams are already assessing the best pathways ahead and our choices for complying with the wording.”
Farmers of colour have long complained about what they claim to be discriminatory lending practises from the USDA.
According to a 1982 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report, the organization’s lending division “has not prioritised or emphasised the Black farmer dilemma enough.
The USDA “may have hampered Black small-scale farmers’ attempts to maintain a strong presence in agriculture in certain circumstances, “It was ad.
According to a 2019 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, lenders have recently reported finding it difficult to lend money to farmers of colour because they are “more likely to operate smaller, lower-revenue farms, have weaker credit histories, or lack clear title to their agricultural land.”
His tractors have no gasoline.
Black farmers like Bonner and Boyd said they had been struggling to keep their enterprises financially stable throughout the coronavirus outbreak and that they had come to rely on the debt forgiveness.
According to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, black farmers only got 0.1% of the pandemic aid intended for farmers last year.
On his 136-acre farm in Virginia’s Dinwiddie County, some 40 miles south of Richmond, Bonner has had to resort to selling off his pigs since times have been so hard.
According to Bonner, “I’m living on one Social Security check to another.” And right now, half of my tractors are already broken down, and I can scarcely afford gasoline for them.
In 1989, Bonner and his brother purchased the acreage, and since then, they have paid off the debt to a balance of around $20,000. Due to a lack of revenue, according to Bonner, he hasn’t made any payments lately.
The USDA letter offering debt relief, according to Bonner, was a lifeline that may have been cut off.
He said, “This is precisely like the 40 acres and a mule.” “Promises are made, but they are never kept.”