A new report about the Farm Service Agency’s appeals division has been published by the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School in partnership with Farm Aid and RAFI, a member of our coalition.
The report finds that farmers who had been denied federal loans by the FSA won only 17% of cases in the USDA’s National Appeals Division (NAD).
RAFI’s policy co-director, Margaret Krome-Lukens, is quoted in the Farm Aid article advocating for the Fair Credit for Farmers Act, one of the marker bills in our Farm Bill platform. Margaret says:
“It is an uphill battle for a farmer to get a favorable result in the NAD process. In practice, the odds are against them because of the way the process works. The report makes a number of helpful recommendations for improvements. The process-related recommendations, in particular, mirror many of the changes we are advocating for in the Fair Credit for Farmers Act: changing the burden of proof from the farmer to the agency; ensuring that farmers do not needlessly get put through multiple rounds of the appeals process; ensuring that NAD decisions are implemented promptly according to the judge’s determination; and expanding equitable relief.”