Anthony Pahnke of Family Farm Defenders recently wrote an insightful OpEd for The Progressive, about the current risk, under the Trump administration, to public policies that assist farmers of color. Of particular concern is the 2501 Program, which has offered grants to underserved farmers, ranchers and foresters, since its passage in the 1990 Farm Bill.
Anthony writes:
In his book Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights, Pete Daniel notes that Black farmers in the twentieth century lost their farms disproportionately when compared to their white counterparts. That’s in large part because officials at U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offices around the country regularly denied loans to producers for no other reason than the color of their skin.
The 2501 Program emerged to address this long, dark past of discrimination in the nation’s agricultural history, which has roots in chattel slavery. How this program emerged is just as important as who it benefits.
2501 found its way into the 1990 Farm Bill—and has stayed there every cycle since—due to the work of interracial farmer coalitions. Leaders from groups such as the National Family Farm Coalition and the Rural Coalition, with their extensive bases of small-scale farmer groups around the country, organized protests and testified in Congress, advocating with farmers of color-led groups such as the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.