“A step forward in the right direction::Farmers receive financial assistance through Discrimination Financial Assistance Program

VALDOSTA – More than 43,000 farmers, ranchers and forest landowners began receiving checks in the mail July 31 to address discrimination they faced that barred them from resources for their operations.

The money comes from the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act’s Discrimination Financial Assistance Program. Congress allocated $2.2 billion for the USDA to provide financial assistance to farmers, ranchers and forest landowners who experienced discrimination in USDA farm lending programs prior to January 2021.

Farmers of color and female farmers from across the country have filed lawsuits against the USDA, alleging discrimination through the denial of access to low-interest loans, loan servicing, grant programs and other assistance. This discrimination, the complainants say, resulted in millions of dollars in economic loss as well as land loss through foreclosures.

Myles Caggins, the program’s East regional spokesman with Windsor Group LLC, said the program saw applicants from all backgrounds: black, Latino, Asian, Native, white, male and female.

“This provides some bit of relief compensation, and maybe, dare I say, some emotional closure or healing for the discrimination that they faced,” he said.

Recipients were broken into two categories. Twenty-three thousand individuals who have or had a farming or ranching operation are receiving between $10,000 and $500,000 with an average of about $82,000. Twenty thousand individuals planned to have a farming or ranching operation, but reported they were unable to because they couldn’t get a USDA loan. These people are receiving between $3,500 and $6,000, with an average of $5,000.

The southeast U.S. saw the highest number of recipients, with Mississippi and Alabama each having more than 10,000. Georgia had the third-highest with 2,170 recipients. Georgia made up about 4% of the applicants.

One of the recipients is a Valdosta farmer, who said he was repeatedly denied loan assistance at a local USDA Farming Service Agency. This farmer asked to remain unnamed in the article for fear of retribution.

The Valdosta farmer said he put together an application complete with documentation and a narrative that illustrated his experience with discrimination over the last eight years. He began farming in Valdosta with aspirations to support his family and partner with two colleagues to experiment with large-scale sustainable operations.

The complainant said he was repeatedly denied loans due to “a lack of experience” and diverted to smaller amounts of funding. He said he watched white farmers receive better treatment. He said these denials left him unable to afford equipment to farm the land and unable to produce enough income to provide for himself and his family.

After a tedious application process that required him to get documentation from the same office that had discriminated against him, he said he finally received his check in the mail on July 31.

“It was a wonderful day,” he said. “When the check clears, I’ll have money to start working on the farm and getting things done around there. I’m really grateful.”

The farmer said the financial assistance was not equal to everything he had lost but a step in the right direction. He received a payout that was above the minimum.

“It was a substantially good gesture of ‘Hey, we’re working on it, and we’re working to do better,’” he said.

He said he hopes this signifies a greater change – that farmers of color and female farmers can now go to their local FSA offices for help.

“That, to me, is the bigger takeaway … that now they will actually maybe give dignity and a little bit of respect to minority farmers who might not know all of the ins and outs of each and every one of their programs, but they will take the time to walk us through what programs really benefit us the most and actually work to serve us,” he said.

The Valdosta farmer and his colleagues' plans are now much greater than his own operations. He said he’s partnering with HBCUs and land grant universities like Florida A&M University, Tuskegee University and Fort Valley State University, as well as the USDA on a project that will help farmers tap into sustainable energy solutions.

He said the goal is to become an educational center for testing of farming technologies and processes. He said these groups also want to create an alliance of sorts.

“We want to create a network that does not allow these kinds of practices (discrimination) to happen again,” the farmer said.

Each region of the country had different operators to roll out the program, hosting information sessions and aiding with the application process. Windsor Group LLC was responsible for 29 states and territories east of the Mississippi River, from Maine to Florida to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Diedre Windsor, a Detroit native and retired U.S. Army Major, is the founder of the powerhouse company that planned boots on the ground efforts to reach farmers who were eligible for the DFAP. Her agency is black-, veteran- and woman-owned. It was the only black-owned firm involved in the program, she said.

“Representation matters to people,” Windsor said. “Learning that we were a black-owned firm helped people take their guard down more.”

She said her group reached farmers by tapping into the local communities through partnerships with churches, HBCUs, NAACP chapters, etc. In state field offices, they hired subcontractors with ties to the region, locals and/or agriculture industry.

“We knew from Day 1 … you’ve got to reach the farmer where the farmer lives,” Windsor said. “This was done during harvest season, so it’s just very difficult trying to reach everybody who would be potentially eligible.”

Windsor said these organizations had their “fingers on the pulse of the farming community.”

“Without them, I don’t think it would have been possible,” she said. “You needed people who cared and understood the plight of the people who were discriminated against.”

Georgia subcontractors connected with organizations like FVSU, the Sunbelt Ag Expo in Moultrie, and Feed My Sheep Farming Cooperative, to host mobile centers where farmers could learn about DFAP and receive help throughout the application process.

The group offered assistance in both English and Spanish. It ran advertisements in black and Hispanic papers. It had regional agents drive throughout rural agencies, finding areas that were central or received the most traffic.

“It was unorthodox, but we knew this is what was necessary to make it work,” Windsor said.

For many, the 10-step application process was lengthy, requiring specific documentation and a narrative that thoroughly demonstrated not only that the farmers faced discrimination but also the impact of the discrimination.

Windsor said the USDA predicted applications to be about 75% online and 25% paper, but the opposite ended up being true. Many of the applications were on paper – 40 pages plus a lengthy narrative – she said some easily reached 100 pages.

Some of the farmers applying were seniors. Some were not literate and had to orally describe their experience. Others had old records on handwritten ledgers or faded paper receipts detailing how many cattle, how many chickens, and how much crop they raised in a given year.

If there was a mistake on an application, the Windsor group helped correct it before submission.

Caggins said the process was more than just processing paperwork. It was a practice of empathy, patience and encouragement.

“Oftentimes, as people were recounting the stories of the discrimination that they faced, they broke down in tears,” he said. “Many of the applicants had been discouraged from their negative experiences and outcomes with FSA. So this was another chance for them to apply.”

Caggins said many thought nothing would come out of it, but he said the program has gotten tremendously positive feedback.

Windsor said it’s important to recognize that this doesn't change the past.

“You can’t change 100 years of racism,” she said. “But it is a step forward in the right direction.”

She said the program is a show of the government acknowledging the need to move forward and create a more equitable future in agriculture.