Native American West Carroll farmer discriminated against by USDA Farm Service Agency

WEST CARROLL, La. (KTVE / KARD)–A family farm owned by Native Americans in West Carroll Parish has been fighting with the USDA Farm Service Association for more than 2 decades trying to get loans secured so they can remain in operation. NBC 10’s Joel Massey has more on how they were discriminated against.

Carl Howell is a Native American farmer in West Carroll Parish and has a ruling from USDA that they were discriminated against because of his ethnicity being denied and delayed a loan to operate his vegetable farm. His wife Shirley says it’s been a trying experience.

“Right off the bat they started denying us and would not let us have the loan they said that they did not qualify as soon as they found out he was American Indian then he qualified and there’s money all the time in there they just didn’t want to do it, they did not want a vegetable farm grown out here.”

She says they provide a valuable service in the area.

“So we could actually produce vegetables so that we could have, to be able to help the community that needs the food because there is a food shortage.”

They have been fighting with the USDA since 1994 and despite the ruling of discrimination which came down in 2002 they say they are still not being treated right.

“And they are still discriminating against us even today because we were supposed to have a loan approved last year now they are saying that they will have to re do the whole loan again in November. And that means another six to eight months.”

Carl says they are still working hard to stay afloat.

“When it takes longer to get a loan through FSA as a Native American Indian it really hurts. So we can’t get any production. Right now we’re working on our green houses getting them in production this fall. There’s no money allocated to get them in production so we don’t know if we will get the money or not.”

It’s the largest farm of its kind in Louisiana producing tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, eggplants and snap beans.

Carl said, “We’ll make some money if we can get into production but we don’t have an operating loan yet.”

Shirley said, “And the guaranteed loan we have with the bank the banker won’t give us the money because the FSA was supposed to pay off the interest and they have never done that and they just keep delaying the loan.”

It’s a multimillion dollar operation that fills a huge need for food in the area that needs to be funded if they can secure the money that they deserve.