Some Black farmers worry they could be left out of federal debt relief programs

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KEYSVILLE, Ga. — (KEYSVILLE, Ga.) -- For nearly three decades, Lucious Abrams says he has gotten letters from the United States Department of Agriculture promising to wipe out his debt --but for him and other Black farmers in the country, receiving relief from the federal government has been a difficult process.

Every morning in the rural town of Keysville, Georgia, the sun rises over 600 acres of farmland that has belonged to Abrams' family for three generations.

In 1920, 14 percent of all farms were operated by Black farmers, owning more than 16 million acres. But by 2017, that figure had plummeted to 1.7 percent – just half a percent of the country's 4.7 million acres of farmland, according to the USDA. Democrats subsequently rewrote the plan in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2021, removing references to race in the eligibility requirements and splitting up relief into two funds: distressed borrowers relief and discriminated borrowers relief.

"I want to see USDA get the farmers the relief that we passed through legislation. It is taking entirely too long. While folks are caught up in bureaucracy and processes, another planting season has come and gone,"Warnock said."The world is turning their head away. This is a moral issue. we are here in America and you're going to have lawyers put a clause in there and we have no recourse? The Senate, the Congress pass it and we still can't get justice," Abrams said.

In comparison, the data shows, 72 percent of farmers who identified as white and applied for the same loan were approved.

 

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