The recent news that the US Department of Agriculture administrated Pigford settlement was severely mismanaged is overshadowing legitimate instances of discrimination, some researchers have argued.
A New York Times article published last week revealed a staggering amount of fraud at the heart of the USDA’s much lauded Pigford settlement. The settlement was in response to a series of class action lawsuits from minority farmers who claimed systematic loan discrimination at the hand of USDA officials.
The Times reported that individuals unconnected to the agricultural community, individuals too young to have been alive during the Pigford cases, and individuals who had never farmed in their lives all claimed portions of the settlement money.
Some scholars, however, are urging the media not to go too far in condemning the Pigford settlements. Pete Daniel, an agricultural historian, points out the long legal case history revolving around Pigford as well as a longer history wrapped up in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1965, for example, the US Commission on Civil Rights published a study called “Equal Opportunity in Farm Programs,” which documented decades of discriminatory actions by the USDA.
Daniel also urged media organizations to investigate the findings of the Pigford case. During the trial, USDA official calculated that between 1950 and 1975, more than 500,000 African American farms went out of business. Had these farmers suffered the same rates of failure as their white counterparts, more than 300,000 would have remained by 1990 instead of the paltry 18,000.
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Written by: Justin Ellison / Farm Plus Staff Writer