The USDA will disburse up to $4 billion in Biden-backed loan forgiveness to minority farmers as speedily as possible, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the first-ever House Agriculture Committee hearing on the state of Black farmers. Farm state Republicans said the debt relief, intended as compensation for decades of racism, was itself discriminatory because white farmers are excluded.
Agriculture Committee chairman David Scott said material from the hearing would be used in drafting legislation to ban discriminatory policies at the USDA and improve Black farmer income. We will also have things in this bill that will increase the number of farmers we have; that acreage (is) reopened, said Scott at the end of the four-and-a-half-…
Read the full article at: https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/debt-relief-will-be-distributed-as-quickly-carefully-as-possible-says-vilsack
