#Biden #Discrimination #Reparations #Farmers
White farmers have voiced their frustration after President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package this week awarded $5billion to minority farmers while not offering them the same aid.
The Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act was introduced to the relief package by Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock in early February to provide immediate financial relief to black, indigenous, and Hispanic farmers.
The bill provides $4billion in direct payments to farmers of color and has allocated $1 billion to address systemic racism at the U.S. Agriculture Department (USAD), providing legal assistance to farmers of color and grants and loans to improve land access for minorities.
The $4billion will provide direct payments of up to 120 percent of a 'socially disadvantaged' farmer or rancher's outstanding debt as of January 1, 2021.
Yet white farmers believe the add-on to the relief package is discriminatory as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham blasts the money as 'reparations'.
The American Rescue Plan will provide $10.4 billion in total for farmers of all races and farm-related programs, according to CBS, but most of the money is earmarked for debt foregiveness for minority farmers.
Half of the fund is going to them, despite white farmers in the US vastly outnumbering their minority counterparts.
According to the USAD, which last issued figures in 2017, there are 3.2million white farmers in America.
However, there are only 45,500 black farmers, 112,500 Hispanic or Latino farmers, 58,200 American Indian or Alaska Native farmers and 22,000 Asian farmers.
This totals only 238,200 minority farmers who will be in recent of 50 percent of the offered aide.
White farmers outnumber them more than 13 times.
Sen. Graham appeared on Fox News this week to blast the bill as an example of 'out of control liberals' and claimed that it had nothing to do with the coronavirus and so should not be included in the COVID-19 relief package.
'Let me give an example of something that really bothers me. In this bill, if you are a farmer, your loan will be forgiven up to 120% of your loan, not 100%, but 120%, if you're socially disadvantaged, if you're African American, some other minority,' he said.
'But if you're White person, if you are a White woman, no forgiveness. That's reparations. What does that got to do with Covid?'
It was also criticized by Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York, who claimed that the Empire State's majority white farmers were being discriminated against.
'The bill looks more like reparations than COVID relief,' she wrote in an op-ed for the New York Post.
'It says farm aid is 'for the purposes of addressing the longstanding and widespread discrimination against socially disadvantaged farmers.' Truth is, farmers have been struggling for a decade, and more than half lose money year after year.
'Minority-owned farms are generally less indebted than those owned by whites, though diminished access to credit may be part of the reason. White and minority farmers alike need debt relief,' she added.
Angered white farmers also took to social media to hit out at the bill after the packages was passed, as they claim that they are being discriminated against by not being offered the same loan forgiveness.
'Farmers of color' get $4 billion bailout to pay off their debt. White farmers get nothing. They say it's reparations, but it's not. It's racism. Pay your bills, America,' wrote podcast hist Toss Starnes.
