The $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that President Biden must sign includes billions of dollars in debt relief and other assistance for black farmers.
But incorporating race-based criteria for this relief is leaving other farmers scratching their heads.
“Just because you have a certain color, don’t you need to return the money? I don’t care if you are purple, black, yellow, white, gray, if you borrow money, you have to return it.” Kelly Griggs, who runs her 1,800-acre farm with her husband in Humboldt, Tennessee, told Fox News in an interview.
HOUSE PASSES LANDMARK $ 1.9T COVID BILL, DELIVERS BIDEN’S FIRST LEGISLATIVE VICTORY
“My reaction is, where did common sense go?” Griggs said. “We can’t attack. We can’t stop. That’s the part that really sucks. These people in Washington who make decisions for us and our livelihood probably never set foot on a real farm.”
The aid package includes about $ 4 billion to pay up to 120% of the outstanding debt of black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American farmers as of January 1, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
In this January 13, 2021 photo, Rod Bradshaw is in a wheat field on his farm near Jetmore, Kansas. (AP Photo / Charlie Riedel)
The package also earmarks about $ 1 billion for capital commissions, agricultural training, better access to land and other forms of assistance to advance racial justice in agriculture.
“By denying or delaying black farmers the same loans, subsidies and other payments made to white farmers, the USDA became involved in systematic racism that led to a dramatic decline in the number of black farmers. This is not in dispute,” John Boyd , president of the National Black Farmers Association, told Fox News in a statement before the House approved the aid package on Wednesday.
Black farmers accounted for approximately one-sixth of farmers in 1920, but less than 2% of farms were managed by black farmers in 2017, according to USDA data.
BIDEN $ 1.9TO CORONAVIRUS STIMULUS PACKAGE INCLUDES $ 1B FOR RACIAL JUSTICE PROVISIONS FOR FARMERS
The USDA has faced allegations of discrimination for years. Pigford’s class action lawsuit, which the government solved in 1999 for $ 1.25 billion, was supposed to help farmers who allegedly had been unfairly denied loans and other government aid.
Representative Sam Graves, R-Mo., Questioned racial justice in the agricultural provisions contemplated in the bill.
“What happened to equal protection under the law? This is wrong and not American. I’m sure there are a lot of Americans out there who would love our tax money to pay off all their debts. Select a few,” Graves wrote on Facebook at March 4th.
Kelly Griggs echoed his sentiment.
“I’m going to have to pay for this,” she told Fox News.
Another farmer, Benji Anderson, of Georgia, expressed concern about the provisions.
“I think it should be distributed to everyone,” Anderson told Fox News. “Because one thing we all have in common, no matter about color, race or whatever, we are all farmers, all working together to feed the United States.”
Anderson grows nuts and tobacco and said that rising fertilizer and fuel prices are taking its toll.
“I see that inputs are increasing and the end result is that it will cost more to harvest, so you really have to have an income to earn some money,” he said.
Darrell Kay, who grows crops online and raises cows in northwest Georgia, also expressed concern about rising input costs in an interview with Fox News. He said separating farmers by race and ethnicity for debt relief seemed “wrong”.
“I’m not saying that they don’t need to – don’t get me wrong, they probably do – but I don’t know what the circumstances are … that they’re giving them all that money,” Kay said.
He said he went through 2020 relatively unscathed, but other farmers were not so lucky.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
“It affected me a little bit, my final numbers at the end of the year, but I was pretty stable at the beginning, so it didn’t really bother me,” said Kay. “But there were a lot of farmers [who] they were not so stable. … It hurt them a lot more than it has hurt me so far. “
The racial justice provisions in agriculture in the huge aid package were based on a bill led by Senator Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Called the “Emergency Relief Act for Colored Farmers”