U.S. Senator Tina Smith Teams up with Senate Colleagues to Introduce Justice for Black Farmers Act

Press Release

This week, Senate Agriculture Committee member U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.)--along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)--introduced landmark legislation aimed at addressing and correcting historic discrimination within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in federal farm assistance and lending that has caused Black farmers to lose millions of acres of farmland, and has robbed these farmers and their families of the hundreds of billions of dollars of inter-generational wealth that land represented.

Just over 100 years ago, there were nearly 1 million Black farmers in the United States. Today, due to a history of discrimination, it is estimated that there are fewer than 50,000. The Justice for Black Farmers Act would work to end discrimination within the USDA, protect Black farmers from losing their land, implement systemic reforms to help family farmers across the country, and provide land grants to create a new generation of Black farmers and restore the land base that has been lost.

"We have to acknowledge that the USDA has a history of institutionalized discrimination against Black farmers and farmers of color. That is the history we cannot look away from," said Sen. Smith. "At a recent Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, I brought up the need to create equitable credit access for diverse farmers--including the Black, Hmong, Latino and Native American farmers in my state of Minnesota--because these are the types things we need to be working to address. This historic legislation is needed so we can help create a future that empowers more farmers to succeed."

The Justice for Black Farmers Act would:

-Take steps to end discrimination within the USDA, such as creating an independent civil rights oversight board to conduct reviews of any appeals of civil rights complaints filed against USDA, to investigate reports of discrimination within USDA, and to provide oversight of Farm Service Agency County Committees;
-Protect Black farmers from land loss by increasing the funding authorization for the USDA relending program created in the 2018 Farm Bill to resolve farmland ownership and succession, or "heirs property," issues;
-Restore the land base lost by Black farmers by creating a new Equitable Land Access Service within USDA;
-Create a Farm Conservation Corps where young adults from socially disadvantaged communities will be provided with the academic, vocational and social skills necessary to pursue careers in farming and ranching;
-Empower HBCUs and advocates for Black farmers;
-Assist all socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers by increasing resources for USDA technical assistance and for programs such as CSP and REAP, and by giving priority for these programs, as well as increased access to capital, to all socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers; and
-Reform and strengthen the Packers and Stockyards Act in order to stop abusive practices by big multinational meatpacking companies and protect all family farmers and ranchers.

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