The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has made a push to incorporate equity and inclusion in the agriculture space by drafting The Equity Commission’s Final Report. Released in February 2024, the report contains 66 recommendations for the USDA to consider to improve racial equity and better serve underserved communities in agriculture.
Centuries of inequitable treatment of Black and other minority farmers and farmworkers has made the task of achieving lasting equity challenging . Not only is there a history of discrimination at every level of agricultural regulation and access, but there is also a history of half-hearted attempts to change the discriminatory status quo. Attempts that have been made amounted to over 740 recommendations given to the USDA to try to incorporate equity and reparations into the way the agency operates. These attempts ranged from the “40 acres and a mule” promise made during the time of President Abraham Lincoln to the Equal Opportunity in Farms Program in 1965. Each of these reports and commissions found the same issues — the USDA engaged in policy and practices that were discriminatory and have left Black and other minority farmers at a disadvantage. Despite the clear pattern throughout these reports there has been few improvements. It is imperative that as the USDA is considering the current Equity Commission Final Report it also considers its lackluster history with effectuating change in its discriminatory policies and practices.
During Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack’s first term as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he made a half-hearted effort to close the gap between minority farmers and white farmers. He did this by allowing the USDA to promote misleading data to promote a fictitious renewal of Black farmers, which ended up costing Black farmers money and land. Secretary Vilsack did this by misrepresenting census data to disguise his administration’s record on civil rights. He expertly used the media to mislead the public on the amount of money received by Black farmers under his leadership but also to continue to foreclose land from Black farmers at an alarming speed and prevented them from making their complaints known. The complaints were also purposefully slow-walked so that they would not get solved prior to Secretary Vilsack’s tenure. He also failed to support legislation or plans to help solve the backlogged complaints.
Secretary Vilsack also inflated the USDA’s civil rights records, by stating that policies passed during the Obama Administration “ushered in a new area of civil rights” and made the agricultural sector more equitable, diverse, and inclusive. Secretary Vilsack stated that during his first tenure he resolved the civil rights complaints ignored by other administrations. In reality, these claims were just thrown out, made moot due to the USDA foreclosing on minority farms at an alarmingly high rate. Secretary Vilsack and others in the department have previously only made cosmetic changes, such as resolving the backlogged discrimination complaint while in the same breath dismissing them instead of providing a solution as well as representation that his USDA administration was making policy changes which were reducing the frequency of discrimination complaints when that too was just a misrepresentation of the numbers.
While the Final Report is a good first step, it will effectually be little better than the cosmetic changes made during his previous term . The recommendations do not do enough to hold the USDA accountable and in reality require very little, but provide the USDA with the same good publicity as in his first tenure.
The Report says nothing about implementation and the time frame they believe the recommendations may take to induce long-lasting positive change. The Report also does not have any information on the potential impacts on Black and other minority farmers should the USDA not accept the recommendations. The Report had recommendations that gave the USDA too much leeway and essentially put the onus on Congress and let the USDA commit little time or effort to bring about policy changes. There should have been mentions of building trust with minority farmers, especially Black farmers. Trust is also an important foundation to build a lasting and more impactful partnership between the USDA and Black farmers. There was no substantive mention or recommendation to provide reparations or restitution to the parties who suffered under the past discrimination of the USDA . The report lacked detail on the actionable steps planned by the USDA to achieve the stated goals. There should be transparency in not just how the agency is faring in completing the equity integration. This will be a way to hold the USDA accountable to fulfill the recommendations that they have accepted.
The wording of some recommendations in the report imply that the requirements on the USDA will be minimal or even nonexistent in some cases, as they would have to rely on the will of congressional leaders at the time. Recommendation 36 charges the USDA to simply support any congressional actions to provide migrant and immigrant farmworkers with a pathway to citizenship. While the USDA has no power to change immigration laws, there are still ways for the agency to use its regulatory power to protect immigrant or migrant farmworkers. Just requiring the USDA to advocate is ambiguous as it does not iterate how much time and effort needs to be used. If the Equity Commission wanted to add this as a recommendation, it should have been much more robust, such as charging the USDA with championing a new immigration pathway for migrant workers through the current visa program they have .
Another example would be Recommendation 38, which calls for equitable compensation and protections for immigrant and migrant workers through supporting congressional actions. Again, this is not enough as farm workers are in dangerous jobs that take a significant toll on the body through back breaking physical labor, increased likelihood of risky sexual behaviors, increased likelihood of illicit drug use, environmental health concerns, and mental health concerns. Despite the varied health concerns and the reality that farm work is one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. labor market, there is a startling lack of workers right protections and rampant wage theft, wage and hour violations, and an almost criminal wage rate when compared to “just under 60% of what comparable workers outside of agriculture made in 2020” . Since most farm workers are feeding Americans, the United States owes them a duty of care. and has an obligation under international law, such as the New York Declaration to “improve the integration and inclusion of all migrants, with particular attention to access to education, health care, justice, and language training.” The USDA has the regulatory power to do more to improve the health and wages of these people, as there are current USDA regulations that govern wage and workers’ rights.
Agricultural exceptionalism has become a toxic tool to further harm some of the most vulnerable. Farm workers should be allowed to unionize, yet the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricts them from doing so. Farm workers are also largely exempted from protections such as the OSHA Act of 1970. The H2-A program, another inhumane agricultural federal program that limits the rights and well-being of farm workers, has also been described as “purchase of humans to perform difficult work under terrible conditions, sometimes including subhuman living conditions.” The Fair Labor Standards Act was also touted as a way to help with the wage and hours issues, but farm workers are still exempt from overtime pay and their wages when stolen are hard to get back as workers tend to travel frequently with the growing seasons. When wage theft is discovered the money typically ends up being given to the U.S. Treasury. Recommendation 39 states that the USDA should, “ensure equitable access to Rural Housing Service programs regardless of household immigration status.” Here there could have been a more specific recommendation for the USDA to release new regulations for farms that employ those with agriculture work visas. For example, stricter guidelines on housing quality, protective gear for those handling chemicals, better access to health care, and adequate explanations of their rights.
Recommendations 1 and 19 are also good examples of the need for stronger recommendations. Recommendation 1 is about institutionalizing equity but there is no mention of restructuring the current employee leadership in the various departments and levels of USDA. These two actions are key to establishing a foothold for institutionalizing equity and will help the USDA in restoring trust. Recommendation 19 addresses base acres but it will not close the gap between minority and white farmers who have had base acres for many years. There should be a discussion about adding new crops to base acres, addressing farm size differences, and reference prices. If minority farmers do not trust the USDA, then many of the recommendations mentioned in the Final Report will not be as effective without the participation of minority farmers.
While it is good that the Final Report focuses on how the USDA will champion equity in the future, it is remiss for the report to not mention or discuss how to address the discrimination. Since the Final Report was released, President Biden and Secretary Vilsack have announced a $2 billion funding plan to help pay back Black farmers who faced unlawful discrimination. These funds pale in comparison to the estimated $326 billion in lost land — which does not even include the lost income from the land that was lost or unable to be acquired by Black farmers due to discriminatory practices. Additionally only 42,000 Black farmers are going to receive some of that $2 billion, which is a fraction of the estimated over 1 million Black farmers who have experienced discrimination, and is 16,000 less than the number of applicants for the $2 billion in relief. While this $2 billion is a good start, it is not enough. So many people have been impacted by the discriminatory actions of the USDA and the worth of the lost land without consideration of the lost income is astronomically higher than what is being distributed. The USDA needs to look toward redistributing the land back to Black farmers.
