Reflections on the Equity Commission’s Final Recommendations to USDA – National Young Farmers Coalition

By Michelle Hughes

For the previous two years, I’ve served as a community-based organizational consultant on the US Division of Agriculture’s (USDA) Fairness Fee. After I was appointed to the Agriculture Subcommittee by the Secretary of Agriculture in late 2021, I printed a weblog submit about how I deliberate to make use of the chance to assist USDA handle a historical past of acts of discrimination in opposition to perpetually marginalized agricultural producers and their communities.

Over the course of my service on the Fairness Fee, I’ve performed my finest to carry each my fellow Fee members, and the USDA management and employees that facilitate the Fee accountable to the folks, goal, and outcomes of this historic advisory physique. Upon completion of  the Fairness Fee’s objectives and targets, I’m left with a wide range of emotions and reflections on the method. On one hand, I stay grateful and excited concerning the alternative and for what it means for the way forward for the partnership between  younger, Black, Indigenous, and other people of shade (BIPOC) farmers and the USDA. Alternatively, my service on the Fairness Fee validated the depth of the influence of a long time of discrimination and exclusion which were perpetuated by the Division, and I’m pissed off with the obstacles and limitations that exist inside the federal authorities to handle that legacy.

The fruits of the collective efforts of the Fairness Fee will be seen by the publication of the Fee’s Last Report, which was formally offered to the Secretary of Agriculture at USDA’s inaugural Nationwide Fairness Summit on February 22, 2024. The majority of the Last Report are the Fee’s 66 suggestions, which we have now been engaged on for greater than two years to assist USDA’s position in fulfilling the Biden’s Administration dedication to advancing fairness throughout the federal authorities. The suggestions embody steerage on a large spectrum of points USDA plans to handle, from the construction, practices, and cultural norms of the Division, to supporting farmworkers and their households, to enhancing housing, broadband, and waterways in rural communities. Whereas it was a tough job, Fee members labored onerous to make sure we superior a complete checklist of proposals the Division might implement that heart the wants of the various communities we signify.

In relation to Younger Farmers’ federal coverage efforts, particularly the Younger Farmer Agenda, the Last Report consists of suggestions on heirs property, land entry, conservation and local weather change, technical help, and Farm Service Company mortgage packages, that overlap with lots of the Coalition’s asks for the upcoming Farm Invoice as knowledgeable by a survey of over 10,000 younger and BIPOC farmers throughout the nation. The Younger Farmers coverage staff and I are excited concerning the overlap between the ultimate suggestions and plenty of our federal coverage asks centered on land entry and local weather change and the overall prioritizing of the wants of younger, new, and starting farmers within the steerage that was delivered to the Secretary. The Last Report consists of the whole suggestions from every of those classes, together with:

Suggestion 14: Land Entry

Guarantee equitable funding to community-led land entry and transition tasks designed to create land safety for farmers.
Fund and require the Nationwide Ag Statistics Service to conduct the Tenure, Possession and Transition of Agricultural Land (TOTAL) Survey.
Enhance investments within the Heirs Property Relending Program, and preserve and increase funding and technical help for the Extremely Fractionated Indian Land Mortgage Program.
Present continued funding for cooperative agreements with community-based organizations, such because the NRCS agreements for Racial Justice and Fairness, and FSA settlement for Discrimination Monetary Help Program.
Implement thorough racial fairness knowledgeable analysis and reporting necessities to not solely measure who’s benefitting, but additionally to measure program effectiveness in facilitating safe land tenure for younger, new and starting, girls, and BIPOC farmers.

Suggestion 15: Conservation

Embody equitable local weather actions in USDA conservation packages together with lowering the variety of required years of manufacturing, growing incentive quantities and advance fee choices for traditionally underserved producers, and streamlining the applying course of for each starting and small-scale farmers.
Regulate the Environmental High quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to combine and compensate for using Indigenous and data and land administration practices.
Prioritize analysis that helps small-scale, diversified farmers implement climatesmart conservation practices and measure their local weather mitigation impacts by strategies with a confirmed observe report of success.
Enhance funding for technical help to be linguistically and culturally applicable and put money into native specialists and communities by cooperative agreements with tribes, acequias, and different specialists.
Require an evaluation of the voluntary producer demographic information on an annual foundation to establish any developments within the utilization of conservation packages by younger, new and starting, girls, and BIPOC producers.
Codify the brand new Micro Farm program by the Danger Administration Company to enhance entry to crop insurance coverage for operations which might be diversified, natural, and/or promoting in native, regional, and specialty markets.
Mandate NRCS supplies the general public with an influence report on how EQIP funding has been used, and the influence these {dollars} have had on the setting.

Suggestion 18: Farm Service Company Mortgage Packages

Remodel FSA right into a customer support centered company that gives equitable therapy that responds to the borrowing wants of traditionally underserved farmers by clear eligibility, easier processes, and versatile administration.
Study FSA mortgage processes and use plain language and clearly describe eligibility standards relating to mortgage packages and processes to enhance equitable entry to underserved populations of each new and skilled farmers and ranchers.
Present further flexibility relating to the timing and processing of loans, together with the power to supply an preliminary assertion of eligibility or settle for preliminary paperwork earlier than an software is submitted. Extra flexibility relating to mortgage phrases and situations ought to be out there when structuring monetary packages for underserved farmers and ranchers.

We’re equally excited concerning the thread that exists all through the Report that implies USDA proceed providing cooperative agreements to a set group of organizations servicing the BIPOC farmers, ranchers, and farm staff with whom USDA seeks to proceed relationship restore. Younger Farmers and the cooperative organizations which have labored to make sure our communities apply for packages just like the Coronavirus Monetary Help Program, the Land, Capital, and Market Entry Program, and the Discrimination Monetary Help Program, have fashioned a trusted ecosystem of service suppliers that function the bridge between farmers and USDA programming.

I do have some vital suggestions on the Last Report, nonetheless, based mostly on my perspective that the following era of working farmers is a various and intersectional coalition of younger land stewards and farmworkers. Two teams specifically–farmworkers and Tribes–are supported in a relatively minimal means within the last proposals. Whereas Suggestions 22-26 are devoted to supporting farmworkers solely, if carried out, the steerage ensures merely fundamental human rights and a typical of institutional assist for farmworkers that ought to already be out there to any group working in our meals and agriculture system. For instance, the inclusion of farmworkers in employment legal guidelines that defend secure and satisfactory work environments will not be a progressive coverage suggestion–it’s one thing that ought to be afforded to farmworkers with out argument.

The Last Report underutilizes the time period “Tribes” in a means that would hinder USDA’s capability to work with Tribal management to correctly handle the obstacles that exist for Tribes and their residents and on Tribal lands. The Report focuses on “Indigenous folks,” an undeniably missed inhabitants in agriculture that ought to be centered, but the popularity of Tribes as sovereign, federally acknowledged governments answerable for the well being, security and well-being of their residents and their lands is uncommon all through the textual content. Explicitly naming “Tribes” as governments with residents/members and “Tribal lands” all through the suggestions would create 1) efficient mutual understanding of the ability of Tribes, Tribal jurisdiction over Tribal lands, and their government-to-government relationship with the USDA, and a pair of) alternatives for lively engagement and correct collaboration with USDA packages. The Native Farm Invoice Coalition’s latest weblog submit, authored by their Co-Chairs, one in every of whom is Fairness Fee Agriculture Subcommittee Member Kari Jo Lawrence, explains in higher depth the influence of this determination, and the necessity for a nuanced strategy to servicing Tribes and their distinctive obstacles.

As we glance to the long run, I’ll proceed holding USDA accountable to the Division and the Biden Administration’s dedication to racial fairness by accountability to the suggestions within the Last Report. Concurrently, Younger Farmers will proceed to push Congress to advance our priorities within the subsequent Farm Invoice to make sure USDA is provided with the authorities, program design, and monetary assets essential to deliver these proposals to fruition.

In my position on the Fee I counsel, however in my position as Co-Govt Director I advocate with farmers, fellow employees members, and organizational companions to authorize and implement the coverage proposals that may make these suggestions a actuality.