Black farmers bring suits against USDA

From Wire Reports
Published: June 5, 2008

WASHINGTON—More than 800 black farmers filed a new lawsuit against the Agriculture Department two weeks after Congress reopened a 1999 settlement over discrimination.

The plaintiffs wasted little time in taking advantage of a provision in the recently enacted farm bill that allows fresh claims from those who were denied damages after missing earlier deadlines.

Some 75,000 people could fall into that group. If their lawsuits are successful, the case could cost the government several billion dollars on top of the $980 million in damages paid under the original settlement.

The lawsuit, organized by the Virginia-based National Black Farmers Association, was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington. Nearly all the 823 farmers who sued this week are from the South, mostly from Alabama and Mississippi.

John Boyd, a black Mecklenburg County, Va., farmer who founded the group, said he expects an additional 5,000 to join the lawsuit soon.

“I’m hopeful that [Judge Paul L. Friedman] will move swiftly on all 74,000 late filers as a whole. We are planning to go to all 42 states for awareness sessions,“ Boyd said in an e-mail to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“We are planning a statewide meeting in early July for Virginia; it is important for the black farmers to contact the NBFA for further information.“

The suit is the latest development in the federal government’s April 1999 settlement of a class-action lawsuit from black farmers who claimed they systematically were denied loans and other aid from local USDA offices. About two-thirds of the nearly 22,500 farmers who filed suit were awarded damages.

The deadline was extended once for those who could show extraordinary circumstances. But federal courts repeatedly denied subsequent requests to reopen the settlement until Congress intervened with the farm bill.

Staff writer Greg Edwards contributed to this report.