Join Hispanic Farmers to Learn The Latest About The Lawsuit Against The USDA...

August 16, 2010

A lawsuit filed by a group of Hispanic farmers against the United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) seeks to remedy decades of  well-documented discrimination against Hispanic farmers and ranchers perpetrated by USDA in the administration of its farm credit and non-credit farm benefit programs. To date over 82,000 Hispanic farmers have potentially been affected by this lawsuit. Garcia v. Vilsack, C.A. No. 00:2445, is currently pending in the district court for the District of Columbia. What is most frustrating is that the Obama Administration set aside a billion dollars in their 2010 budget for Black farmers while at the same time neglecting Hispanic farmers. This brings their total settlement around 2.2 billion dollars. They are identical cases, even down to the wording of the lawsuit, yet the Hispanic farmers case has not been adequately addressed and much less settled. Over the time that the Garcia class action has been pending (nearly seven years), untold numbers of farmers have gone out of business- lost their farms, been foreclosed upon, or just quit. Many have literally died waiting for relief. “We have been repeatedly and systematically discriminated against y the USDA’s farm loan program,” said Modesta Salazar of Pearsall, Texas and a named plaintiff in the lawsuit. “The Secretary may think that things are improving- but they are not. Nothing has changed. The situation is as bad as ever and our Hispanic farmers are suffering because of this Administration’s policies.”

Website with background on the lawsuit: http://www.garciaclassaction.org

CNN Segment:

Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer

http://www.cnn.com.video/?/video/us/2009/10/13/lia.latino.farmers.usda.cnn