YOUNGSVILLE, La. (KLFY) — Billions of dollars in economic relief are heading to America’s farmers, and the USDA is taking extra steps to make sure the money is distributed fairly.
To do so five-billion-dollars are being reserved for “socially disadvantaged farmers”.
Eddie Lewis Cane Farms LLC qualifies for this reserved aid. It’s because for five generations the farm family has belonged to a socially disadvantaged group defined by law as “a group whose members have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities.
“I’ve done it for 56 years. My grandfather done it, then my daddy done it. Now it’s down to junior and them,” stated Eddie Lewis Senior.
His name isn’t only in the living on in the farm’s title, but it’s in the blood. Eddie Lewis Senior grew up on the sugar cane fields, and in 2017 he passed it on to his grandchildren.
Eddie Lewis III hopes to do the same but to do so debts have to be paid. The problem is getting loans has not always been easy.
“It wasn’t too easy to get money, you know?” Lewis Sr. said. “I had a lot of land more, but then I lost some land, you know, quite a bit. And then when they took over it dropped down some more and then it continued going down. Other farmers picked it up.”
According to the New York Times, “Farms run by African Americans make up less than 2 percent of all of the nation’s farms today, down from 14 percent in 1920, because of decades of racial violence and unfair lending and land ownership policies.”
But this month the USDA and lawmakers took steps to address the issue. Appropriating $4 billion toward debt relief for farmers of color.
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack told the National Farmers Union, “It’s going to be a priority of the USDA to make sure that we’re treating all of our producers, especially socially-disadvantaged producers fairly.”
Vilsack announced the appointment of the department’s first senior racial equity advisor who will help form an equity commission to investigate all USDA programs.
He said it is, “To make sure we identify and root out any systemic racism in those programs. Now the reality is we’ve not only had discrimination in the past, but we’ve also had the cumulative effect of that discrimination which needs to be addressed.”
Eddie Lewis Cane Farms LLC has not received any of the money yet, but the family is hopeful the USDA will administer them correctly on a national scale, so Eddie Lewis III can buy more of the equipment and hire the people he needs to stay in the business for Eddie Lewis IV and generations to come.
“I wish it could have happened when I was coming along, you know?” patriarch Eddie Lewis Sr. said. “It sure was going to help. It surely was going to help.”
The American Rescue Plan became law on March 11. If you are interested in reading what else is inside the law, click here.