387 Days to Process a Black Loan, 30 for a White Loan

In this interview, NPR's Becca Roberts just sits back and lets Willie Adams say

"Pulled the sheet of of the Department of Agriculture" re Sherrod?-- That was Obama's call.

Mr. ADAMS: Discrimination in this farm lending programs, which takes 387 days to process a black loan application. Less than 30 days to process a white loan application. Why disparate treatment in the U.S. farm subsidy program, where the top 10 percent of white and corporate farmers receive on average $1 million per farmer and the black farmers average $200 in the farm subsidy program. So it's just why disparate figures.   NPR July 30, 2010

Boyd said it to WRAL in 2009 

CNN reported Boyd's Claim

Boyd has said black farmers are losing land at a rate three times faster than other agricultural workers. He said that it takes nearly 400 days to process a black farmer's loan request at the Agriculture Department, compared with less than 30 days for white farmers.

330 from a black farmer and 30 for a white  says Mary Landrieu---  go to 0:35



Ben Cardin also said it


PBS reported these figures (in 1999?) but didn't cite which report

A recent USDA report showed that loan applications by white farmers were processed in 60 days whereas black farmers' loans took 220 days. 

Wouldn't this mean that it got even easier for white farmers in the 2000s but harder for blacks if this were true?..... If this were true.

This might be the most likely and most honest explanation

Their case was a strong one. Their charges of racism were not only supported by the evidence the lead plaintiffs presented about their own situations. They were also supported by the government's own reports, investigations, and studies in 1965, 1970, 1982, 1990, and three in 1997. All of them, including Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman's civil rights listening sessions held throughout the nation in 1997, had concluded that the USDA was treating black farmers unfairly by taking longer to process their loan applications and denying a higher percentage of their loans. In one case, the USDA's own investigators discovered that loan applications for white farmers in one Mississippi county took an average of 84 days to process while those of black farmers took 222 days. And in farming, timing is everything.

I could see one Mississippi FSA officer being racist, but not the whole USDA. I'd still like to see the raw data behind those statistics. That statistic is repeated in "The Last Plantation"
I would love to know which county.



FSA Officer J Cliff Fussel takes objection to these claims (also as a pdf)

• Black Farmers Lawsuit - “NASCOE needs to take a strong position on the Black Farmer Lawsuit and back up our employees.  NASCOE should request USDA provide the evidence they have of employee’s discriminating. FSA employees are being unjustly accused of discrimination, throwing applications from black farmers in the trash, processing white farmer applications in 30 days and processing black farmer applications in 387 days, and other acts that I have seen no evidence of.  I know these accusations are being made by the National Black Farmers organization but it seems USDA is agreeing with them.  The secretary has said their was discrimination by FSA employees. When the Secretary makes statements like this it makes all employees look bad and makes our working relationship with minorities more difficult.