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Historic USDA aid to address past wrongs

Aug 02, 2024
By Farms.com

New financial aid supports historically wronged farmers

 

The Administration has taken a significant step towards rectifying historical discrimination in agriculture by disbursing financial assistance to affected farmers through the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program. This program, prompted by the Inflation Reduction Act, supports those unjustly marginalized by past USDA practices.

The impact of this assistance has been widely acknowledged by political leaders and agricultural advocates. Senator Cory Booker and Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock have praised the administration for delivering long-awaited financial relief that promises to help farmers overcome the challenges of past injustices.

Representatives like Bennie Thompson and Terri Sewell noted the positive changes this program promises for Black farmers and other minorities who have faced systemic barriers in accessing USDA services.

This initiative is a part of a larger effort by the Administration to fulfill the President’s commitment to equity, particularly in federal agricultural policies. The funding aims to restore trust among farmers and ranchers, demonstrating the government's dedication to fair treatment and equal opportunities in the farming sector.

With over $383 million distributed among impacted farmers, the program not only compensates for historical inequities but also encourages continued growth and sustainability in the agricultural community.

As this program unfolds, it remains a beacon of the Administration’s resolve to ensure justice and equity within the agricultural framework of the United States.


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Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators