The Houston Chronicle covered the issue in an October 13 article entitled, "Land of denied opportunity for Latinos? Perennial drought for Hispanic farmers."

"The Hispanic farmers argue that they routinely are discouraged from applying for government loans, are required to submit more paperwork, are turned down at a higher rate than Anglos, and, if their application is approved, the money usually arrives after the planting season," reported the Chronicle. "They also claim they encounter more difficulty than Anglo farmers in having their debt restructured in the event of disasters brought by weather, insects or disease."

Lupe Garcia, 58, a farmer in New Mexico, said that during the 1980s he was repeatedly denied loans and disaster relief by the Farm Service Agency (FSA). The agency did not budge, Garcia said, when a dam collapsed and floods destroyed his crops in 1986 and 1988.

Even after successfully appealing these rejections Garcia was denied loan restructuring. In 1999, Garcia’s land was "foreclosed on by his lenders and sold to Anglo farmers for $1 million," reported the Chronicle. The farm had previously held an official value of $2.4 million.

"To add insult to injury," Garcia told a congressional hearing, "the FSA assisted the Anglo farmers in purchasing our farms."

Tyn Davis, 41, who grows cotton, wheat and onions south of El Paso, Texas, described one blatant example of racist discrimination. In April 1998, Davis said, he received assurances from an officer at the FSA that he was entitled to receive assistance after fungus ruined his wheat crop. When the officer overheard his client helping another farmer who was having trouble with English, however, he asked Davis "how come I spoke Spanish so well. I told him I was half-Hispanic...my mother was Mexican."

The FSA changed its "cooperative" attitude immediately, Davis said, and within weeks had notified him that it was foreclosing on his farm--a process that was stalled only by his declaration of bankruptcy.

When a truck arrived this summer to remove his equipment, "I told the driver what was being done to me and he said he would come back in a week," said Davis. "He told me I should get a bankruptcy lawyer."

The FSA’s policy of having loan applicants screened by county committees is a cause of many grievances among farmers. Although their members--usually numbering three to five--are elected, the committees tend to be dominated by wealthier farmers. One indication of this is the fact that of the 695 committee members in Texas, only 13 are Latino.

The farmers’ lawsuit has drawn comparison with a similar action pursued by Black farmers in the mid-1990s. Charging a long history of discrimination by the USDA, those farmers continue to wage this fight, including through public meetings and rallies in Washington and elsewhere. In Pigford vs. Glickman, Black farmers forced the agency to provide some financial compensation for past discrimination.

The racist barriers faced by Black and Chicano farmers augment the impact of the deep class inequalities that exist in the countryside, a situation that is reinforced by the way government subsidies are dished out to farmers. Some 1,300 of the wealthiest U.S. farmers in the United States each received more than $1 million in government subsidies between 1996 and 2000. Working farmers, who make up a much larger proportion of the country’s 2.5 million farmers, received an average of $5,830.  
 
 
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