California Black Farmers and Agriculture Association weigh in on U.S. Ag Policy

Washington, D.C. – Independence Day celebrations are over and few about spoke of the United Kingdom burning down Washington D.C. in a pre-dawn terrorist attack and the traumatic motivation of abolitionist Attorney Francis Scott Key poetic vision of a maritime battle in the Potomac River Basin, we call the National Anthem.

“California Grown” institutional racism and disparaging treatment began with official U.S. Statehood in 1850 and then President Lincoln’s compromise rewarding a million dollar payment to former slave owners for lost ‘free labor’ that was the first agricultural subsidy in official U.S. Agricultural Policy continuing as a 1862 celebration of 3/5th of humanity documented in the original U.S. Constitution.

The financial successful hot iron branding of "California Grown" racism is marketed globally without a care or concern to address historic amnesia, modern xenophobia, chattlel slavery or previous conditon of servitude memorialized best in the Mormon Island Relocation Cemetery, 36 gravesites of 'unknown niggers.'

Congressman Steve Chabot (R-OH) and Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-VA) recently introduced bipartisan legislation designed to help thousands of Black Farmers who were denied entry into the Pigford v. Glickman settlement.

Necessary congressional legislation, the Pigford Claims Remedy Act (H.R. 5575), would allow claims previously rejected on procedural grounds to be reviewed based on merit. Black Farmers Tour 2006 continues to showcase the basis of ‘one standard for humanity utilizing agriculture as the foundation for Black Culture.”

"We have learned during extensive hearings on this issue that an unacceptable number of claims were never considered on their merits," said Chabot. "Our legislation will ensure that any meritorious claims of discrimination are reviewed on the facts of each individual case and that they are not summarily rejected on procedural grounds."
Congressman Scott stated, "three times as many claimants were denied consideration on the merits as the number that received consideration. This bill will allow those who filed a claim, but were denied a consideration on the merits, an opportunity to be heard."

7 years ago, an approved settlement agreement of a discrimination lawsuit between Black Farmers and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) yet record levels of U.S. Black owned farmland continues without much effective care or concern.

The settlement followed the filing of a class action lawsuit against the USDA two years earlier. The lawsuit claimed that the USDA had discriminated against Black Farmers because of their race when applying for farm loans or other forms of assistance in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

The Pigford Claims Remedy Act is being cosponsored by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (R-WI); Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC), Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and Ranking Member of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee; Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Al); Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Ranking Member of the Immigration, Border Security, and Claims Subcommittee; and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS).

The U.S. House Judiciary, Constitution Subcommittee has conducted an extensive review of the Pigford settlement which including three hearings and an investigation by the General Accountability Office (GAO) from August 2005 – March 2006 and still our California Congressional Delegation remains officially silent in preparation to the 2007 Farm Bill that will decide globally who will eat and who will die of food insecurity.

First California Governor Peter Burnett proclaimed in his inaugural address a proposal to export each and every Black person out of the State of California and today official ‘California Grown’ agricultural policy is effectively exported worldwide by exclusionary practices and procedures mandated in our U.S. Ag policy that has underling implications on global epidemic levels of fatal health outcomes.

We seek to form a more perfect union based upon tradition of faith and a belief in the wisdom of our ancestors elders legacy and prayes.

Our promise of hope given to our unborn children reflects upon surviving signs and the symbolic natural display of mother nature prior to a quiet salient reminder of Fredrick Douglass entire speech http://douglassarchives.org/doug_a10.htm, July 4, 2006 on the mall in Washington D.C.

"Trust no future, however pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act, act in the living present, Heart within, and God overhead.”

We hold these truths self-evident.

Khubaka Michael Harris
California Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association