The COVID relief and economic package is a massive bill that has a far-reaching impact in ways that many Americans don t know about yet. One provision calls for debt relief for Black farmers, who have long been denied access to government funding. John Boyd, a fourth-generation farmer in Virginia and president of the National Black Farmers Association, joins Lisa Desjardins to discuss.
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Judy Woodruff:
The COVID relief law is massive, with far-reaching impact. It includes debt relief for America s Black farmers, long denied government funding.
Lisa Desjardins reports.
Judy, the new law allocates $5 billion for farmers of color.
Graham’s comments about the COVID relief bill and Black farmers sparked outrage.
Published 4 days ago
Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) believes Black farmers and farmers of color who are getting assistance via the COVID relief bill received “reparations.”
John Boyd Jr., the president of the National Black Farmers Association, is now asking for an apology.
During a March 15 interview with Rev.
Al Sharpton on
MSNBC, Boyd said, “I lobbied Sen. Lindsey Graham as a congressman. I lobbied him as a senator. I ve been by his office and asked him to help me fix the proble/ms at the United States Department of Agriculture that caused Black farmers to lose millions of acres of land and address the lack of loans and subsidies, and he s never once used his megaphone to speak out against the discrimination.”
COVID-19 relief bill offers long-denied aid to Black and other minority farmers msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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A major provision in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill aims to address decades of discrimination against Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian American farmers who have historically been excluded from government agricultural programs. The American Rescue Plan sets aside $10.4 billion for agriculture support, with about half of that amount set aside for farmers of color, and allocates extra federal funds to farmers who were “subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture has faced accusations of racism for decades, but little has been done to address the problem of discrimination in farm loans. John Boyd, a fourth-generation Black farmer and president of the National Black Farmers Association, says the new funds begin to address issues he has been fighting for 30 years. “This is a huge victory for Black farme