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We're Not Looking for a Handout
12.05.2010 08:59 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) —
Race. It’s 2010, and the word still has power to spark debates and controversy worldwide-even in agriculture.
In February, the U.S. government reached a settlement in a class-action suit, claiming racial bias, launched by the National Black Farmers Association. As of March 25, Congress was working to pass a $1.15 billion appropriation to settle the case.
«We [black farmers] had to compete,» Millington, Tennessee, farmer Ray Sneed said. Sneed was not involved in the class-action suit.
«Nobody has been given anything. And that’s not taking anything away from white farmers; they had to compete too. The black farmer is not looking for a handout, and I think a lot of times that’s the misconception. When minorities express frustration with getting something done, many think we’re looking for a handout. We’re asking for even-handedness…to be on the same level field as our counterparts.»
The settlement, worth more than $1 billion, covers as many as 80,000 farmers. But the current number of active black farmers is much lower than that-less than two percent of all U.S. farmers.
«In 1920, there were a million black farmers compared to 4 million white farmers,» 32-year-old farmer P. J. Haynie said. «In 1992, there were a million white farmers and less than 15,000 black farmers. If you told someone on the street that you’d give them $1,000 for every black farmer they know and could name, I bet they couldn’t give you one or two.»
Haynie grows soybeans, wheat and corn on 3,500 acres in the northern neck of Virginia.
He started doing chores on the farm close to the age of five, and by six he was driving tractors.
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