Davis Promises Help For Black Farmers

Rep. Artur Davis reassured black farmers yesterday that Congress and the Obama administration will deliver on a promise to compensate them for past discrimination by the Department of Agriculture. "We are going to put more money on the table," the moderate Alabama Democrat told a group of black farmers. "This is a starting point."

Black farmers, mostly from Southern states, were in Washington, D.C. this week to press Congress and the Obama administration to increase the $100 million set aside in the 2008 farm bill to pay farmers as part of a 1999 settlement of a discrimination case. Farmers also complained that payments have yet to be disbursed.

Thousands of black farmers received $50,000 payments as part of the settlement with the USDA, known as the Pigford case. Rep. Davis and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, pressed to get extra funding in the farm bill to pay late filers whose claims were rejected. President Obama, then a U.S. Senator for Illinois, also pushed the legislation and later campaigned on the issue. "The $100 million was a placeholder," said Rep. Davis, adding that the bill allows Congress to increase funding each year. "It was not meant to be a cap of any sort."

Justice Department officials recently filed a motion arguing that the fund is "demonstrably inadequate to resolve the claims of the current plaintiffs, let alone all of the potential claimants under the act." It estimates that 65,000 black farmers could file claims that could total about $4 billion. At that rate, it said, the fund would run out after the first 1,600 successful claims.