The hearing, which is virtual, will be held on Thursday, March 25th at 12:00pm ET and will be available on the House Agriculture Committee’s YouTube channel.

Witnesses Include:

The Honorable Tom Vilsack, Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Cornelius Blanding, Executive Director, Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Phillip Haynie III, Chairman, National Black Growers Council

John Boyd Jr., Founder and President, National Black Farmers Association

Sedrick Rowe, Farmer, Rowe Organic Farms

Shirley Miller Sherrod, Executive Director, Georgia Project for Community Education, Inc.

Arnetta Cotton, Owner, Cotton Works, LLC 

Background:

This hearing will discuss the detrimental impact of longstanding, systemic discrimination by private and government institutions on Black farmers over the past century, including discriminatory practices from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), private lenders, and others.

Black farmers in the United States have seen reductions in number of farmers and total acres in the past century. Between 1900 and 1974, the number of farmers declined by approximately 60%, while the number of Black farmers declined by 94% during the same period (USDA, Census of Agriculture, 1974). Additionally, in 1920 Black farms operated 45 million acres, primarily in the South.  By 2017, that shrunk to just 1.1 million acres.