Bill Introduced to Have U.S. Government Buy Up Farmland
and Redistribute the Land to Black Farmers
A new Senate bill, called the Justice for Black Farmers Act,
set to be released November 30, would mount a long-delayed
federal effort to reverse the “destructive forces that were
unleashed upon Black farmers over the past century—one of
the dark corners of shame in American history,” lead sponsor
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told Mother Jones.
Co-sponsored with senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the bill would, among other
things, create an Equitable Land Access Service within the
USDA, including a fund that devotes $8 billion annually to
buying farmland on the open market and granting it to new
and existing Black farmers, with the goal of making 20,000
grants per year over nine years, with maximum allotments of
160 acres. It would also fund agriculture-focused
historically Black colleges and universities as well and
nonprofits like the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust to
help identify land for the USDA to purchase, and “help new
Black farmers get up and running, provide farmer training,
and provide other assistance including support for
development of farmer cooperatives,” the bill’s summary
states.
h/t dr0id