Brooke Christy is a 3L at University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a guest contributor to this blog.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Equity Commission is tasked with providing recommendations for reducing barriers to access the Department’s programs and services. In the September public meeting, the Equity Commission turned its attention to county committees.
Congress established the county committees within the Farm Service Agency of the USDA in 1933. Their original purpose was to assist in the implementation of the New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Act and build trust with farmers as the government agency shifted towards economic regulation. Since the inception of county committees, Congress has significantly expanded their authority and today, county committees can “technically do anything that the USDA [can],” including provide determinations of eligibility for USDA assistance programs, launch investigations into farming practices, affect agency hiring, and more. Yet, how the county committees use their discretionary authority varies drastically from county to county. While some county committees have received praise for their attempts to foster agricultural democracy and better connect farmers to resources, others have weaponized their power to inflame existing inequities–particularly, against farmers of color.
At the September meeting, the Equity Commission received testimony on how county committees have and continue to weaponize their power. Most notable was the testimony of Philip “PJ” Johnson Haynie III, the Owner and Farmer of Haynie Farms LLC (1:49:30), who shared his personal account of county committees and called for their abolition. Mr. Haynie explained that through USDA program assistance applications, the county committees often receive extensive personal financial information from farmers which can be leveraged against them in lease negotiations and market opportunities. Mr. Haynie shared that one Black farmer from his hometown used to operate on 500 acres but now their local county committee executive director operates the land–-Mr. Haynie described this as a “fox watching the hen house.” Mr. Haynie continued and stated that he has been subjected to extreme acts of violence, including a gun being pulled on him at a county committee office and finding farming equipment shot on his property. Devastatingly, Mr. Haynie’s narrative joins those of countless others who have testified to the racism within county committees and their use of coercion, violence, and misinformation to prevent farmers of color from serving on the county committee or accessing its resources.
These tactics were successful–for the first several decades of their operation there was not a single Black farmer on any county committee in the South and one would be remiss to overlook the strong correlation between the establishment of county committees with the sharp decline of Black farmers. The Equity Commission discussed how the effects of racism within county committees are interwoven into every inequity we see today (2:42:20). Equity Commission member, Dr. Rainey explained that the barriers county committees created for farmers of color to accessing markets and resources has resulted in generations of marginalized farmers working to play “catch-up.” Of which, the result is decreased productivity, heightened vulnerability to disasters, and land loss.
The relationship between county committees and farmers of color is untenable. The county committees have proven ineffective at serving all farmers and should be abolished by Congress. While it cannot happen overnight, the process should begin in the 2023 Farm Bill with Congress commissioning a study to develop a plan for how county committee roles will be transferred or replaced by more democratic alternatives. The FBLE newly released report, “Equity in Agricultural Production and Governance,” recommends that Congress require the study to be completed prior to the subsequent farm bill and implement interim structural changes to the county committees. In the words of Mr. Haynie, it is time that we “eradicate a hundred-year-old system that has been a rock on the back of the underserved farming community.”
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