Naima Drecker-Waxman is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog.
There is a long history of racial discrimination in access to and delivery of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs. Under directives from President Biden and Congress, USDA formed the USDA Equity Commission to evaluate equity issues in USDA and recommend ways to improve equity and inclusion. This February, the Equity Commission released its 2023 Interim Report, detailing 32 recommendations for USDA action in the following areas:
- How USDA Works with Farmers, Ranchers, and Producers Day-to-Day
- USDA’s Need for Department-Wide Change
- USDA’s Commitment to Farmworkers and Their Families
- Re-evaluating Other USDA Programs
The Interim Report takes an important step in documenting the recurring equity issues at USDA. As the Interim Report acknowledges, issues like lack of workforce diversity, cumbersome program processes, lack of technical assistance, county committee adverse impacts, and civil rights accountability have been documented since at least 1965 with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ Equal Opportunity in Farm Programs Report. The Equity Commission’s recommendations attempt to offer concrete remedies to these issues moving forward.
The Equity Commission’s recommendations are a promising step towards advancing equity at USDA because they provide concrete guidance on how to address systemic issues. For example, the Interim Report documented that underserved producers, farmers, and ranchers are often blocked from accessing USDA programs because they own heirs’ property—property that is passed between generations without a deed, making it vulnerable to land loss—and recommended specific non-loan options to remedy title issues, like grants for legal technical assistance. This aligns with FBLE’s recommendations to provide grants of financial and technical assistance to address heirs’ property issues, precisely because underserved communities face barriers to credit because of historic discrimination.
Importantly, the Equity Commission made cross-cutting recommendations, recognizing the intersection of equity and environmental issues. Recommendation Three is to “include equitable climate actions in USDA conservation programs to address environmental justice.” To enact this goal recommendation, the Equity Commission recommends twelve changes to USDA programs, including:
- Increasing incentive payments for implementation of climate-resilient practices, which makes the cost-share programs more accessible to limited-resource farmers.
- Incorporating the use of Indigenous Knowledge into the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) practice standards.
- Increasing funding to make technical assistance linguistically and culturally appropriate.
- Supporting climate justice solutions that protect farmworkers from hazardous work conditions worsened by climate change.
Incorporating an equity lens to all of USDA’s conservation programs is crucial to ensuring marginalized communities most affected by climate change are not left out of important resources. Climate change hurts all farmers but those who are already the most resource poor will be the least resilient to drought years and other climate consequences. Thus, it is critical that USDA serve those communities through its conservation and climate programs. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) recently made a significant commitment to funding climate smart activities within USDA’s conservation programs, infusing nearly $20 billion in additional funding to oversubscribed conservation programs specifically for supporting climate smart practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon. USDA must implement an equity lens to its distribution of IRA and farm bill funding to ensure climate and conservation programs benefit underserved communities who are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
In the USDA’s response to the Interim Report, the USDA state it was “in alignment” with the recommendations on climate change and conservation and “is incorporating an equity lens in the programs that touch these areas.” USDA cited recent updates to its Conservation Reserve Programs and Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program as evidence of its progress in expanding environmental benefits to various communities, including Tribes. While this is a great first step, USDA must conduct all of its conservation program with an eye towards equity. The Interim Report’s recommendations provide an excellent jumping off point for USDA to do so.
The views and opinions expressed on the FBLE Blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FBLE. While we review posts for accuracy, we cannot guarantee the reliability and completeness of any legal analysis presented; posts on this Blog do not constitute legal advice. If you discover an error, please reach out to contact@farmbilllaw.org.
