Cory Booker: “I rise today to speak in support of sections 1005 and 1006 of the American Rescue Plan Act. These sections provide loan…”

“I rise today to speak in support of sections 1005 and 1006 of the American Rescue Plan Act. These sections provide loan forgiveness and other critical assistance to Black farmers and to other farmers who are members of racial or ethnic groups that have for many decades suffered discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to USDA data, in 1920 in the United States there were nearly 1 million Black farmers, and they represented nearly 15 percent of all farmers in our country. Today, as a direct result of a brutal legacy of discrimination by a Federal agency, there are less than 50,000 Black farmers left and they represent less than 2 percent of all farmers in our country. It is estimated that during the past century, Black farmers have lost between 15 and 20 million acres of land and the hundreds of billions of dollars of generational wealth that land represented. The cause of the loss of so much Black-owned farmland and the loss of so many Black farmers is not a mystery. Federal court decisions, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the USDA itself have all told us that a primary cause of that loss was long standing, pervasive discrimination by the USDA. In his opinion in Pigford v.…”