Significantly, such payments are not entirely mitigated by higher rental payments for land. That is, the potential for profit is still great, with only 25% going toward rent, and with only 64% of farmland itself rented. Finally, increasing corporate influence, which has further entrenched and profited off large scale, specialized, and commodity crop-oriented production—and ensured that it does so by way of federal commodity support programs—subsequently exacerbates such trends in wealth accrued by white farmland owners. That is, corporate influence, which has pushed for increasingly specialized and large-scale commodity crop production on prime farmland, has facilitated and secured further accumulation of wealth by whites, particularly by way of plentiful government payments. Thus, despite the widely experienced loss of farmland by way of consolidation and specialization, such trends ultimately undergird white land ownership and wealth in the United States, and exacerbate the marginality that people of color face in accumulating wealth in relation to white people.The third major channel within the Farm Bill and other federal food and agricultural policies that has played a historic and ongoing role in structural racialization is the Farm Bill’s Rural Development programs, which are intended to help strengthen small communities by investing in water systems, housing, new businesses, infrastructure, and similar projects. Because many farms owned by people of color are in counties with little wealth and limited opportunities for non-farm employment, and because many rural and small town communities of color are faced with persistent poverty, Rural Development programs have the potential to promote socio-economic well-being for people of color and other historically marginalized communities. As of 2012, there is a larger percentage of whites in rural communities than in urban communities . Yet, cannabis drying rack ideas within rural communities, people of color face higher rates of poverty: while only 14% of rural whites live in poverty, 34% of rural Blacks live in poverty. Additionally, as of 2010, Latinos/as, Blacks, and Pacific Islanders have the lowest homeownership rates compared to homeownership rates for whites. Thus, it is unsurprising that, according to a 2013 Tuskegee University study, farmers and rural communities of color have had particularly high participation rate in three major Rural Development programs: Rural Housing and Community Facilities; Rural Business; and Rural Utilities.
Even though the Farm Bill’s Rural Development programs hold great potential for farmers of color and rural communities of color, barriers to participation reflect those that characterize other Farm Bill programs, marking how such support programs actually contribute to structural racialization. The Tuskegee University study, for example, found that regarding the delivery of such programs, farmers of color experience five major barriers: lack of program knowledge, impersonal workplace environment, “facially neutral eligibility requirements” that do not address the historic and systemic exclusion, remote locations, and sub-par outreach efforts. The Value Added Producer Grant program, for example, is a major Rural Development program that supports innovative marketing and product development strategies for the added processing of agricultural goods that can generate additional income. The VAPG program could be of great benefit to producers of color who grow a variety of nongrain and oilseed crops with value-added potential.Yet despite the Farm Bill itself requiring the USDA to prioritize projects by socio-economically disadvantaged farmers, a short application period and complex application form, and a requirement that recipients provide 1:1 matching funds, puts the VAPG program out of reach for some farmers of color. Finally, insufficient funding has long marked the Farm Bill’s rural development title and programs. Although, overall program spending within the 2014 Farm Bill averages $95.6 billion per year for the next ten years, the rural development title will receive less than 0.024% of that, only $22.8 million per year. The Value Added Producer Grant program, in particular, although originally authorized in 2000 to receive $20 million per year in funding, has been cut to $12.5 million annually under the 2014 Farm Bill. Collectively, such barriers limit the potential benefit of the Farm Bill’s Rural Development programs with regard to the dire situation many farmers of color and rural communities of color face.
Ultimately, they highlight the central contradiction that farmers of color face with regard to such commodity support programs and other support programs for farmers and rural communities: inclusion in the benefits of such programs does little to destabilize the historic and structural outcomes that they have reinforced, to undergird the wealth of whites in the United States, and to ensure that it is white communities that fare best regardless of what happens to the structure of US agriculture.PART III OUTLINED HOW LENDING,commodity, and rural development programs have historically undergirded white farmland ownership at the expense of people of color farmland ownership, and how long term changes in the structure of US farmland—the consolidation and specialization of agricultural production, in particular—have exacerbated such trends. Part IV continues this line of argumentation regarding the structure of US farmland and examines how programs geared toward supporting supposedly environmentally sustainable management practices also shape the socio-economic well-being of and farming and rural communities of color relative to white farming and rural communities. First, this part does so by providing a snapshot of the racialized distribution of costs and benefits regarding programs under the conservation title of the Farm Bill . It then outlines the significance of the historical continuity between environmentally-oriented programs and commodity support programs. Finally, it outlines the significance of four federal rural and agricultural support programs in particular—the Conservation Reserve Program , Environmental Quality Incentives Program , organic agriculture programs, and outreach and assistance programs—as well as recent corporate-backed trends in increased bio-fuel production. Part IV argues that, because of their inseparability from commodity crop production, and the consolidation and specialization of agricultural production, and despite the countless environmental benefits they produce, Farm Bill programs under the conservation title also undergird white farmland ownership at the expense of farmland ownership by people of color. Ultimately, they do so by funneling benefits primarily to white large-scale landowners on high quality land and keeping even low quality white-owned farmland profitable—an inadvertent result of the history of farmland ownership in the United States that cannot be seen as separate from the history of racial discrimination. This part argues, furthermore, that this is the case not only with commodity crop and acreage-based conservation programs , but that management practice-based conservation programs have similar effects. Furthermore, a fourth program, commercial weed the Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers Program, contributes to the social and economic inequities that characterize commodity and conservation programs alike, yet holds great potential as a strategic rallying point against structural racialization.
Finally, Part IV then addresses the relationship between structural racialization, industrial agriculture, environmental degradation, and climate change, and argues that farmers of color and communities of color bear the brunt of such environmental change.Conservation programs within the Farm Bill not only emerged from and remain tied to commodity crop production, but also maintained white communities as the primary benefactors of such modes of production in terms of both wealth accumulation and land ownership. The Farm Bill began by joining the re-establishment and maintenance of farm income at fair levels with the promotion of soil conservation and profitable use of agricultural resources. The first Farm Bill, the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, for example, aimed to restore the purchasing power of agricultural commodities by encouraging voluntary acreage reduction of such crops through agreements with producers as well as the use of direct payments for participation in acreage control programs. Five years later, the 1938 Farm Bill was significant for a number of reasons: it secured these acreage restrictions; included new provisions where the federal government—and not corporations—would pay farmers who planted “soil-conserving” crops instead of “soil-depleting” crops ; and it established a series of credit programs that provided farm storage facility loans, purchases, and income support payments. By the mid-20th century, conservation programs were not only tied to, but also upheld, commodity crop production. Years of acreage reductions offset by increased farm productivity after World War II led to the 1956 Farm Bill’s Soil Bank program, a key conservation measure that set aside 4.9 million acres of select commodity crops. The land that the Soil Bank program was applied to, however, was already low-productivity land. In this light, with white landowners holding the vast majority of grain and oilseed farmland, the Farm Bill’s premier conservation program upheld white land ownership by keeping even the least productive grain and oilseed farmland profitable. Later programs, such as the Feed Grains Act of 1961, continued such trends, with farmers often diverting the least productive acres and realizing higher yields on those planted acres. By the 1970s and 1980s, acreage reduction programs were all but abandoned as farmers began planting “fencerow to fencerow” to meet growing domestic demand for grain, precipitating massive environmental degradation and low prices that bolstered corporate profit. These changes ultimately prompted a new approach to conservation over the next two decades: starting with the introduction of the conservation title and programs in the 1985 Farm Bill; the addition of the Wetland Reserve Program and the Agricultural Water Quality Program in the 1990 Farm Bill; and the eventual separation of commodity programs from conservation programs in 1996 Farm Bill. These programs, as outlined below, however, maintain the structural benefits historically afforded to whites while keeping people of color at a structural disadvantage.One major Farm Bill conservation program that has undergirded white farmland ownership at the expense of farmland ownership by people of color is the Conservation Reserve Program . The CRP is the largest federal, private-land retirement program in the United States, with 27.5 million acres covered at a cost of $20 billion over the next 10 years. It provides financial compensation for landowners to voluntarily remove land from agricultural production for 10 to 15 years in order to improve soil and water quality and create wildlife habitat. Acres enrolled in CRP have indeed shown a number of environmental gains, including reduced soil erosion, water quality improvements, and wildlife population improvement. However, a number of factors shape the purpose the CRP serves and for whom: first, enrollment is considered to be undesirable by some land owners, primarily because of the cost of compliance and the potential loss of farm income due to the prevention of the use of such land for agricultural production. Thus, as with the 1956 Soil Bank Program from which the CRP grew, it is the least productive land and lowest income households that are often enrolled and kept profitable. Second, studies have shown that conservation compliance does not present a strong economic deterrent for landowners who want to crop former CRP acreage after the CRP term is over, thus highlighting the potentially temporary nature of such economic relief. Third, and perhaps most importantly, only lands planted with commodity crops, especially, corn and wheat are eligible for CRP and not fruits or vegetables, or lands used for livestock. Because white farmers have historically owned large-scale grain and oilseed farmland while farmers of color have been relegated to smaller, non-commodity crop farmland, the Conservation Reserve Program potentially undergirds white farmland ownership, both during times of economic hardship and on marginal land. A 2005 Texas A&M University survey study, for example, found that white landowners were more likely to have land qualified for reserve programs—as well as programs such as the Stewardship Incentives Program and the Forestry Incentives Program . Such landowners not only received more favorable program outreach and assistance, as will be addressed below, they also had more incentives to participate due to the economies of scale and tax savings. Toward this end, the study found that white landowners, on average, were enrolled in the CRP longer and signed up more acres than landowners of color .Another Farm Bill conservation program that secures white farmland ownership more so than farmland ownership by people of color is the Environmental Quality Incentives Program . EQIP underwrites part of the cost when farmers and ranchers implement environmentally sound practices tied not only to wildlife habitat but also to nutrient runoff, pest control, water irrigation, and livestock grazing. Eligible land includes cropland, rangeland, pasture, non-industrial private forest land, and other farm or ranch lands, with 60% of total EQIP funding set aside for livestock operations at the national level.