[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 50 (Thursday, April 24, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H1857]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       DISCRIMINATION WITHIN USDA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, known as the people's department, the USDA 
was established when President Lincoln signed the law on May 15, 1862. 
It is ironic that the very department created by the President, who 
signed the Emancipation Proclamation, today faces widespread and 
documented charges of unfair and unequal treatment of socially 
disadvantaged and minority farmers.
  The farmers and ranchers of America, including minority and limited 
resource producers, through their labor, sustain each and every one of 
us and maintain a lifeblood of our Nation and the world. These people 
do not discriminate. Their products are for all of us. Therefore, it is 
important that we do all within our power to ensure that each and every 
producer is able to farm without the additional burden of institutional 
racism rearing its ugly head.
  Mr. Speaker, it greatly concerns me that in my home State of North 
Carolina, there has been a 64-percent decline in minority farmers just 
over the last 15 years from 6,996 farms in 1978 to 2,498 farms in 1992. 
There are several reasons why the number of minority and limited 
resource farmers are declining so rapidly, but the one that has been 
documented time and time again is the discriminatory environment 
present in the USDA, the very agency established to accommodate and to 
assist the special needs of all farmers and all ranchers.
  In November of last year, the Farm Service Agency Administrator, 
Grant Tuntrock, stated in a public speech that, ``We recognize there 
have been instances of discrimination in responding to the requests for 
our services in the past, and we deplore it,'' he said. As I have 
stated before, the time has come, however, not just to deplore these 
occurrences, but to put a stop to them.
  We must resolve that the many pending individual cases where 
discrimination has been found, the planting season is upon us, and if 
these farmers are to be given the opportunity to farm this year, 
financial resolution of the unjust treatment they have received must 
come and must come very, very soon.
  With our understanding of this issue, it is my hope that we will 
continue with a steady movement toward legislation that the 
emancipation, in the first instance, was to give people equal 
opportunity, that we in this House will have the courage to stop this 
and have legislation that will prevent it from happening in the future.

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