Debt Relief Payments to Minority Farmers Will Start in June
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Handy Kennedy, the founder of a cooperative of Black farmers formed with the goal of reducing overhead costs, feeds his cows last month in Cobbtown, Ga.Credit...Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The United States Department of Agriculture said on Friday that it will begin making loan forgiveness payments in June to thousands of minority farmers as part of the Biden administration’s $4 billion debt relief program.
The initiative, part of the $1.9 trillion economic relief package that Congress passed in March, has been criticized by white farmers, who claim that it is a form of reverse discrimination, and by banks, which have complained they are losing out on profits from lost interest payments. Delays in implementing the program have frustrated Black farmer organizations, whose members have struggled financially for years and received little help from the Trump administration’s farm bailouts last year.