The design of U.S. farm programs to link benefits for the safety net programs to production could be creating racial inequities, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a nutrition forum Wednesday.
Programs based on the level of production could leave out smaller or socially disadvantaged farmers, Vilsack said. “The problem is when you basically compensate on production, the person who's producing more, benefits more,” Vilsack remarked. “So what does that mean? It means the gap widens.”
He said an equality commission established at USDA will take a look at all programs and how they are designed and enacted. He labeled it “perfectly understandable” that farm programs focus on production “because that's the way it's always been.” But in a climate of heightened sensitivity on discrimination and equity, Vilsack said it makes sense to focus on broader equity impacts, not just “specific acts of discrimination.”
It is not clear what areas of U.S. farm programs that the USDA review will focus on, but no doubt lawmakers who have formulated U.S. farm policy will be tracking the USDA effort closely, likely paying close attention to making sure the USDA attention is on how the programs are enacted as opposed to the underlying legislation that creates the programs.