Oprah's couch, WikiLeaks and the USDA's farmer lawsuits

Delta Farm Press ^ | 12/08/2010 | Chris Bennett

[Dominic L. Fottfoy]

Roll out the red tape — and possibly the red carpet. Roll it right up to the USDA collection booth and let the compensation flow. Better yet, dump all that charity in a trough and let the feast commence.

Alas, cruel reality. Indian farmers, the latest minority producers to sue USDA for discrimination, aren’t quite at the cash stage of their successful suit against the USDA. For them, the waiting game for payment has just begun. Slow train indeed, but no worries, it’ll be laden with booty as it comes around the bend.

With approximately a year before the Indian payments spill out, other minority farmer suits are churning along — clogging the payout queue outside USDA’s front door. With scarcely time for the dust to settle from the black farmer suit (Pigford v. Glickman), which preceded the Indian suit, USDA’s high wire act continues with separate blocks of women and Hispanic farmers jostling for a piece of the pie — a mammoth pie indeed.