From today's release:

WASHINGTON, January 23, 2009 - Minority farmers have long suffered discrimination at the hands of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, often in the form of grossly inequitable farm loan and commodity support payments. In addition, USDA employees actively and illegally lobbied against civil rights settlement provisions in the recent House passed version of the farm bill.

The potentially criminal activities by USDA employees prompted then-Senator Obama to urge swift resolution to the racial discrimination rampant within USDA. No clear answers have yet emerged as to who was behind the unlawful lobbying and what actions, if any, were taken to punish those involved.

The National Black Farmers Association and Environmental Working Group have published a series of exclusive investigations detailing USDA's discriminatory practices. Obstruction of Justice, published in July 2004, found that nearly nine of 10 African American farmers who sought restitution under a 1999 settlement in the landmark Pigford v. Glickman civil rights case were denied compensation. The study found that the USDA spent 56,000 hours and $12 million contesting individual farmer claims for compensation under the class action lawsuit.

A July 2007 EWG report entitled Short Crop found that black farmers receive between one-sixth to one-third of the major federal crop subsidy benefits received by other farmers and that the "subsidy gap" widened dramatically between 1995 and 2005.

The sorrowful legacy of civil rights abuses at USDA, however, may soon come to an end.

Within days of assuming leadership of USDA, Secretary Thomas Vilsack has indicated that he intends resolve the civil rights issues that have plagued the department for decades.

"We are gratified that Secretary Vilsack has made it his priority to resolve the nagging and hurtful discriminatory practices at USDA that have been inflicted upon thousands of minority farmers," said Dr. John Boyd, president of the NBFA.

""We had an ugly reminder of the racist undercurrent that permeates certain elements at USDA when, within days of passage of the House Farm Bill in 2007, department employees began an illegal lobbying campaign to eliminate a provision that was intended to rectify the disgraceful handling of restitution claims by black farmers' claims under the Pigford discrimination case," said EWG president Ken Cook.