WASHINGTON – House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott, today issued the following statement regarding the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) response to the Motion for Preliminary Injunction against Black farmers in the ongoing Faust et al v. Vilsack et al case:

“I strongly support and thank Secretary Vilsack for standing up and fighting for this critical, urgent and much-needed legislation. This shameful lawsuit is racial discrimination at its worst against our nation’s Black farmers and socially disadvantaged farmers –– and I do not say this lightly, because white farmers already own 98 percent of all the farmland in the United States and Black farmers own just one percent,” said Chairman David Scott. 

“This is of compelling interest to the future of agriculture in our nation because without this vital $5 billion in the American Rescue Plan legislation, this nation could lose the little bit of farmland that’s left of Black-owned farms. The very survival of Black farmers is at stake – and this would be an unpardonable sin because we, as Black slaves, did the hard work and provided the foundation for America’s great agriculture system for free, for over 200 years, under the lash of the slave masters’ whips,” Chairman David Scott continued. 

“In 1930 when my grandfather bought our family farm, where I was born, in Aynor, South Carolina, 21 percent of all the farms in the South were owned by Black families. Now, it is just one percent. I am in full support of Secretary Vilsack and the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) effort to fight this lawsuit,” concluded Chairman David Scott.