In late July, payment details were released for 43,000 farmers who had been discriminated against in the past when applying for USDA loans. JD Vance, vice presidential candidate of former President Donald Trump, criticized the USDA for awarding payments based on race. (Image from USDA website)
Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio), President Trump’s former vice presidential running mate, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that “the Harris administration” had “distributed farm subsidies to people based on the color of their skin.”
When asked about attacks on his wife’s ethnicity, Vance replied, “I think there’s this thing in America where we’ve said we should judge people based on the color of their skin, based on their immutable characteristics, based on things they can’t control. I honestly think that unfortunately a lot of people on the left tend to categorize people based on the color of their skin and then give them special advantages or a special level of discrimination.”
Vance then pointed out: “The Harris administration, for example, has given farm subsidies to people based on the color of their skin. I think that’s scandalous. I don’t think we should be saying that if you’re a black farmer you get farm subsidies and if you’re a white farmer you don’t. We all farmers want to do well, and that’s certainly how President Trump and JD Vance see the situation. But unfortunately, I think there’s going to be hatred on the left side of the political spectrum if our leaders divide us along racial lines.”
Vance did not name a specific USDA program. Chuck Abbott of the Food & Environment Reporting Network pointed out that “the USDA recently sent $2 billion in payments to 43,000 farmers who were discriminated against when applying for USDA farm loans.”
“Congress created the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program (DFAP) in 2022 after lawsuits blocked a $4 billion debt relief plan aimed at farmers of color that was criticized by Republican lawmakers as reverse discrimination,” Abbott reported.
“More than 58,000 people have filed claims under every category of the DFAP – race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and retaliation for civil rights activity, the USDA said.”
