According to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Black farmers in the US were largely shut out of federal aid packages set up by the Trump administration to help during the coronavirus pandemic, receiving less than 0.1% of aid, the Washington Post reports.
Black farmers received just $20.8 million of the $26 billion in federal funds set aside for the agriculture industry in the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, created by the Trump administration in April 2020.
The 45,000 Black-operated farms make up 1.3% of the farming operations in the United States, but they work a disproportionate 14% of the farmland in the United States.
“We saw 99% of the money going to White farmers and 1% going to socially disadvantaged farmers and if you break that down to how much went to Black farmers, it’s 0.1%,” Vilsack said. “Look at it another way: The top 10% of farmers in the country received 60% of the value of the COVID payments. And the bottom 10 percent received 0.26%.”