National Black Farmers Association calls out PepsiCo for failure to keep agreement

John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA), is calling out Pepsico after a year and half of all talk and no contract following a verbal commitment to Black farmers.

NBFA raised concerns over the gargantuan company's failure to contract with members of the NBFA to provide agricultural products that form the foundation of their firm's processes. Only White farmers have been afforded the opportunity to share in PepsiCo's enormous profits. It prefers the superficial responses to public opinion such as changing the brand image of its stereotyped figure Aunt Jemima. PepsiCo immediately reached out to the NBFA on June 19th 2020 in the face of such controversy.

However, as PepsiCo indicated they wanted to do business with NBFA members, the company insisted that our growers share personal information through our national data base. A year and a half later, when NBFA growers met all the required elements for a potato delivery contract, the company's executives apparently had lost interest in keeping its part of the bargain.

In an appalling stunt, PepsiCo executives recently notified the President of the NBFA that it would not be moving forward with any contracts for NBFA members.

"PepsiCo had decided to "move in a new direction" that would not include NBFA black farmer members, we were told.

Our outrage at this kind of bullying discrimination is not just about hurt feelings. Our livelihood and financial stability is at stake when we encounter such blatantly low-level business practices. Some black famers have actually lost their farms amid this unethical and inhumane treatment. The NBFA is seeking legal counsel regarding PepsiCo's verbal commitment for a potato contract.

Boyd is calling on PepsiCo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ramon Laguarta to meet with NBFA leaders and respond to the hardship and realities his company's latest recent discriminatory act has caused."

USDA Gave Almost 100 Percent Of Farm Bailout To White Farmers

Last July, the Trump administration announced a major new subsidy program designed to help farmers weather America’s ongoing trade war with China. That initiative—dubbed the Market Facilitation Program (MFP)—has become the single largest source of subsidies for farmers.

While many writers have documented the struggles of farmers affected by the trade war, few have scrutinized the distributional effects of the MFP. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has documented that the program has disproportionately helped wealthy landowners and a recent analysis by Donald Carr, a senior advisor for EWG, argues that the MFP has deepened the disadvantages of black and minority farmers.

Data obtained from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that the MFP has almost exclusively benefitted white men and their families, who appear to be disproportionately upper middle-class or wealthy. These payments further entrench already drastic inequalities in agriculture, along racial, ethnic, gender, and class lines.

Similar to other USDA subsidies, the MFP has overwhelmingly favored white and male producers. We recently received data from a FOIA request that show the department has funneled more than 99 percent of bailout funds to white operators.

As of today, USDA has distributed more than $8.5 billion to farm operations through the MFP. Of the approximately $8 billion distributed to operations whose owners’ race could be identified, 99.5 percent went to white business owners. Of the more than $6.8 billion distributed to operations in which the owners’ gender could be identified, more than 91 percent went to male business owners. “White farm operators” here includes white Hispanics, but they only account for about 0.1 percent of the total. In other words, non-Hispanic white operators received 99.4 percent of all MFP payments.

The racial disparities are just as stark in states with sizable non-white farmer populations. In Mississippi, for example, where 38 percent of the population is black and 14 percent of farms have a black principal operator, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, only 1.4 percent of the $200 million distributed to farmers through the MFP went to black operators.

Not only did almost all of the funds go to white operators, but an overwhelming share of the funds appear to have gone to upper-middle class and wealthy families. The average family that produces soybeans has a much higher income—and a lot more wealth—than the average family in the U.S. But a disproportionate share of MFP money has been paid out to families operating large-scale farms, who have even more wealth.

These disparities are the result of historical and recent discrimination. The federal government played a role in withholding farmland from, and dispossessing, farmers of color, especially black and Native American ones. And as we documented in a recent article, USDA has done little to address its atrocious civil rights record. The MFP continues to exacerbate these racial inequalities today.

[SOURCE: FARMBILLLAW.ORG]