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The Arkansas Times and Kuer FM 89.

Hello again everyone and thanks very much for being with U.S. financial assistance to Arkansas farmers of color dollars.

They need an will soon begin receiving from a new federal program, opposition notwithstanding.

More on that later in the broadcast 1st every farmer needs water but never too much.

And in Southeast Arkansas there is much too much.

So much in fact, that Governor Hutchinson is declared it a disaster area, and he's made available emergency financial assistance.

Skies are clearing for now, but the impact on Arkansas's farm sector in the months to come.

Well, that's our focus up top and we're joined by Doctor Gerald Hartke of the University of Arkansas's Agriculture Department, the system department doctor.

Thanks very much for being with us.

Thank you for having you have literally been out in the field assessing surveying, how big, how extensive is the damage geographically?

Geographically, we generally consider South of Interstate 40 overall have been heavily impacted by the rainfall.

Certainly Deshaye County and the Doumas region would have some of the highest rainfall amounts and be considered.

Epicenter portion but areas of Arkansas in Jefferson County as well the the Stutgart area into the West southwest.

Also very significant amounts of rainfall near those experienced in to Shake County, though perhaps not quite as much so very wide.

Area of the southeastern portion of the state when we're talking about hundreds of thousands of acres that that's correct, impacted in some way.

Certainly some extremely severe but, but hundreds of thousands impacted in some capacity.

Where in the season for US city folk.

Where in the season are we?

Well, in many years would be considered close to mid season.

The middle portion, though this has been a longer trend.

This spring of continual rainfall and even other areas of the state having having large rainfall.

But we're a little behind on planning progress or have been so we're not quite as far along, but that Southeast area had made some of the best progress that they have experienced in the past several years.

Perhaps in four or five years and a lot of the inputs and progress in the crop have already been completed, and so we were well on our way.

In many instances, corn.

Again, getting a little technical, but to the point of castling when you begin to actually produce and make those ears on the plant and begin to create those.

Those soybean pods which are going to hold your soybeans were there at that point, so it was that sector that had the IT sounds like the most to lose from excess water, and that's absolutely correct, so soybeans in that scenario, if they're submerged for essentially two days or more, they're not going to survive.

They have to have oxygen available to them to respire and survive, and so more than two days submerged.

They're not going to make it.

Corn will survive a little bit more for longer.

It will be be impacted 11 conversation I had just this morning.

Some corn was so deep we think of corn being 1010 feet tall.

That size will only the very tops of the corn.

We're still sticking out the tassel portion out of the very top of some of that crop, and certainly some of the rice completely submerged, though rice is certainly flood tolerant to an extent.

Yeah, lot of water then that that's correct, yeah, well then I was going to ask which crops are the most vulnerable, but I think you just hit that.

We think though of rice as being.

You need.

Farmers flood rice fields.

I mean, that's correct.

Rice enjoys a shallow flood.

We refer to it as a semi aquatic plant.

It enjoys and tolerates good moisture or shallow flood.

The extreme is older, more mature rice, again still middle of the season is certainly more sensitive to being completely submerged a week or more.

Again, certainly more tolerant than soybean to survive, but they can survive that long, smaller rice that hasn't been planted for very long can can survive for.

A pretty lengthy amount of time if conditions are cool, but now we're transitioning to these hotter temperatures.

Flooded conditions moving to hot temperatures is a very bad recipe anyway, that you or your other your associates in the other sciences can determine when this water is going to go away.

I mean how can how to mitigate this loss?

With that there is no way at this time it's simply a waiting game.

Again, estimating the amount of loss that's going to occur it it has to do with how fast it's often the clock is certainly taking a number of those soybeans.

Again that are still underwater.

In any capacity or probably going to be considered a loss, the damage has been done to corn and then as we touch on rice, the levee system that we typically employ to maintain our floods when we want it flooded.

And all of those fields have been, those levees are now lossed or washed out and we can't maintain a flood.

So now this is a trickle down long term economic impact of being able to repair and restore those levees in our ability to properly manage and water rice crop, which.

Again, is going to have a long term effect we can't quite yet measure under optimal conditions, though is there?

Is there a possibility of a second planting a second group?

Well, so if we look at in the case of soybean right now, the planning date that they were under the crop was in.

If we were able to replant those soybeans today, the yield potential would already be 10 to 15% less today than it was from there originally planted.

And all of the primary inputs in that crop.

Have already been implemented and so it's a complete start over in terms of the production cost of that crowd.

Man, you're up against the calendar as well.

That's correct, but those of climate and calendar that yes, absolutely.

From from here.

The reality is nothing on most of these soils, even if we got the water off today, that it'll be another week at minimum before we can get conditions dry enough to even begin to think about starting over.

Can you even begin to estimate the dollar loss to the AG community?

Being conservative initially, hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of 1,000,000.

Yes, yeah for the widespread area impacted again, getting outside of just some of the epicenters being considered at this point, you have those.

Those smaller effects of areas that still received 8 to 10 inches of rainfall, maybe not at the forefront of the issues, and certainly not the widespread flooding of businesses and homes as well, but to major impacts to the crop.

What about consumers?

What consumers?

Stake in this.

Well this take from there is what it's going to do in terms of overall probably more at the local level of the production and what it means for local jobs and handling these commodities in the production that will have an lead from there.

Well, we also know that inflation had this is coming time when inflation is really taking all the Fed.

Everybody else is this is a temporary.

This is an aberration and interest rates will soar.

Consumer prices will.

Fall with this could not have come at a really at a worse time that that scribing is bad.

Yes, it's very bad.

And again for our overall production given the spring, we were already Arkansas already grows 50% of the rice produced in the United States and we were already seeing a drastic reduction or acres this year partially due to other commodities but also just to the weather conditions in planning this year and again, it's going to further impact the production of that commodity of which were.

A very large part nationwide will continue to follow this story dokhtaran hard.

Can we hope that you will help us follow it?

Yes, thank you very much.

Anag story now of a different sort.

Thousands of minority farmers across the country, including Arkansas, are set to receive federal debt relief.

Payments involved are almost 20,000 farm loans.

Individual loans granted either by the Agriculture Department or private lenders.

The programs advocates say it's just compensation.

For decades of discrimina Tori treatment, both by federal agencies and the farm credit industry and their prevailing over the objections of some white farmers who called it reverse discrimination, an from the farm capital establishment.

Fearful of Lossed interest payments.

More on that in a moment.

1st in this month's Good Roots segment, I'll look at an Arkansas farm family that's helped bring about the payments.

Major funding for good roots is provided by Arkansas Farm Bureau, Arkansas Farm Bureau advocating the interests of Arkansas's largest industry for more than 80 years.

Arkansas counts on agriculture, agriculture counts on Farm Bureau farmers symbolize grit, hard work, tenacity specially legacy, or here at a watermelon field.

To visit with the family in Grady, Arkansas.

Then know all about it.

I'm Logan Duvall and this is good.

Roots markets are just part of the story of agriculture and for some farmers in the delta it's taken some very special characteristics to get here.

Let's fill it up.

Boiler Bella I'm Abraham Carpenter Junior I'm the manager of coughing this produce farm, located in Grady, Arkansas in Lincoln County.

Up and managed in the family business ever since I was 12 years old.

My dad and the rest of the family they entrusted me to do it and everybody just kind of fell in line with Momma originally started with one acre of land that she made more money after one acre land and my dad made working all year long at the lumber company.

He said well now if you gonna make that kind of money I'm gonna quit my job and I'm going to prove this full time.

Maya major crops are greens, cantaloupe, watermelon, peas, okra yellow, squash, zucchini, squash.

We grow some of the biggest, the sweetest watermelons in the whole United States, maybe even the whole world.

I don't know, but I know their sweet.

Is there anything that brings people together like a watermelon man?

I'm telling you hot summer day with watermelon, good catalo and blood red blood red.

Is it sweet?

Hey man, I'm telling you you want to get a taste of it.

You tell me how you like it there is this the ticket that's a ticket man.

I'll tell you something better than a good sweet watermelon.

There's nothing, nothing man watermelons kind of being good to you.

Business is a business.

We grow about 250.

300 acres of watermelons every year.

People love to get those this we warm up and I know you know about warm as you can see, the sugar in that watermelon man.

Given all, that's the sugar man, I think their specialty.

Aspect where where you all made a pivot back away from the commodities and into produce, yeah.

That's a business decision.

Well, that's true brother, my dad.

Damn initially started growing cotton and soybeans went broke doing it.

So we kind of regrouped and Johnny growing produce and doing for 50 years.

Been real good to the family.

Man raised five brothers, three sisters, and 28 nieces and nephews.

And everybody was able to level decent countable life.

Watermelon is absolutely amazing as Sir.

Thank you, brother, let's go see where where they come from.

Let's do that.

I, I tell you, we gotta feel full.

When Abraham was five years old, he was a leader.

Then I was bossy.

He was bossy.

So we just combine that boss in this together and made it happen.

One could that examinees.

Yeah, I think we should.

I am Abraham's baby sister.

I work here at companies photos and fish in Pine Bluff.

OK, alright Mr. Brown.

Thank you.

I started working when I was seven years old.

It was a lot of us and everybody got their own little different attitudes and all that, but we made it all come together.

Everybody had a purpose and we all mixed it up together and made one big family that's hot.

This is definitely legacy.

You gotta vote on when you were 12 years old.

Did that put on is going to my children, my nieces, my nephews, grandchildren.

We told him we prepare them with the ability to plant crops that grow the crops producing marketed and send it out to the stores.

We've done all of that and we've built them faith from ground up.

Thank you very much.

When some years plus back there was a lot of discrimination inside of USDA.

We had prior losses foul against USDA for racial discrimination.

The attorneys came down from Washington and they presented it as.

You joined a lawsuit, you get $50,000 and your debt relief $50,000 and made a whole lot.

But the debt relief would have been major.

Some of us got to 50,000 and no dead really whatsoever.

It was a big let down for many farmers essery than 20.

Some years later.

You know we will still fighting to get the right things done just to be treated fairly.

I'm really happy that the legislation passed and it's going to benefit a lot of farmers.

So the only thing that breaks my heart is the fact that so many others have passed away, you know, and without being able to realize this come to fruition, you know my mother.

She passed away in 2017 and before she passed, it wasn't updated, went by that she didn't ask her junior, had a lawsuit coming along as we gonna get any relief.

I said Mom is coming.

So she looking down on us from heaven today, but Mom is here.

After spending time with y'all, the theme of family and hard work and faith is everywhere.

You're the next generation.

What's the future look like?

I plan on going to college and majoring in chemistry, learning about the chemical compositions and things like that being here and not just learning from someone else but coming outside with Dad at 6:00 AM.

And we're in the fields and we're looking hands on.

And it's a different experience.

It is so you were.

You might be a little bit of the anomaly that you're not wanting to run away from the family business is the part of it.

So what do you think the difference is there for you?

It is the people that you meet and they come back.

And they're like we took it to the family, get together and everyone enjoyed it.

Or we had it at family time on Tuesday night you have an effect on people's lives is more than just growing it and shipping it off here.

You get a connection with those people and they come back and they tell you the effect that you had on their lives.

That's beautiful.

Thank you.

I'm so excited to see what the future holds for the carpenters.

Yes, so it's definitely bright.

That is yes.

An afternoon with the carpenters can be summed up as family perseverance, love for good roots.

I'm Logan Duvall.

Joining us now.

Doctor Duane Goldman on Arkansas Farmer but also senior adviser for racial equity to the US Secretary of Agriculture Fellow, Arkansan thanks very much for being with us.

Good to be here, Miss Barnes as the.

Dialogue made clear.

There were longstanding allegations in federal indication of discrimination by the federal government by private equity.

Our private capital corporation, discrimination against farmers of color, how particularly the government let me back up and say.

First of all, I have to give up pay homage to the Carpenter family.

Abraham Junior, who I consider a personal friend of mine, we knew, grew up with him, so I'm very proud to see that.

And his final comments.

Full disclosure there on your part or disclosure, but his comments.

Really resonated with me.

Your question was how does this discrimination pretty much manifest itself?

Yeah, exactly.

Phrase farmers of color well.

You have to understand that agriculture one is a business.

But what makes it kind of unique is that agriculture is a business where where done correctly.

Each generation builds on the successes of the prior generation.

In the case of black farmers, unfortunately each generation has to suffer from the discrimination that was forwarded to the prior generation.

So there is a cumulative nature of discrimination, and so when my father is denied benefits that quite farming neighbors have access to, it starts to show up in a lot of different ways in the infrastructure.

In his annual operating budget in his salad, living in his ability to improve the farm to update equipment, to access the latest resources that are available, and when you stack those when you layer those things generation after generation, it finally shows up in that there is a very definable disparate gap in the resources that are forwarded to farmers of color versus their white farming neighbors.

And yes, that's what we're talking about, yeah, but can you be specific so?

A doctor about it had it.

What form did this discrimination take this by the particular USDA or other federal agencies?

Yeah, so so so.

I'll give you a couple of examples.

Let's talk about land acquisition.

And then I'll go back to say that.

If I inherit.

1000 acres and a 40 acre block next to me becomes available.

I can use that 1000 acres as collateral to secure that 40 acres.

But what if I didn't inherit 1000 acres and I wanted to do that?

Then I have to come up with alternate collateral and so because of the precipitous amount of land lossed in the black agricultural community.

Balance sheets were negatively impacted so that today's farmers are still struggling with the fact that they are not as well capitalized as their neighbors.

And then let's look at the annual payments that come to farmers.

OK, the most recent example would have been those payments that came in response to the pandemic.

Anan another recent example would be those payments that came in response to some disrupted foreign markets.

The trade payments we call those market facilitation programs.

When we look at the distribution of those payments.

We find ourselves in a situation and we're talking about a pretty good, pretty good dollar amount.

20, four, $26 billion.

When 10% of the foreign population only garners 1% of the total payments.

10% would be approximately the percentage of farmers of color.

1% would be the amount that of those payments that they garnered.

So the only group left are, let's face it quite farmers.

So white farmers Garnett 99% of the payments when and so that's the disproportion.

And then when you peel that back and look at it, you find out that there are other things that led to that.

Some of those payments were based on established yields and production history, and so if you've been denied access, you find yourself in a situation where.

Each time you get to a point where the government payment becomes a larger part of your annual operating budget, you find yourself getting further and further behind.

Multiply that by successive generations and it gets to the point where you have some pretty dramatic inequities.

White, some white farmers have alleged that this is their term reverse discrimination.

Your response to that.

Yeah, in terms of loan forgiveness, yes, I've heard the term reverse discrimination.

I've heard reparations being thrown at this.

Anne.

I disagree.

Reverse discrimination.

Would be more of an issue if there was not a case of discrimination in the first place.

But there have been multiple class action settlements that have proven a tragic history of discrimination against farmers of color Pickford.

For black farmers, keepseagle for Native Americans, etc.

As Mr. Carpenter just explained, one of the.

Tragic failures of those excuse me class action settlements was that they did a very poor job of providing the debt relief that was promised with those settlements.

So much so that those farmers that were promised that debt relief are still at a significant economic disadvantage to their neighbors.

And So what the American rescue plan said is look.

We understand that this debt that we keep hearing about is still a problem.

Let's take care of that debt first, but there is an equal, equally important.

Set of things that need to happen in order to make that more meaningful.

There's a whole effort ongoing throughout the department and I'm leading the department through this effort, but there's an effort going on to restore trust and address those things that led to those cumulative effects.

In the disparities that we see.

What about the the corporate community?

There they had a financial stake in in this and so they've got shareholders.

They've got interest payments that went under their books as an asset and suddenly it's not there.

What are they supposed to do here?

Couple things I would like to point out so few facts about the American rescue plan and it pays a debt.

For qualifying farmers as of January 1st, 2021.

It's a debt payment.

It's not some kind of debt forgiveness that prohibits these farmers from doing the additional business with the Farm Service Agency, and these are both direct loans that are entirely with the Farm Service Agency.

The ones that you're describing.

We term as guaranteed loans where the funds are actually guaranteed by the government to a third party lender.

That program has worked well because there's been a good investment in taxpayer dollars to provide more resources to farmers to make them more efficient and profitable, etc.

The thing that's different with this window is that these farmers that are going to be receiving the debt payments.

Automatically qualified to come right back through the door to do additional loan business.

So.

If these farmers are paid off and are now a little more liquid, it seems to me that that would be a prime customer.

That if I'm a bank, I would want to do additional business with you to help you grow your business versus being concerned about the law.

Says this on alone is about to be paid off, so that's the approach that we're taking that we have.

We've been mandated by Congress.

To help these farmers that have been historically underserved.

Discriminated against, denied access to resources, finances, etc.

We've been mandated to address these concerns, and it's a two step process.

Pay the debt, restore trust and confidence.

Do additional business.

I think those are ample opportunities for the financial community to continue to engage with these borrowers and doctor Quinn.

Govana gotta end it there because we're simply out of time.

Thank you for giving us some of yours.

Thank you so much.

Good luck in the new position and come back often.

Yes Sir, thank you, alright.

We'll see you next week.

Hold it up.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and Kuer FM 89.