Agriculture Department looking at closing more than 700 local offices

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Fri, Sep. 23, 2005

Agriculture Department looking at closing more than 700 local offices

LIBBY QUAID
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - More than 30 percent of the nation's Farm Service Agency offices would close under a plan released Friday by the Agriculture Department. The agency also is trying to reduce its payroll by up to 655 jobs.

The plan would close 713 of the 2,351 offices nationwide, according to a summary the department provided to the Senate Agriculture Committee. The Associated Press reported Sept. 15 on a draft plan to shutter 665 of the offices.

The biggest cuts - 40 percent or more offices closed - would come in Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and West Virginia.

FSA offices, a network in local communities dating to the 1930s, are the chief connection between farmers and the department. Employees there help farmers get loans and payments from a number of programs.
(snip/...)

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/12726283.htm

[TomInTib]

1. The reality is there are few family farms left to serve

[NVMojo]

2. the reality is that this is just one agency they are hitting! BIA was told

last week on Monday to tell all Tribes in the US that their 638 contracts were unknown for fiscal year 2006. Normally they know how much they will get to run their governments and serve their people by now. It is being blame on Katrina! WAKE UP, AMERICA! THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS USING OUR COUNTRY'S PAIN AND TRAGEDY TO PUSH THEIR NEOCON AGENDAS AND BUTTER THE PALMS OF THEIR PALS BY CUTTING BUDGETS, PROGRAMS, TAXES. WATCH FOR TOTAL COLLAPSE IF WE DON'T STOP THESE BASTARDS!

[barbaraann]

3. USDA Racism

Southern Black Farmers: Targets of USDA Racism

40 Acres and a Mule, Denied

By Damien Jackson, AlterNet
Posted on November 17, 2004
http://www.alternet.org/story/20511/


All the Johnson brothers ever wanted to do was farm. After all, for Leon, Milton and Shade Johnson, it was their birthright. Born on a 44-acre plot in the thriving African American farm community of 1950s Tillery, N.C., the hard-working threesome spent endless days harvesting corn and peanuts alongside their mother and uncle in this cotton-clad northeastern corner of the state. By the early 1970s, Leon – the oldest of the three and the first to have farming aspirations of his own – had accumulated an adjacent 74 acres of land while renting out another 1,200, making him one of the most prominent black landowners in Halifax County. Upon their mother's death in 1974, Milton and Shade went to work for their older brother.

Though he now controlled large amounts of land, one thing Leon could not control was nature. Like many southern farmers, the Johnson brothers were plagued by the relentless drought and low crop yields of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1978, Leon began borrowing money from the Farm Services Agency (FSA) – a local arm of the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) – for disaster assistance, operations and equipment.

It was the worst move he ever made.
...
Leonard Cooper, a former USDA county agriculture director, recently echoed Davis's contention that, ultimately, its all about the land. "If you've got land, you've got wealth," says Cooper, a longtime farmer. "They (USDA) want to keep black farmers from thriving and owning land. This is their goal."

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/black111804.cfm

[July]

4. They'll cut everything they can think of before touching their precious

tax cuts or their precious war.