USDA

The worst conceived Biden administration policy you’ve probably never heard of is Section 1005 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Section 1005 provides a remedy for past discrimination against minority farmers in lending and other practices by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The problem is not the premise of Section 1005. The USDA has a long, ugly history of favoring White farmers over Black farmers.

Mississippi farmers are losing the catfish wars against their foreign competitors with the very weapon they saw as their salvation. The domestic catfish industry along with representatives like the late U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi lobbied to move oversight of catfish processing from the Food and Drug Administration to the U.S. Department of Agriculture five years ago with the expectation the USDA’s stricter eye would limit the foreign imports that had decimated domestic production throughout the Mississippi Delta.