Deadline Looming for Claims

Deadline Looming for Claims. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

USDA reminds Hispanic and women farmers and ranchers who allege discrimination by the USDA in past decades that there are fewer than 30 days remaining in the filing period. Lillian Salerno Acting Administrator for USDA’s Rural Business Services Agency.

SALERNO: We have a claims process that opened on September 24th and it’s a 6-month claims process that ends on March 25th and what we’re asking is that anyone who farmed during the period of 1981 to 2000 that are women or Hispanics that suffered potential discrimination during that period that they file a claims form and submit it to our third party administrator.

There is a website, www.farmerclaims.gov, where you can get more information. The Department of Ag has been trying to assure equality for the last several years.

SALERNO: The Secretary and the Obama Administration’s commitment to civil rights and as part of that commitment when the class action was not certified that was filed by women and Hispanic farmers a few years ago, folks then are sort of left out there to file individual claims.

Salerno says they have been trying hard to get the word out.

SALERNO: We’ve done a lot of good outreach. We have all of our field offices that have posted notices in their offices. We have an aggressive media campaign and we’ve had thousand and thousands of claims forms sent out to potential claimants and now we just want to make sure people don’t miss it.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.