“How long should I stay dedicated?
How long ’til opportunity meet preparation?”
– Nipsey Hussle.
“Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Introduction
John Boyd, Jr., was only eighteen years old when he purchased his first farm.
It was the early 1980s, more than a decade after the height of the Civil Rights Movement, yet Boyd recalls facing an atmosphere at the local USDA office reminiscent of the Jim Crow era.
Boyd, a fourth-generation Black farmer from Virginia, knew the challenge of navigating the USDA’s complex system of financing, insurance, research, and education programs, especially as a Black man.
But Boyd was, in many ways, one of the lucky ones.
This Essay argues that Boyd’s story reveals a broader pattern of oligarchic control over agricultural resources, in which a small elite has shaped policies to serve its social and economic interests, entrenching racial and economic hierarchies in the agricultural political economy. Agricultural oligarchy represents a distinct form of concentrated power that operates through economic control over land, credit, and markets; political influence over agricultural policy and rural governance; and cultural dominance over narratives about agricultural development and national identity. This system endures not through market competition but through the deliberate construction of barriers to entry, the capture of public institutions, and the deployment of state power to preserve existing hierarchies. Its ideological force persists through dignitary harms that undermine the full citizenship of marginalized groups—a process this Essay terms “structural extermination,” composed of three interlocking dynamics: exploitation, expropriation, and erasure.
Put simply, the story of American agriculture is one of oligarchic power—from slavery and the plantation economy to the consolidation of corporate control in the modern era. The antebellum plantation system constituted an oligarchy because it concentrated agricultural control in the hands of a small elite that used that power to shape legal frameworks, political representation, and cultural narratives to preserve its dominance. It was not merely an economic arrangement but also a comprehensive regime of social, political, and economic control, one that required the systematic subordination of Black agricultural labor to maintain both its material base and ideological legitimacy.
Although emancipation formally ended slavery, it did not dissolve the oligarchic structure underlying American agriculture. Instead, it proved remarkably adaptable, reconstituting itself through legal and economic mechanisms that preserved concentrated power while adjusting to new political conditions. Through sharecropping, discriminatory lending practices, and inequitable federal programs, White landowners sustained their wealth and influence across generations, perpetuating a system of racial and economic domination that continues to shape agricultural life today.
For a brief period, the agricultural landscape looked markedly different. In the 1920s, nearly one million Black farmers were stewarding over sixteen million acres of land, about one-seventh of all U.S. farm operations at the time.
Yet by the 1970s, decades of systemic discrimination had produced a staggering 90% decline in Black farm ownership.
The federal government’s role in this decline was especially stark in 1983, when President Ronald Reagan’s Administration eliminated the USDA’s Office of Civil Rights Enforcement and Adjudication.
The Office had already accumulated decades of complaints from Black farmers alleging racial discrimination by the Farmers Home Administration.
Even after its Office of Civil Rights closed, the USDA continued to ignore complaints for another fifteen years, with some reports of staff throwing uninvestigated grievances into the trash.
The situation reached a breaking point in 1997 when Timothy Pigford filed a class action lawsuit against the USDA and then-Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman.
Pigford alleged that the USDA had systematically failed to address Black farmers’ civil rights complaints from 1983 to 1997 and had disproportionately denied or delayed their loan applications.
This discrimination was not speculative; the federal government had acknowledged its mistreatment of Black farmers in official reports dating back to 1965.
Pigford v. Glickman ultimately became a landmark civil rights settlement, allocating more than $1 billion to eligible claimants.
But the pursuit of justice was fraught. The sheer volume of claimants led Congress to expand the settlement in 2008 to $2.4 billion and allow late filers to seek recourse in federal court.
Even so, many Black farmers struggled to access relief, and for those who did, the compensation often fell short of addressing the deep-rooted injustices they had endured.
Today, fewer than fifty thousand Black farmers remain, comprising less than 2% of all farmers.
Further, Black-owned farms represent just 0.4% of all U.S. farmland.
This drastic decline reflects not only past discrimination but also the continued consolidation of power under the rise of modern agricultural oligarchy. One of the most significant barriers to equity today is the dominance of large agribusiness corporations that control key aspects of the food system, from seed production to meatpacking.
Such concentration undermines the ability of small-scale and independent farmers—particularly Black and Indigenous farmers—to compete, access markets, and secure fair prices. For example, just four companies—Cargill, JBS, National Beef, and Tyson Foods—control more than 85% of the beef processing industry in the United States,
enabling price manipulation and contract farming models that systematically disadvantage independent producers.
This corporate dominance is reinforced through political influence. Large agribusinesses spend millions lobbying Congress and shaping federal agricultural policy.
Groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation have long opposed measures aimed at supporting small-scale and Black, Indigenous, and other historically marginalized farmers, including recent debt relief initiatives.
Even more, oligarchic control extends to land acquisition. Corporate entities and billionaires have rapidly accumulated farmland across the country. Bill Gates, now among the nation’s largest private farmland owners, exemplifies a broader trend that further constrains land access for new and historically marginalized farmers.
Such extreme concentration of economic and political power raises serious questions about the Constitution’s commitment to republican government and meaningful participation within and among the states.
Despite these challenges, advocacy groups like the National Black Farmers Association, along with progressive leaders such as Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren, continue to press for justice.
In March 2021, President Joseph Biden took a significant step toward addressing these longstanding inequities through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
Echoing earlier Reconstruction-era efforts to disrupt Southern agricultural oligarchy, ARPA represented a renewed federal attempt to redistribute power within American agriculture. Section 1005 created the Farm Loan Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers program, allocating approximately $4 billion toward debt relief, technical assistance, business development support, and agricultural education at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
The Act also established an equity commission to examine the USDA’s history of discrimination, signaling a broader commitment to institutional reform.
Yet the debt relief initiative quickly faced opposition from conservatives due to its race- and ethnicity-based eligibility criteria. Section 1005 provided loans to “socially disadvantaged” farmers, which a related statute defined as members of groups “subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice.”
Despite USDA clarification that this definition included all racial and ethnic groups,
White farmers in multiple states—from Florida to Illinois, Minnesota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, among others—filed lawsuits claiming constitutional violations.
Several courts ruled that Congress had failed to justify its use of racial classifications and issued injunctions to halt the program.
In response, Congress repealed section 1005 in August 2022 and replaced it with a new debt relief program under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA).
The IRA substituted the term “distressed” for “socially disadvantaged,” shifting focus to borrowers whose agricultural operations were financially at risk.
To address discrimination, the IRA allocated $2.2 billion in financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners of any racial or ethnic background who had experienced USDA discrimination before January 1, 2021.
Notably, the IRA broadened the scope of protected categories to include sex, religion, age, marital status, and disability, expanding the reach of federal civil rights remedies beyond racial or ethnic discrimination alone.
The repeal of section 1005 and the enactment of the IRA reignited debates over race-conscious policymaking. Critics argued that the repeal validated their claim that section 1005 was unlawful and that government benefits should not depend on race.
Others described President Biden’s initial equity-focused program as political opportunism, accusing him of playing the “race card” without a public mandate.
Wynn v. Vilsack, which resulted in a preliminary injunction against the original debt relief program, illustrates the broader tension between racial justice initiatives and constitutional doctrines of equal protection.
The decision also highlights the limits of “colorblind constitutionalism,”
which, though seemingly aligned with equal protection principles, often fails to grapple with the enduring effects of historical discrimination and systemic racism.
This tension poses ongoing challenges for policymakers and advocates seeking to dismantle the structural barriers confronting Black farmers and other marginalized agricultural communities.
As the United States continues to grapple with these issues, the USDA Equity Commission, established in 2021, marks an important step toward a more comprehensive response to racial inequities in agriculture.
The Commission’s 2024 Final Report offers valuable insights into the complex nature of discrimination in agriculture and recommends systemic reforms beyond individualized remedies.
By blending race-conscious and class-based strategies, the Commission offers a potential path forward for addressing racial disparities while navigating the legal and political constraints surrounding race-based programs. This Essay contributes to that ongoing dialogue by examining the historical, legal, and policy dimensions of racial injustice in American agriculture, and situating those inequities within the enduring persistence of oligarchic power since the antebellum era.
This Essay proceeds as follows. Part I traces the ideological foundations of agricultural oligarchy, showing how the systematic subjugation of Black farmers through exploitation, expropriation, and erasure has been essential to maintaining concentrated agricultural power from slavery to the present. It reveals how agricultural oligarchy has sustained itself not only through economic control but also by embedding White supremacist ideology so deeply within agricultural institutions that concentrated power appears natural rather than constructed.
Part II analyzes the major legal and legislative efforts undertaken to redress historical injustices against Black farmers, proceeding chronologically through three phases: the Pigford litigation, recent legislative initiatives including the Justice for Black Farmers Act and the American Rescue Plan Act debt relief program, and the political and legal resistance these efforts have encountered. Together, these developments reveal both meaningful progress and the enduring national ambivalence about race-conscious remedies.
Part III examines how colorblind constitutionalism constrains congressional authority to implement race-conscious relief programs, using Wynn v. Vilsack as a key case study. It demonstrates how contemporary equal protection jurisprudence may paradoxically entrench, rather than dismantle, systems of racial hierarchy and economic concentration, highlighting the complex legal terrain in which race-based agricultural remedies must operate.
Part IV draws lessons from the USDA Equity Commission’s 2024 report and its subsequent dismantling under the Trump Administration to identify principles for designing more resilient equity initiatives. It argues that the systematic elimination of equity programs exposes the vulnerability of reform efforts to oligarchic capture, while also offering guidance for crafting legislative and policy interventions capable of withstanding concentrated economic and political opposition.
Taken together, this Essay reveals the deep-rooted connection between race, agriculture, and systemic injustice in America. It highlights how the concentration of agricultural power within a small elite group, from the plantation era to the present, has produced and perpetuated racial and economic inequities. Despite recent legislative reforms, the modern agricultural oligarchy continues to reinforce structural barriers that limit opportunities for Black farmers and reproduce cycles of exclusion and disempowerment. These struggles reflect broader patterns of racial capitalism, economic inequality, and rural disinvestment. Meaningful efforts to advance racial equity in agriculture must therefore confront the persistent concentration of power and resources within the sector to build a more just and equitable society for all Americans.