The whole Shirley Sherrod incident brought to mind the unconscionable problems that black farmers had with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But as the Washington Post reminds its readers, Native American farmers were – and continue to be – similarly mistreated:

George Keepseagle is the lead plaintiff in Keepseagle v. Vilsack, the class-action suit by Native American farmers and ranchers against the USDA. (AP photo)

Their frustrations echoed the observations of some black farmers who made similar observations last week that other USDA officials had not faced repercussions.

Porter Holder, a Choctaw rancher and rodeo champion in southeastern Oklahoma, said he is disturbed that a USDA loan officer he complained about in the late 1990s is still on the job. In the Great Plains, Native American farmers say they have complained repeatedly about another veteran loan officer in the USDA’s Sidney, Mont., office who was involved in a recent confrontation that included the police.

Loan officer Patrick Turner was arrested after the Feb. 23 incident, which occurred while he appraised the ranch of Roy “Tony” Anderson, a member of the Sioux tribe who lives on the Fort Peck reservation. In a police statement, Turner acknowledged hitting one of Anderson’s neighbors, who he said blocked the door to his truck. Under a deferred prosecution agreement, the charge was dismissed July 16.

The story makes for tough, but necessary, reading on a pretty summer day. Check it out.

Gwen Florio

A number of seeds from Native American chilies are being stored in the so-called Doomsday Vault on the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard, between Norway and Greenland, according to this interesting and entertaining BBC report.

The center, built deep inside a mountain in 2008, is designed to protect the world’s main food plants in case of a disaster.

It stores seeds from more than half a million crops:

“The chillies really are an interesting story,” said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which funds the operation and management of the seed vault.

They are traditional varieties; they have colourful names and histories,” he told BBC News.

“A number of the varieties were provided by a fantastic group of nine US government organisations called Native Seed Search who work with Native American communities.”

The peppers include Wenk’s Yellow Hots, a pepper that starts out yellow and hot before losing some of its potency and turning red. There’s also the San Juan Tsile, described as “ranging as anything from mild to medium to hot.”

The BBC reports the San Juan Tsile is still cultivated by Native American elders in New Mexico.

Those seeds, along with others, came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Plant Germplasm, based in Colorado.

Now you know.

Gwen Florio

April 15 is the day taxes are due, but this year, the date has special significance for Native American farmers and ranchers who lost out on millions of dollars in loans from the federal government.

That’s the day a status report is due in the case of Keepseagle v. Vilsack, as in U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The case is a huge discrimination lawsuit against the USDA, which alleges the agency favored white farmers and ranchers over Native Americans when it gave out loans – resulting in the loss of billions of dollars in credit over a quarter-century, according to this National Law Journal story by Marcia Coyle. It says the agency also ignored complaints by Native farmers and ranchers.

Vilsack is seeking a settlement in the case, originally filed in 1999, so U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia agreed to halt the litigation for 60 days.

That stay runs out April 21, with the status report due to Sullivan next week.

“We are nowhere close to a settlement, but it remains to be seen what our clients are prepared to do in connection with the stay,” says lead counsel Joseph Sellers, of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll in Washington, D.C.

“Given the case has been pending more than 10 years and has lost some of the named plaintiffs, the passage of time can be very cruel,” he tells Coyle. “The concern is moving the case along, whether through settlement or continuing the litigation.”

She writes that:

U.S. Reps. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., and Tom Cole, R-Okla., co-chairs of the Native American Caucus, sent a letter on March 26 urging Vilsack to settle the litigation on terms comparable to the department’s recent settlement with African-American farmers. The department settled late-filed claims of black farmers for $1.25 billion, in addition to the $1 billion previously awarded for timely filed claims in that litigation.

Gwen Florio