Native American farmers and ranchers have been waiting a long time for results from their Keepseagle v. Vilsack case.

The case seeks redress for Indian people denied millions of dollars in the same sorts of ag loans that went to their white neighbors (see previous post, here). But hope may be on the horizon.

As the AP’s Ben Evans reports here:

The Obama administration on Tuesday offered $1.3 billion to settle complaints from female and Latino farmers who say they faced discrimination from the Agriculture Department.

The proposal comes as Congress is poised to approve a $1.25 billion settlement with African-American farmers in a similar discrimination case. The agency also is negotiating with Native American farmers over another lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Friday is the court-mandated deadline for congressional approval in the historic Cobell v. Salazar case that would distribute $3.4 billion to Native Americans bilked out of oil, timber and other royalties held in trust for them by the federal government.

As lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, who is Blackfeet from Browning, Mont., told the AP’s Matt Volz, here, earlier this week:

“I want us to win for once, you know? Indians are always losing.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Cobell v. Salazar, Congress, Elouise Cobell, George Keepseagle, Gwen Florio, Indian trust case, Keepseagle v. Vilsack, Latino farmers, Native American farmers, Native American news, Obama Administration, Women farmers

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

Tags: buffalo post, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, D-Mich., George Keepseagle, Gwen Florio, Keepseagle v. Vilsack, Native American Caucus, Native American farmers, Native American news, R-Okla., U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee, U.S. Rep. Tom Cole

New data show that American Indian farmers generally have more land but less money than others and are less likely to receive government aid – something that would seem to support a suit filed a decade ago by Native farmers.

This AP story details Census data that points out those discrepancies:

The census found stark differences between the nation’s 80,000 American Indian farmers and those of other races. The typical American farm is 400 acres, but American Indian farmers average about 1,400 acres. Many are ranchers. Most live in the desert Southwest, Oklahoma or Montana.

Their farms average about $40,000 a year in sales, compared to $135,000 for farms overall. But relatively few get government aid — only 13 percent, compared to 39 percent of white farmers.

George Keepseagle, the North Dakota farmer who filed the lawsuit, attributes the differences to discrimination.

“Native Americans are stereotyped, either as drunk or lazy, and not capable of, I guess, competing with white farmers and ranchers,” Keepseagle says. “White people farm here, too, but they can get financing and we can’t.”

A hearing set for next month in the long-running suit, but Keepseagle fears resolution will come too late.

“If that happens, we have basically worked all our life for nothing,” he says. “It’s devastating.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, George Keespeagle, Native American farmers, Native American news, U.S. Department of Agriculture

This appears to be a day for movement in long-running federal lawsuits. Here’s the latest on the suit filed by Native American farmers against the USDA:

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge has approved settlement talks in a decade-old discrimination lawsuit filed by American Indians against the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Both sides asked Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington for 60 days of settlement talks. Sullivan moved a status hearing that had been scheduled for Wednesday to Feb. 10.

The lawsuit contends Indian farmers and ranchers lost hundreds of millions of dollars during the past three decades because of discrimination in lending by the Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency.

It was filed in 1999 by a couple who ranch on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation straddling the North Dakota-South Dakota state line.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said last month that the department was committed to resolving litigation.

Attorneys for both sides had no immediate comment Tuesday.

Tags: buffalo post, George Keepseagle, Native American farmers, Native American news, U.S. Department of Agriculture

A decade-old lawsuit that contends discrimination cost Indian farmers and ranchers nearly half a billion dollars could be nearing an end.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Indian farmers and ranchers this week that the department is “committed to resolving” litigation involving them, the Associated Press reports here.

The suit takes aim at what it contends are discriminatory lending practices by the Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency, which issues loans to farmers and ranchers who cannot get credit from commercial lenders.

The Justice Department said the case is expected to be considered again by the court early next year.

The lawsuit, named after George Keepseagle, a Fort Yates, N.D., rancher, says local USDA officials tried to squeeze them out of business by denying them loans that instead went to their white neighbors and by refusing to restructure loans in bad years as was done for whites, according to the AP.

“It’s a detriment to us to have to be put in a position where, truly, the non-Indian farmers and ranchers are getting all the help and we’re not,” says Cedric Black Eagle, chairman of the Crow Tribe in southeastern Montana.

Another long-running suit – filed by Elouise Cobell, who is Blackfeet from Montana – seeks seek billions of dollars on behalf of Indian people who claim they were swindled out of oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties administered by the Interior Department since 1887.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, buffalo post, Cedric Black Eagle, Crow Tribe, Elouise Cobell, George Keepseagle, Native American farmers, Native American news, U.S. Department of Interior