besieged by crooked land loan officers ...
More madness in Kentucky: Black farmer's foreclosed land used for Klan meetings
by Monica Davis
Monday Oct 8th, 2007 8:51 PM
indybay.org
...While the white family farm is besieged by federal farm loan bureaucrats, the system’s institutional racism retains a special pleasure for driving black farmers out of business. Black farmers face several delaying and financial sabotage tactics, including supervised loans which cause them to waste time running back and forth to FSA offices for signatures, delayed loans which arrive too late to finance planting, collusion between local FSA officials, bankers and realtors.
Both black and white farmers have been victimized by loan officers, who receive bonuses for literally driving them out of business. The same loan officer who “services” their loans is the same person who receives a bonus for fast tracking them into bankruptcy.
Farm activists, attorneys and civil rights protestors have said the practice is a major conflict of interest, but to no avail. FSA loan officials are still receiving bonuses and farmers are still being run out of business.
The Young family farm loan is one of the worse cases of loan abuse in the nation, according to several farm rights activists. Young has proof of payment, yet the government continues to assert that he made no payment on the loan in over 20 years.
At issue are loan records, conversations with FSA officials, and corruption in the agency—that is if you believe the hundreds of anecdotal records provided by farm activists and farmers from around the nation,
While the Klan meetings on the Young family’s ancestral farm are outrageous, even more outrageous are the actions, which continue to be business as usual in FSA offices around the nation. Collusion, criminal acts, fraud, even racketeering—farm activists say the list of illegal actions on part of federal farm loan agencies is legion.. |
