Biden courts Black farmers to dent Trump's lead among rural voters
The Biden campaign has spent the summer criticizing discrimination in agriculture, organizing roundtable discussions and tapping former Black government officials in an aggressive push to attract Black farmers, a small but potentially significant slice of the rural vote.
Black farm producers, who number almost 49,000 nationally, are concentrated in Southern swing states, including North Carolina, Florida and Georgia. When combined with other farmers of color, also a focus of the Biden campaign, the total swells to 260,000 producers. Many say it's the first time in years a presidential nominee has paid attention to their needs.
“I think the Biden campaign is trying to mobilize resources to address each key segment of agriculture. And I didn’t see that before,” said Dewayne Goldmon, executive director of the National Black Growers Council, one of the organizations the campaign has courted.
Black farmers have long struggled to get equal access to USDA programs that help build credit and address civil rights complaints. They have pushed the government for more enforcement to retain land that has been in their families for generations at a time when farmers, generally, are facing unprecedented economic headwinds due to the pandemic and trade war disruptions. The Biden campaign has released a plan to work with nonwhite farmers to tackle these issues.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/12/biden-black-farmers-rural-voters-412791
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