USDA concerned with California plan to redistribute farmland

The State’s plan wants to address a “land equity crisis”

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wants California Governor Gavin Newsom to discard a plan related to farmland distribution in the state.

“All people should be treated equally and what California has proposed directly targets those who work from sunrise to well past sunset, faithfully tending our nation's land and livestock,” she said in a Dec. 11 letter to Gov. Newsom.

The governor directed the Agricultural Land Equity Task Force to provide a report by Jan. 1 with recommendations “on how to address the agricultural land equity crisis.”

Land equity, according to the task force is “when all people have secure and affordable access to viable land for the care, relationship with, and cultivation of food, fiber, medicine, and cultural resources without systemic barriers, disparities, or exploitation,” a draft report says.

To support this concept, one of the task force’s recommendations is to “fund and incentivize land acquisition for priority producers and land stewards.”

Priority producers are defined as people who identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, or Alaskan native.

These policies are divisive, Secretary Rollins said.

“Hardworking farmers, ranchers, and agricultural producers all deserve a shot at the American dream and they should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.”

In addition, the report’s recommendations could be illegal.

Rollins’s letter indicates the task force’s suggestions could violate the 5^th and 14^th amendments of the federal constitution, and Proposition 209 of the California Constitution.

If Newsom proceeds with this plan, “expect immediate legal action to protect American citizens from California’s unlawful actions,” Rollins wrote.