112 More Farmers Sue Federal Agency

A group of 112 farmers has filed a lawsuit alleging they have been treated unfairly by the same federal agency that was sued by black farmers claiming decades of racial discrimination in federal lending practices. The black farmers won a $2.2-billion settlement. Lawyer Jimmy Robertson, who filed the latest lawsuit in Jackson, Miss., against the Farm Service Agency, said his clients lost farms because of credit denial, prejudicial delays in receiving credit, insufficient loan amounts and unreasonable collateral requirements. “We believe that all farmers getting loans from the Farm Service Agency, the last resort, are in the same economic category,” Robertson said. “It is not as much about race as it is equal treatment of two groups of small farmers in the same economic group.”