Suchergebnisse

AbstractBlack farmers have historically been discriminated against in services from the federal government, including access to credit. Discrimination can take the form of delayed loan processing requests, which can affect timely planting, harvesting, feeding of livestock, and farm performance. This study uses nationwide, farm‐level data from 2009 to 2021 from the Farm Service Agency's direct farm loan program to investigate racial discrimination in the farm loan program. Findings reveal loan processing times average longer for Black borrowers on operating loans, though with a substantial state‐level variation. Specifically, it takes an average of more than two additional days for Black farmers' operating loan applications to be completed and another two additional days to be processed. However, there was no significant difference in time for farm ownership loans suggesting a more nuanced cause than outright racial discrimination. Other factors that increased loan processing time for borrowers included larger loan amounts, more complex loan types, a mix of collateral, and being a new borrower.

AbstractU.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policies fully implemented in 2017 ended the use of "medically important" (pertinent for human disease treatment) antibiotics for livestock growth promotion purposes. Between 2015 and 2017, medically important antibiotics sales for food animal production declined by 43%, after steady growth between 2009 and 2015. We examine the impacts of the antibiotics sales decline on livestock producers and veterinarians using case studies and empirical event studies. We find that the drop in sales did not impact overall meat production and that livestock producers engaged more heavily with their veterinarians to implement better management strategies.

AbstractThis paper discusses differences in the likelihood of loan default between Black and other farmers who took out USDA direct operating loans from 2011 to 2020. By controlling for financial, demographic, and other factors using a Cox proportional hazards model, we found that Black farmers have a higher incidence of default than other farmers. We advanced the research on the relative loan performance of different racial/ethnic minority groups, revealing heterogeneity in the likelihood of default that indicates using a single grouping for all minorities obscures important differences. There could be multiple contributing factors to higher rates of default among Black borrowers that deserve future attention and study, though it is beyond the scope of this paper to identify a causal mechanism.