Copyright 2005 The Californian (Salinas, CA)

HEADLINE: SCOTT MACDONALD/THE SALINAS CALIFORNIAN

BYLINE: Claudia Melendez

Farmer Joe Vazquez speaks Thursday to a panel of officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Farm Service Agency during a listening session at the Salinas Sports Complex. Vazquez told the panel his father went bankrupt after being denied USDA loans.

Lourdes Gonzalez says she's been lobbying the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 10 years, asking the agency to improve its services for Latino farmers.

So far, she said, she hasn't seen much change.

"We've set up over 10 meetings with officials to let them know what our problems are, and we still have the same issues," Gonzalez said Thursday, addressing a panel of USDA officials in Salinas for an all-day workshop on the agency and its services.

Gonzalez, a Watsonville raspberry farmer, isn't alone in her complaint. Close to 100 farmers from all over California clapped in agreement after Gonzalez and other farmers testified about problems they say they've had with the agency discriminating against them when it comes to providing loans and services.

USDA officials heard the complaints as part of a "listening session" during the workshop, one in a series the agency is holding around the nation.

USDA officials acknowledge that there was discrimination against Latino farmers in the past, but they say the agency is taking steps to fix the problems, such as reprimanding employees.

Attendees say they were denied loans

ABOUT THE FARM SERVICE AGENCY

The Farm Service Agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, makes direct and guaranteed farm loans to family-size farmers and ranchers who cannot obtain commercial credit from a bank, Farm Credit System institution or other lender.

Many of the farmers at the Salinas session said they had to declare bankruptcy after being denied a loan by the USDA, which acts as a lender of last resort, and most of them said they believed the denials resulted from discrimination.

Bernie Vazquez Jr., who grew lettuce, broccoli and celery on 1,000 acres in Greenfield for 10 years, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2001 after being denied a USDA loan three times, his son, Joe Vazquez, told the panel.

Jose Guerra, who lost his crop during the 1995 floods, asked how it was he didn't qualify for disaster relief when his next-door neighbor did.

"What happened with that money?" he asked the panel, referring to the $2 billion that President Bill Clinton granted in relief funding to the area.

But John Smythe, California state executive director of the Farm Service Agency, an arm of the USDA that makes farm loans, said the federal agency has improved, and the presence of the farmers at the workshop is proof of that.

"Ten years ago, we would hold meetings like this, and there was very little participation," Smythe said after the meeting. "Now, I look at higher participation, and that's an improvement."

More than 60 percent of the loans the agency gave in the past three years have gone to Latino farmers, he said, pointing at other agency improvements.

Many of the farmers, some of them coming from Fresno and Visalia, belong to a class-action lawsuit against the USDA that claims Latino farmers were systematically discriminated against by the agency for more than 20 years.

The lawsuit, filed in 2000, claims the farmers were told there were no applications available or they were not given the right information to process the paperwork, said Yolanda Hawkins, the attorney who represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

"They've done this (meetings) before, and it's a step in the right direction, but it's not enough," she said. "They need to make some obvious, deep changes."

The lawsuit seeks changes in the way the USDA works with farmers, and includes as plaintiffs hundreds of farmers, mostly from California and the Southwest.

Contact Claudia Melendez Salinas at cmelendez@gannett.com.

SCOTT MACDONALD/THE SALINAS CALIFORNIAN

Dr. Tom Hoffeller, associate administrator of the Farm Service Agency, speaks Thursday during a meeting at the Salinas Sports Complex.