On Tuesday, Congressman Allen Boyd (D-North Florida) will testify before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment regarding the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) water sharing issue. Following the hearing, Boyd will hold a press conference call with Florida's stakeholders to discuss the ACF issue and respond to testimony from the hearing.

People say the soil in this rural community at the fringe of Columbia, S.C., is so rich you could plant pebbles and grow rocks. Lower Richland County, named for its "rich land," according to local lore, once sustained African-American farmers on small spreads that had been in their families for decades.

GAO auditors, seeking to interview various USDA employees about new allegations of discrimination, were told to leave the Agriculture Department by government lawyers. The USDA lawyers concluded that their employees could only be interviewed with legal counsel present – a request that GAO investigators refused.

Last week, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials ordered auditors from the Government Accountability Office out of their offices, and ordered USDA employees not to speak with them. GAO was investigating allegations that USDA deliberately gave false information to auditors looking into the Department’s alleged mishandling of civil rights complaints.

"You are hereby instructed not to meet with any member of the (Government Accountability Office) today, or until this matter is resolved," Michael Watts, a top USDA attorney, wrote to employees Wednesday in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

Six members of the Congressional Black Caucus urged the Agriculture Department on Friday to explain why it refused to cooperate with a government audit this week, calling the decision “entirely unacceptable.”

The Agriculture Department abruptly ordered congressional auditors to leave its headquarters and told its employees not to cooperate with them.

Specializing in enabling people to own/operate profitable farms and agriculturally related enterprises.

U.S. farmers are in danger of not getting a new farm bill this year if Congress and the White House do not reach an agreement on spending and subsidy reform levels by March 15, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Thursday.

It looks like America’s Black farmers – one of the nation’s most dissed groups of workers – will get a second chance to apply for money owed in a historic discrimination settlement. Congressional leaders say that one of the first orders of business, when they reconvene later this month, will be to tweak a giant farm bill that not only guides the Agriculture Department’s policy on crops, but it will give African-American farmers a fresh opportunity to apply for almost $1 billion in compensation that resulted from the 1999 settlement of the Pigford case, lodged by Black farmers who argued that they had been systemically denied loans and other USDA aid.

A small group of area residents attended a meeting Friday at the Bamberg Civic Center to learn more about Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's plan to help support rural communities in South Carolina. The main speaker was Dr. John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association. Representatives from Obama's campaign offices in Orangeburg, Columbia, and Washington, D.C. were also on hand.

A Senate-approved farm bill will give thousands of black farmers a chance to seek compensation over allegations that they were denied loans because of their race.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama’s South Carolina campaign will host a series of town hall meetings Friday and Saturday in Bamberg, Dorchester, Chesterfield and Clarendon counties.

The farm bill approved by the Senate last week moved Congress a step closer to reopening a landmark discrimination case against the Agriculture Department. Like its companion bill in the House, the Senate measure would give thousands of black farmers another chance at seeking compensation over claims that they were denied loans or other crop subsidies because of their race.

Dr. John Boyd today released the following statement on the Senate's passage of the Farm Bill (H.R. 2419), which passed by a vote of 79 to 14.

Despite pending legislation in congress and the largest settlement in US history for blacks “the black farmer settlement”, Black farmers continue to lose land due to discrimination and unfair banking practices.

It was an emotional day at the Halifax County courthouse. Despite protest from a family, more than 145 acres of land was sold Wednesday at a foreclosure auction. Roland Hardy, who died earlier this year, had owned the land.

Just a couple of hours after Congresswoman Moore's visit to Florence, the campaign held a town hall meeting with farmers and their families in Kingstree, SC about Senator Obama's commitment to support rural communities in South Carolina, including black farmers who have been discriminated against by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Proposition 2 titled Standards for Confining Farm Animals, appeared on the November 2008 ballot in California, where it passed with 63.5% of the vote. Prop 2 created a new state statute that prohibits the confinement of farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs.

A provision that would allow tens of thousands of black farmers to make discrimination claims against the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be included in the Senate's initial farm bill. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate agriculture committee, plans to include the provision in the farm reauthorization bill, which the Senate takes up next week, spokeswoman Kate Cyrul said.