In 2021, the Biden administration approved a $10.4 billion COVID-19 relief package for American farmers, a group that had been hit hard by snarled supply chains and plummeting crop and livestock prices. But as part of the administration’s commitment to racial equity, nearly half of the funding was reserved exclusively for debt relief for “socially disadvantaged” farmers, or those belonging to groups that have been subject to racial or ethnic prejudice.

Though federal aid for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers had been available since the 1990s, it had often been scant or difficult to access. In the wake of the racial justice protests of 2020, a group of Democratic senators renewed the call to rectify “historical discrimination and disparities in the agriculture sector.” Black farmers in particular, advocates noted, had suffered past abuses such as Jim Crow–era land theft and the denial of Department of Agriculture loans. “For generations, socially disadvantaged farmers have struggled to fully succeed due to systemic discrimination and a cycle of debt,” agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement on the inclusion of the race-targeted portion of the farm aid.

The measure was applauded by progressives. “It’s reparations, but it’s more than that. It is historic,” one nonprofit director said. The historic moment, however, quickly turned into a legal quagmire. In the wake of the legislation, white farmers in several states who were ineligible for debt relief sued the federal government on the grounds that their exclusion from the program constituted racial discrimination, some with the backing of right-wing groups like Stephen Miller’s America First Legal. A few months into the court challenges, a federal judge halted the program’s rollout. The following year, updated legislation removed the controversial race-based criteria, expanding eligibility for debt relief to white farmers (who make up over 95 percent of farmers in the United States), but also reduced the available funding, watering down the aid significantly.