California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom's "agricultural equity" advisers are finalizing recommendations for the state to redistribute farmland to non-white Californians and Native American tribes through land transfers and financial assistance programs that exclusively benefit racial minorities.
For more than two years, the California Agricultural Land Equity Task Force—part of Newsom's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation—has crafted a set of policy recommendations to "equitably increase agricultural land access." It will deliver a final report to Newsom and the California legislature cementing those recommendations by the end of the year.
The task force's latest draft report, published ahead of the task force’s August meeting earlier this month, calls to deploy state resources to give non-white Californians a leg up in acquiring farmland, an effort it portrays as a form of reparations. The report says California should gift large amounts of state-owned lands to Native Americans, adopt indigenous knowledge practices for land management, and provide low-interest loans, downpayment assistance, and grants to fund land acquisition to black farmers.
Those and other policies, according to the task force, will help solve California's "agricultural land equity crisis." Land ownership statistics prove such discrimination exists, according to the report, which laments that "82% of privately held farmland in California is owned by producers who identify as white."
"The wealth of the U.S., including that of its agriculture industry, has been built on stolen land and the forced labor of California Tribal Nations, enslaved African Americans, and other exploited communities, who have been systematically excluded from land ownership and wealth-building opportunities," the report says. "Addressing these past and continuing harms requires active efforts to ensure that all people have secure and affordable access to viable land for the care and cultivation of food, fiber, medicine, and culturally valuable resources, free from systemic barriers and
racial disparities."
The initiative marks the latest left-wing attempt to pursue reparations through the agriculture industry. The Biden administration and congressional Democrats, for example, allocated $5 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act to grant loan forgiveness to non-white farmers, though that initiative was held up in the courts. In a separate program, the administration authorized more than $2 billion in payments to non-white farmers and ranchers whose applications for loans had been rejected by the USDA—rejections that the Biden administration chalked up to racial discrimination.
The initiative also comes as Newsom attempts to distance himself from some left-wing social positions ahead of a widely expected presidential run in 2028. Newsom in March criticized the term "Latinx," mocked Democrats who introduce themselves with their pronouns, and said it's "deeply unfair" for biological men to play in women's sports. At the same time, his administration has pursued some of the nation's most aggressive DEI policies.
While the Agricultural Land Equity Task Force doesn't recommend cash payments to Native American and black landowners, it does call for similarly aggressive measures.
Citing the the colonization of California by Europeans, the task force's draft report concludes that Native Americans should receive tens of thousands of acres of land from the state government. It recommends that the state funds programs to support land return and acquisition for tribes. And it calls on the state to offer financial incentives to exclusively benefit minority landowners, including a low-interest and forgivable loan program and a downpayment assistance program.
"Centuries of discrimination have taken both land and generational wealth from priority producers and land stewards," the draft report states, defining "priority producers" as African Americans, Native Indians, Alaskan Natives, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Hawaiians. "It is the responsibility of the state to offer ... wrap-around support such as technical assistance to rebuild the wealth that was stolen."
California's Strategic Growth Council, a cabinet-level body that is housed within Newsom's climate innovation office, created the Agricultural Land Equity Task Force nearly two years ago. Since then, the task force has held more than a dozen public meetings to hear feedback from activists before delivering a final report.
During the task force's most recent meeting on Aug. 13, activists from racial justice groups pushed for even more aggressive policy recommendations than those outlined in the latest draft report.
"The task force should recommend a restorative land access pilot for black farmers model alongside existing land return initiatives," said Adam X, the CEO of Original Manufacturing, a Los Angeles-based "community development" group that describes itself as "builders of food equity" and "warriors for systemic justice."
"What we've seen with black farmers is that they've been systemically excluded from land ownership, from racially restrictive covenants to outright denial of access to farmland," added Rasheed Hislop, senior manager of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a "modern farming advisory services firm that focuses on creating equitable access to the agricultural industry."
"Black farmers aren't asking for handouts, they need hand-ups."
