The report explains that employees suffering discrimination and inequality of opportunity. "Native-Americans, Hispanic, and women farmers and ranchers" have initiated lawsuits alleging discrimination in the delivery of farm programs and lending. This year, GAO examined the results of the six reports with recommendations - on civil and equal opportunities for farm workers- they gave the USDA since 2002 and the results of its implementation.

It’s important to point out that because of the number of complaints the USDA received, the 2002 Farm Bill, authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to create the new position of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (ASCR), elevating responsibility within USDA for carrying out their civil rights efforts, doing a follow-up of the employee employer relationship. 

What are the allegations all about? 

There are two major complaint groups. The largest consists of demands made by the workers of the USDA regarding discrimination in the hiring, promotion, and seniority. The second group is made up of stakeholders in the agricultural market, associations related to the activity, and people who wanted to work in the agricultural sector, but were not hired for ethnicity, age, gender, etc.

What Did GAO Recommend?

The first recommendation was to implement a plan for the rapid resolution of complaints and to establish the desired objectives and time frames. In 2012, the watchdog concluded that while the allegations were not treated as GAO had proposed, the Ministry of Agriculture had made a "modest progress." The second, prompted the USDA to do a check on the data and the verification of complaints made to the ASCR. Thus, the auditors explain could ensure that the complaint process could validate the accuracy of its data. Like the previous warning, the progress was "sustained" but not completed.

However, demographic studies of the farmers and the resolution of previous complaints of discrimination were two of the best addressed recommendations by the USDA. The first is the budget request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to perform the necessary demographic studies and obtain accurate data on the number and ethnicities of people currently working in agriculture. The second suggestion states that there must be a time frame of two years for the Ministry of Agriculture to resolve all complaints.

According to the report, the only aspect that still requires attention is the improvement of civil rights. That is, the development of a draft covering all sectors of agriculture corresponding to the USDA, so no worker is left out of the new system of civil rights.

The Results 

In 2011 the GAO investigated how the complaints and lawsuits had decreased. This time, the audit found that strategies had generated an improvement in terms of the new equality policies of the USDA. The demands made by the employees had reached a maximum of 1,210. After the intervention of the ASCR and all the measures implemented by the USDA, the complaints and lawsuits were reduced to 898 within three years.

As for the complaints to the programs of the Ministry of Agriculture, they decreased from 806 to 591. According to the federal watchdog, the Office of Civil Rights was able to solve all the trials in two years, as recommended by the GAO in the first reports.