Wash. Times: The Great Farm Robbery

"When the Clinton administration settled the initial class-action lawsuit, named after Timothy Pigford, the original claimant in 1999, analysts expected only a few thousand legitimate claims. However, more than 90,000 blacks asserted that they were wrongly denied farm loans or other USDA benefits in the 1980s and 1990s.This was surprising because there were at most 33,000 black-operated farms nationwide in that period. But that number itself was wildly inflated by USDA methodology. Anyone who sells more than $1,000 in agricultural commodities — the equivalent of 150 bushels of wheat or one horse — is categorized by USDA a bona fide farmer."