I find it odd that a key bit of background does not get more play in the media discussion: namely the problems that the USDA was having with race relations, culminating in a class-actions suit against it brought by black farmers in the 90’s for systematic discrimination.

As far as I have read, the case is still not fully resolved.

I do not defend the USDA’s actions, but I begin to understand why they were so totally tetchy about anything involving the USDA and racial discrimination, and it does shed a bit more lights on Vilsacks’s initial comments on the matter.