Program Overview

To implement Section 22007 of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Discrimination Financial Assistance Program (DFAP) has provided financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners whose applications were validated under the program as demonstrating discrimination.

About the Application and Review Process

The program statute required DFAP to be administered through qualified nongovernmental entities subject to standards set and enforced by USDA. Several entities were involved in the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program, with varying roles and responsibilities. USDA contracted with three entities to serve as National Administrator and Regional Hubs, to conduct outreach, assist with the financial assistance application process, process applications, manage program call centers, and operate regionally based offices. Additional outreach and application support was provided by trusted community groups.

• Setting up and managing the program website and national call center.
• Developing the program application with guidance from USDA.
• Coordinating work that was shared between the National Administrator and the Regional Hubs.
• Reviewing individual applications, making determinations of eligibility, and evaluating the applications against USDA-approved standards, using corroborating data from the USDA where available.
• Ensuring agricultural expertise was incorporated into the review process.
• Arranging for strong payment integrity protections and appropriate systems to detect and deter potential fraud.
• Making decisions on individual applications, in accordance with guidance approved and enforced by USDA.
• Setting up and staffing local offices and mobile outreach teams.
• Marketing the availability of the program to raise awareness and inform potential applicants of services available.
• Providing technical assistance in-person, online, and by phone, including region-specific support through the call center.
• Coordinating with USDA’s community-group cooperators.
• Receiving applications by mail and in-person drop off.
• Digitizing all non-digital applications and supporting documents submitted.
• Pursuing important identity and certification verification-related information from applicants when omitted (e.g., insufficient proof of identity or social security number, missing signature).
• AgrAbility 
• Farmer Veteran Coalition 
• Farmers’ Legal Action Group 
• Federation of Southern Cooperatives 
• Intertribal Agriculture Council 
• Land Loss Prevention Project 
• National Young Farmers Coalition 
• Rural Coalition  working with its member organizations, including:
• Grupo Amor de Homestead
• Latino Farmers of the Southeast
• American Indian Mothers, Inc. 
• Compañeras Campesinas 
• Cottage House Inc.
• Kansas Black Farmers Association 
• Oklahoma Black Historical Research Project, Inc. 
• Latino Farmers and Ranchers International, Inc.
• Rural Advancement of the National Sharecroppers Fund 
• Texas Coalition of Rural Landowners 

Outreach and Technical Assistance

Facts and figures:

• Nearly 4,000 outreach and technical assistance events across the United States, ranging from small, dedicated gatherings at churches and land-grant universities, to exhibits at large events like Farm Aid, the Intertribal Agriculture Council Annual Conference, and the National Black Growers Council Annual Meeting.
• Events were held in every state, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.
• Most events were in-person, but there were also many virtual outreach opportunities. A minimum of eight technical assistance webinars were offered weekly (six in English and two in Spanish), at different times so people could find a time that worked for them.  
• The program call center fielded nearly 58,000 calls during the application period, and 85,000 calls since.
• The program administrators hosted over 6,500 office visits and over 4,500 technical assistance sessions at local program offices and other locations, assisting thousands of producers with their applications. Cooperators assisted many more.
• Advertising on digital, print, and radio channels targeted farmers and rural communities to reach potential applicants.
• Direct mail and email campaigns reach thousands of potential applicants.

Applications

• Applications were submitted by over 58,000 individuals, by mail, online, or in-person at local DFAP offices.
• Applicants came from every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.
• Across all applicants, each category of eligible discrimination was cited: race, color, national origin or ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, marital status, or disability, and reprisal/retaliation for prior civil rights activity.

Processing and Decisions

After data entry and providing applicants an opportunity to correct missing name, address, and social security number information, or documentation of those items, two independent teams each assessed eligibility by asking:

• Did the applicant farm or ranch or try to farm or ranch?
• Did the applicant participate in USDA farm lending or try to participate in USDA farm lending?
• Did the applicant experience discrimination by USDA before 2021?

 

For eligible applicants, the teams used application information and USDA-provided statistical data, as well as individual FSA data where available, to estimate the consequences of discrimination under the program standards.

The program administrators’ staff carefully reviewed each application for assistance eligibility and identity verification. With respect to eligibility, each application was reviewed separately by two independent teams, and results were reconciled when they varied. Agricultural experts were consulted on complex questions, and the process’s standards were set and enforced by USDA as documented on the program website. Each application was also carefully reviewed to ensure that program administrators could verify the identity of each person who applied. For more details see this chart (PDF, 207 KB). For information about the USDA-approved criteria against which all applications were reviewed, see the DFAP Validation Guide here.

Payment Integrity

To preserve the limited DFAP funds for eligible farmers and ranchers, USDA took a risk-based, data-centric approach to protecting DFAP funds and ensuring payment integrity. On top of implementing strong internal controls throughout the entire program and setting and enforcing clear standards for implementation by the National Administrator, USDA focused DFAP’s payment integrity efforts on addressing three key risks.

1. Risk of Identity Theft and Impersonation of a Potentially Eligible Applicant.

• The application required applicants to submit key identity-related information, including documents to verify that information.
• Identity-related information was reviewed by program administrators to confirm that information provided matched what was in the application.
• DFAP sent notices allowing applicants an opportunity to “cure” if apparently incorrect or incomplete identity and certification-related information was provided.
• All applications judged “deficient” after cure response deadline were reviewed again to minimize errors.
• Data was analyzed on “deficient” applications to detect any patterns that could flag especially high-risk applications or other indicators of suspicious activity, as well as to detect opportunities to help “cure” applications that may have otherwise been overlooked.

 

2. Risk of an Applicant Falsifying Eligibility Information.

• The DFAP Call Center functioned a hotline (and DFAP also encouraged reporting to OIG hotline) for potential scams and fraudulent applications both during and after the application period.
• The application required certification under penalty of law pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 1001 that all information in the application is true to the best of the applicant’s knowledge.
• Though supporting documentation was not required, it was encouraged, and applicants had the opportunity to obtain supporting documents from USDA, as well as to independently acquire and submit a large variety of potential supporting documents to corroborate their applications
• The validation process used existing USDA from the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA) data to both fill gaps in applications and to verify the plausibility of reported circumstances. With the assistance of agriculture experts, the program evaluated implausible descriptions of farming operations (e.g., farming operation scope incommensurate with reported acreage).
• Each application was reviewed independently by two separate teams, in accordance with documented USDA standards to ensure that validation determinations complied with standards and guard against subjectivity; discrepancies were reconciled by a third reviewer.
• DFAP’s Payment Integrity Team identified and evaluated cohorts of applications with identical or almost identical narratives duplicated across multiple applications.
• Higher-risk applications were sampled and reviewed by a USDA team for an additional level of oversight and legal sufficiency review.

Awards

As of July 30, 2024, DFAP decisions and awards have been made. This website has information about how awards were calculated and things you should know if you receive one. If you applied and don’t receive an award or denial by August 6, 2024, please call the DFAP call center at 1-800-721-0970.