Just 0.1% of the pandemic relief funding to help American farmers during the Trump administration went to Black farmers, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in an interview published Thursday.

Vilsack told The Washington Post that Black farmers received only $20.8 million of the nearly $26 billion of payments made in two rounds of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program announced last year, exasperating existing disparities.

“We saw 99% of the money going to white farmers and 1% going to socially disadvantaged farmers, and if you break that down to how much went to Black farmers, it’s 0.1%,” Vilsack said. “Look at it another way: The top 10% of farmers in the country received 60% of the value of the covid payments. And the bottom 10% received 0.26%.”

Only 1.3% of Americans farmers, or about 45,000, are Black, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but the 0.1% figure still falls well short of their representation in the industry.

Advocates for Black farmers have long complained that systemic racism, biased government policy and a cycle of debt have taken a devastating toll. Ninety percent of Black-owned farmland has been lost over the past century while white farmers own for 98% of the acres today, according to the USDA. 

John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, testified Thursday before the House Agriculture Committee and said the federal government “can do better” than the 0.1% payout to Black farmers under the Trump programs.

“It was due to the act of discrimination,” he said. “We're using the same program, the same policies by rolling this information out through the county offices, and it's failing because Black farmers don't trust the United States Department of Agriculture. We have to find a better way to do that."

Boyd said Black farmers are “facing extinction.”

“We need to move in a more cohesive way,” he said. “This isn't a Republican issue. It's not a Democratic issue. It's happened on the hands of all presidents.”

The Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan, passed by Congress earlier this month, dedicates around $5 billion to disadvantaged farmers, about a quarter of whom are Black. The money will be used for grants and loans to pay off debts as well as outreach, training, education, technical assistance and funding for improving land access.

Vilsack served as agriculture secretary for eight years under former President Barack Obama and returned to the post in February under President Joe Biden. In his previous term, Vilsack drew criticism from Black farmers for failing to adequately address a backlog of discrimination complaints about access to loans and other problems that predated his arrival at the department in 2009 and for not hiring more minorities to high-level positions.

This time around, Vilsack says he’s focused on ending the problems at the root of inequality at the USDA, including a broken farm system, food insecurity and a health-care crisis.

Vilsack vowed to the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday to “do everything we can to root out whatever systemic racism and barriers may exist at the Department of Agriculture directed at Black farmers, socially disadvantaged farmers and people who live in persistently poor areas in rural America.”

“Let me be clear: There is no place at the USDA for discrimination. None. Nor for that matter, anywhere,” Vilsack said. “This historic moment to advance equity must not be lost.”

Trump’s office did not respond to Spectrum News’ request for comment.