Madam Chair, distinguished participants and guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is my sincere pleasure to be here with you as one of a series of important topics which will be addressed today by this esteemed body. My name is Anurag Varam, I'm a private sector lawyer in Washington Dc in the US. I've spent most of the past 15 years with African American and Native American or American Indian farmers in the US in their efforts to correct a legacy of discrimination in the US government owed farm programmes. And so I will begin with the farming story, a story which unfortunately is very true in the US and I suspect in many other parts of the world. For many decades the ability of average American farmer to succede in this occupation has been the availability of credit. The system is simple, if I'm a farmer I borrow money at the beginning of the crop year to purchase seed, fertiliser to fix my equipment and hopefully I'm able to keep enough to feed my family and maintain and develop my crops or livestock throughout the farm year. At the end of crop year when I can take my crops or livestock to market the proceeds are enough to pay my loan and perhaps develop my far. Approximately 5 years ago the US government realised that small and minority farmers could not thrive in this credit based system, private banks regularly choose not to lend to these farming populations and were never prosecuted. The US governments solution, through their US department of agriculture, was to create their own lending programmes, it would be the lender of last resort. USDA would establish credit offices over 2,700 in total in every corner of America for farmers who could not receive credit from other sources and so every year from the lates 1960s to today the US government would annouce billions of dollars in farm loan funds which meant that each of the USDA credit offices would receive millions of dollars a piece to hand out to local farmers. The result unfortunately was predictable, the local loan officers in each of the 2,700 offices would give out laons to family members, friends and other with whom they were acquainted, rarely to those with whom they were not familiar or did not trust beginning with minority farmers. When a minority farmer would walk into the local US department of agriculture office, seeking a loan application , they would be told that no more applications were available or that funds were exhausted or that they need not bother applying because they would never qualify. In the cases where minority farmers did receive an application they were not given the personal services afforded to white farmers such as an explanation of the various programmes for which they could apply, assistance in completing the multi-page, up to 40 pages application form and other technical forms or given a complete understanding of the qualifying criteria and informaiton that they would need to provide they need to qualify for a loan and the types of information which would make the difference in the final decision. In the relarivley rare instances where minority farmers did receive an initial loan from USDA they were never offered payment restructuring, deferral or other services routinely received by white farmers when unexpected or natural adverse circumstances occurred such as drought, floods or disease. To make matters worse, in 1983, the US department of agriculture dismantled and defunded its Office of Civil Rights, the arm of the US federal agency charged with investigating charges of