discrimination and informaing, enforcing civil rights laws. Accordingly such misconduct and mistreatment meant that year after year over 4 decades minority farmers would receive disproportionally low nearing insignificant amount of federal farm loan programme dollars as compared to their white counterparts from the same region. More importantly during the same time period it is estimated that the disappearance of minority farmers occurred at a rate of nearly four times that of similarly situated farmers. In the case of native American farmers, this resulted in the loss of land through private foreclosure. Land which they first settled, land which the US government reportioned into reservations, and now land which would forever be lost. So 1997 we as a group of private lawyers, filed a class action law suit in US federal court on behalf of African American farmers nationally. But when we filed this case it was not our intention to simply in court against the all powerful US government, rather we created a movement. For each scheduled appearance before the federal judge we gathered hundreeds of African American farmers to come to Washington DC to sit in the courtroom and walk the halls of the US congree, before long national and local media began covering the case. The US congress took note and took aciton. They passed a a special law for the sole purpose of removing the legal time limitation applicable to all law suits, thus allowing our case and others like it to include claims dating back to 1981. Within 2 years President Bill Clinton authorised a settlement of this lawsuit, accordingly to date for having faced discriminatory treatment at the hands of USDA over 1,600 African American farmers have received cash compensation and elimination of federal farm debt totalling over 1 billion dollars. The US congress has authorised additional African American farmers to take part in this type of recovery and that is ongoing. This group of farmers was also guaranteed preferential treatment on future loan applications as well as access to lands previously lost but that was not enough. In 1999 we filed another lawsuit in US federal court, on behalf of native american or american indian farmers. Unfortunately, in fighting this case we ran into two significant problems. One, the lack of political power of the native american population in the US, both in the executive and legislative branches. As well as eight years of a US administration from 2001 to 2008 which did not acquiesce to allegations of discrimiantion. However I am pleased to report that 6 weeks ago we were able to resolve this latter case with the Obama administration for 780 million dollars in cash compensation and elimination of existing farm debt. Very relevant to many of you in this room, this compensation was supplemented by a number of policy and programmatic changes. Never before agreed to by the US government and which will prevent future abuses of federal government loan programmes and give on ongoing voice to native american farmers and ranchers in the US system. Some examples of these changes include the fact that the US department of agriculture has agreeed to create a national council on native american farming and ranching. The US will establish 10 to 15 technical assistance centres, near or on, American indian lands. The purpose of these centres will be to provide this farming population with assistance resources and information it will need to fully participate in the federal governments farmland programmes. The US government will also appoint an Ombudsperson to oversee all allegations of misconduct or discrimination against minority or women farmers.