DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997                 TAG: 9703020115

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   48 lines

USDA CHIEF SETS PLAN TO TARGET RACIAL BIAS AGENCY MUST SOLVE ``SERIOUS, PERVASIVE'' DISCRIMINATION, SAYS SECRETARY GLICKMAN.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman is pledging to wipe out discrimination in his department after concerns surfaced over the agency's treatment of minority farmers.

Critics have charged that the Department of Agriculture's policies have driven some minority farmers to ruin and a group of black farmers protested across from the White House in December.

Glickman said Friday that fundamental change will come, but it won't be easy.

``That starts by admitting that for too long, USDA has been seen as ignoring serious, pervasive problems within our civil rights systems,'' he said.

Glickman set a six-month deadline for eliminating a backlog in loan program bias complaints. He also said pending farm foreclosures will be reviewed to ensure discrimination was not a factor.

He called for broad changes in the federal Farm Service Agency, which administers $18 billion worth of USDA programs. These include the creation of a national commission on small farms.

Glickman named Pearlie S. Reed - the team leader for his civil rights report created in December - as acting assistant secretary for administration. Reed is black.

Glickman also will require all USDA employees to undergo annual civil rights training.

Friday's announcements drew a mixed response.

``I'm a little disappointed,'' said John W. Boyd Jr., a Mecklenburg County farmer and head of a Virginia-based farmers group that sparked the investigation into discriminatory practices.

Boyd said the USDA wasn't doing enough to augment the staff reviewing the backlog of farmers' complaints, and he was unhappy with a plan to wait 120 days to make settlement offers to farmers who have won findings that they were discriminated against.

Leroy W. Warren Jr., a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People board member from Maryland, questioned why no USDA officials were being fired, given the agency's record of discrimination.

``To say no one will be punished for what they have done in the past sends a very poor message to all these people, the farmers . . . that have suffered,'' he said.

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