A group of white farmers from Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota and Ohio are suing the Biden administration for an “out-and-out racist” federal loan forgiveness program that applies only to farmers of color.

The American Rescue Plan provides $4 billion to farmers as part of the recent covid-19 relief package. But the United States Department of Agriculture (usda) is promising to pay up to 120 percent of loan balances specifically to “socially disadvantaged” producers.

The usda writes of those who qualify for this loan forgiveness program:

Any socially disadvantaged borrower with direct or guaranteed farm loans as well as Farm Storage Facility Loans qualifies. The American Rescue Plan Act uses the 2501 definition of socially disadvantaged, which includes black/African American, American Indian or Alaskan native, Hispanic or Latino, and Asian-American or Pacific Islander. Gender is not a criteria in and of itself, but of course women are included in these categories.

Daniel Lennington from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, summed it up for Fox 11: “If you’re not white, you get the benefit. If you’re white, you do not get the benefit.”

Adam Faust, one of the plaintiffs, says he is suing because he sees this program is simply race-based discrimination. “It was just out-and-out racist, and I really don’t think that there should be racism allowed in the federal government at any level,” he said. “If somebody’s green, I think they should be allowed to participate, based on their actual qualifications for the program, and not just picking an arbitrary thing like race.”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who served under Barack Obama and now under Joe Biden, argues that this program is simply addressing centuries of “systemic racism and discrimination perpetuated against black farmers, and the history of discrimination against black farmers by usda that has prevented numerous African-Americans, among other people of color, from fully realizing the same level of prosperity and success as their white counterparts.”

Proponents of this program point to the declining black farmer population as evidence of systemic racism in American agriculture. In 1920, there were 949,889 black farmers. The number has significantly dropped to just 45,508.

But to blame this decline solely on racial discrimination is factually incorrect. Because farming as a whole has been on the decline in America.

There were 5,498,454 white farmers in 1920. Today, that number stands at 3,230,000. That’s a drop of over 2 million farmers. And 70 percent of that decline has been in just the last 34 years.

Economic turmoil, weather disasters and shrinking markets have been hurting farmers of all races. Foreign competition is eroding American agriculture. Farmers are being forced to sell their land to urban developers. Just over the last 50 years, America has lost 160 million acres of farmland.

The result of all these factors is a suicide rate among farmers twice the national average.

This debt-relief program exists “to respond to the cumulative impacts of systemic discrimination and barriers to access that have created a cycle of debt,” Vilsack said. But nationwide farm debt stands at $416 billion—an all-time high. Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies in the Midwest rose 12 percent between 2018 and 2019. They rose 50 percent in the Northwest. And then came the pandemic and lockdowns, and an awful situation became even worse.

Almost all farmers are hurting right now. For many of them, the pain has been caused by government-imposed lockdowns. So the U.S. government is causing farmers hardship, and then refusing to help those of just one race.

“Were plaintiffs eligible for the loan forgiveness benefit, they would have the opportunity to make additional investments in their property, expand their farms, purchase equipment and supplies, and otherwise support their families and local communities,” the lawsuit says. “Because plaintiffs are ineligible to even apply for the program solely due to their race, they have been denied the equal protection of the law and therefore suffered harm.”

The problems facing farming transcend race. Passing race-based legislation is something that only creates new problems. This is something we’ve seen before.

Zimbabwe, a former British colony, launched an aggressive anti-white farmer program in the early 2000s. The government legalized the seizure of white-owned farms. I am originally from Zimbabwe. The practice of government officials waiting until white farmers had collected all their harvests before seizing both their land and produce was common knowledge.

Neighboring South Africa was arguably even more brutal. Thousands of white farmers have been attacked since 1998. Officially, nearly 2,000 people have been murdered. The real number is likely even higher. The high chance of death makes farming one of the most dangerous professions for white South Africans.

Though the Biden administration’s new legislation is still a far cry from what happened in Zimbabwe and South Africa, it could be the start of an increasingly radical anti-white farmer agenda. What happened in those countries is a warning to the United States—particularly when viewed through the lens of Bible prophecy.

The Bible details a special relationship between God and the nation of Israel. God promises it blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. In The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Herbert W. Armstrong proved that the modern-day descendants of Israel are the American and British peoples, as well as Australian, Canadian, Dutch South Africans and others. As punishment for forgetting their special relationship with God, these nations were prophesied to suffer severe curses.

In our 1997 booklet South Africa in Prophecy, we write:

In their modern-day decline, due to rebellion against God and their refusal to acknowledge Him as the source of all blessings, [we] are witnessing the fall of South Africa as a prelude to the accelerating descent of the United States and of the once great British company of nations. South Africa is the first major domino to fall in what will become a free-fall … of those once mightiest nations on Earth!

America is adopting South Africa-style legislation. With rising inflation rates and money printing, it is even adopting Zimbabwe-style economics. The comparisons we made in 1997 between the U.S. and South Africa might have seemed extreme at the time. But both history and prophecy show where these policies are leading.

Only by remembering its special relationship with God can America and all other Israelite nations be spared from what’s coming. To learn more about this special relationship, please request The United States and Britain in Prophecy.