2:00

Today, they're full of beef cattle.

2:03

Like most Black ranchers in Oklahoma, Nate

2:05

raises animals for meat. There

2:08

are dozens of cows grazing in

2:10

ankle-deep grass and galaxies of flies

2:13

following them around wherever they go.

2:16

Nate pulls up in a truck and steps out

2:18

wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, a

2:20

long-sleeve denim button-down, Wranglers,

2:22

work boots, and brown leather

2:25

cap. Oh, it's already getting

2:27

sticky. This part of

2:29

eastern Oklahoma is where the South

2:31

meets the mythic Western frontier. And

2:34

Nate tells us we're right by an important

2:37

historical marker. See these cows on the hill

2:39

here? Just on the

2:41

side of the road. That's the Georgia

2:43

line. The Georgia Line is an

2:45

area where Black migrants from the

2:47

deep South settled. Like

2:49

other migrants, they came in search of

2:51

land and opportunity, but they

2:54

also came to escape Jim Crow. Nate's

2:56

family made that move in the

2:58

early 20th century up from Georgia

3:00

and Louisiana. So this is a

3:04

family in Jefferson. Been

3:07

at it for years. So this

3:10

is what we call G-line Ranch. So we

3:12

run three miles to

3:14

the west. G-line is

3:16

Nate's ranch. And

3:19

today, he's vaccinating and deworming his

3:21

cattle. It's a family affair. He's

3:23

got his whole extended family, as in

3:26

kids, brothers, nieces, and nephews, here

3:28

to help out. They

3:32

get the cows into a kind of

3:34

assembly line and walk them towards a

3:36

big yellow metal shoot. We're

3:39

gonna bring them to the squeeze shoot and

3:41

give them the mades. Each

3:43

cow moves through to the end where his

3:45

head gets locked in so it can't move.

3:48

Then Nate vaccinates it with

3:51

a massive, massive syringe. And

3:54

Nate's eldest son puts a deworming paste,

3:56

a white watery liquid, in its mouth

3:58

before setting it in. lose me. Everybody

4:04

has a role in the work, which Nate

4:06

reminds the kids when they sneak off to

4:09

take a break. This

4:13

is grueling work, especially

4:15

in this 100 degree heat. Everyone's

4:18

sweating right through their shirts, but

4:20

it's fun too. It's family time.

4:24

Nate radiates this joyful exuberant

4:26

energy, even hours into handling

4:28

one angry, spitting

4:30

cow after another. This

4:33

is his element. It's going good

4:35

for a hot, sunny,

4:37

cold day. I

4:39

know what you got some ears. Yeah,

4:42

we gotta, gotta

4:44

enjoy it. It'll

4:46

work for you there. You gotta know

4:49

how to do your time. You know

4:51

what I mean? You have fun out here? Oh

4:53

yeah. You hear some of the crap

4:56

talking going on. You ain't gonna get away with

4:58

nothing out here. Yeah.

5:02

Everybody wants to tell somebody something. That's

5:05

just kind of cowboy way. Nate

5:07

talks about the cowboy way a

5:09

lot. Sure. It's

5:12

about making hard work more fun, but

5:14

it's also more serious than that. It's

5:17

a common creed in this part of the country, a kind

5:19

of morality, a way of living life, being

5:22

connected to the land, to nature, and

5:24

to the ancestors who are here before

5:26

you. It's a code,

5:28

cowboys like Nate follow to

5:31

live with un-bendable integrity,

5:33

courage, and self-respect

5:36

to show up on a Saturday morning in a

5:38

hundred degree heat to care for your herd. We

5:40

don't like it ourselves getting in this kind of

5:42

weather, but just

5:44

have the cowboy way, you just got to do what you got to do. And

5:47

for Nate, keeping the cowboy

5:49

way alive has been a battle.

5:55

I'm April Simpson and from

5:57

the Center for Public Integrity.

6:00

This is season 3 of heist.

6:05

This season, heist by the

6:07

U.S. government, was land and

6:10

wealth from America's black

6:12

farmers and ranchers. One

6:14

city found that black farmers lost $326 billion

6:17

in land in the 20th century alone. That's

6:26

more than the entire GDP of Chile

6:28

or Colombia. I

6:30

started reporting on rural issues five years ago,

6:33

which led me to writing about agriculture. I

6:36

grew up in rural America, but I'm not a

6:38

farm kid. So it's

6:40

only through my reporting I learned

6:42

about the long, documented history of

6:44

government discrimination against black farmers and

6:46

ranchers. That

6:49

discrimination has largely been at the hands

6:51

of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the

6:54

USDA. It

6:56

was established by President Lincoln during the

6:58

Civil War and grew to serve

7:00

all farmers and ranchers to help them

7:02

keep their businesses alive through droughts

7:05

and storms and market crashes so

7:08

that they can feed the country. And

7:10

government support has arguably become more

7:12

important as agriculture has become more

7:14

challenging. Land costs

7:16

have soared. Inflation has

7:18

driven up the cost of equipment and

7:21

supplies. And big corporations have come

7:23

to control much of the industry. It's very hard

7:25

to be a small player. I

7:31

first heard about USDA discrimination

7:33

from elder farmers. And

7:36

over the decades, there have been

7:38

congressional hearings on reports about it.

7:41

But I started to wonder whether it's

7:43

still going on today. That

7:46

led me to a quest for data from

7:48

the USDA that could help us see how

7:50

the department is treating black farmers. And

7:53

it led me to Nate Bradford.

7:56

His story is both extraordinary

7:58

and ordinary. story

8:00

about how Nate went to the USDA

8:02

for help, but instead

8:04

met obstacle after obstacle, nearly

8:07

killing his ranching business. A

8:10

story that shows how a history

8:12

of discrimination looms over Nate

8:14

and other young, black

8:17

ranchers. On

8:30

another hot Oklahoma summer day,

8:32

Camille and I are driving to Nate's house,

8:34

which is two left turns and about 16

8:37

miles outside of his hometown,

8:39

Foley. We pass a

8:41

large prison on the way. A highway

8:43

sign warns us hitchhikers could be

8:45

escaped inmates. Others

8:48

tell us we're near tribal nations. Turn

8:50

off the two lane highway and the roads are mostly

8:53

dirt or gravel and littered

8:55

with roadkill. Green

8:57

hills roll into the horizon and

8:59

cattle lie in whatever shade they can

9:01

find, desperate to avoid the sun. There

9:04

are horses here and there and lots

9:06

of farmhouses. Some

9:09

look abandoned and others look brand new. We

9:12

see a sign with Nate to dress on it

9:14

and the letter B for Bradford. Nate's

9:17

house is at the end of a

9:19

winding gravel driveway. Nate's

9:22

house is a really neat, thoughtfully

9:24

decorated farmhouse. There are

9:26

times by the front door, flower pots,

9:28

a sleepy dog, and

9:30

as I knock on the door, I notice a beautiful

9:33

wreath hanging on it. Soon

9:35

enough, Nate opens the door with

9:37

a big smile. Good morning. How

9:40

are we doing? Good, how are you? I've been out

9:42

this morning. Come on in. I've

9:46

talked to Nate dozens of times over the past

9:48

few months and I'm struck by how different

9:50

he seems today. Much

9:52

more relaxed. I'm on

9:54

vacation. It's

9:57

about good as it's gonna get. Education

10:00

means he's only doing ranch work Normally

10:03

to make ends meet Nate works nights at

10:05

a gas plant an hour away He

10:09

uses time before or after shifts and

10:11

his weekends to work on the ranch

10:14

His sons have often helped him me and

10:16

my boys, you know No, John would come in

10:18

but get started on a Friday. We just finished

10:20

on Sunday about 10 o'clock There

10:23

was a net go to school on Monday morning We

10:25

were chasing cows, you

10:27

know working cows moving cows Today

10:30

he's relatively well rested

10:33

and eager He

10:40

carefully takes off his work boots once

10:42

we step inside and walks us into

10:44

his dining room Which has warm

10:46

maroon walls and a maple table that

10:48

we all sit around It's

10:52

my chair Nate

10:56

and I have had dozens of conversations, but

10:58

this is one of the first times we're

11:00

meeting in person And he

11:03

wants to check in about what exactly we're here to

11:05

do. I Would say

11:07

one more you guys go We'll

11:10

show you our goals is to do what? Our

11:13

goal. Yeah This

11:18

would like to see Well,

11:24

I'd say I want to Tell

11:26

a good story like a real story that

11:29

hits on a lot

11:31

of the systemic problems That

11:34

we know exist in

11:36

the USDA and just in agriculture Yeah,

11:41

what do you want what's your goal? man,

11:43

my goal is to We're

11:46

full-time ranchers of my goal is to you

11:48

know I get

11:51

you know the message out there. There's

11:54

a lot of people going out of business right

11:56

now Nate

11:58

grew up in Bole a black regardless

14:00

of race, do have off-farm

14:02

jobs. Still, there

14:05

are ranchers who pull this off. And

14:08

Nate's been working towards that goal for the last

14:10

20 years. It's

14:13

put a strain on his finances

14:15

and his relationships. But

14:18

for all the hours, years he's put

14:20

in, the ranch still

14:22

hasn't made enough money for Nate to quit his job.

14:26

And the clock is ticking for Nate. He's

14:28

not going to keep working at it forever, just

14:31

until he turns 50, which is about

14:33

six years away. When

14:35

I turn 50, I'm

14:38

going to look at this deal with

14:41

a whole other set of glasses. I don't wanna lose

14:43

my family. And I

14:45

don't wanna lose no more friends by

14:48

being buried so deep in

14:51

this deal. But you ain't

14:53

got time to

14:55

be on earth, you know what I mean? Just to be

14:57

normal. I can't run like this for

14:59

20 years, 20 more years, right? How

15:02

we gonna make it happen, you know what

15:04

I mean? It's almost looking possible. I

15:07

think my heart is getting tight. I think

15:09

I'm about it. A lot

15:12

of pressure. But,

15:16

you know, gotta

15:19

make a way. The

15:21

way I see it, there are two

15:24

major forces that have made it seem

15:26

impossible for Nate to succeed as a

15:28

rancher, no matter how many

15:30

hours he and his family put into the business.

15:33

They're headwinds I hear about from people across

15:36

the country, and they're the

15:38

key to understanding why black farmers and

15:40

ranchers have been losing land and wealth

15:42

at such a devastating pace. The

15:45

first big force is the transformation of

15:47

the American cattle industry. The

15:50

US is the world's largest producer

15:52

of beef, but many

15:54

smaller ranchers have been squeezed out

15:56

by four companies that control most

15:59

of the. houses that ranchers

16:01

sell to. Ranchers used

16:03

to be able to do one thing to

16:05

survive. If they had land

16:07

suitable for grazing, they could run a

16:09

cow-calf operation, raising cows, breeding

16:12

them and then selling the calves

16:14

or the adult animals at a stockyard. But

16:18

now, ranchers have to do a

16:20

lot more to stay in the game.

16:22

Nate has a term I really like for this, the Walmartification

16:25

of ranching. Walmart,

16:29

it sold a lot of cheap stuff, but

16:31

what they brought in food,

16:34

clothes, toys, tires,

16:36

auto center. That's

16:39

where ag is now. If you

16:41

think you're going to do, you might

16:43

just specialize in a cow-calf deal, but

16:45

ain't going to be enough money to sustain this

16:48

business that's got to where you

16:50

have to do everything of it. We are

16:53

doing that and still not sustaining. You're

16:57

listening to an episode of The Heist

16:59

on True Crime by Indie Drop-In. We're

17:01

going to take a quick break. This

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now back to this episode of The

18:34

Heist. Here's

18:39

our property. It's 160 acres. We built this in 2003. To give us

18:41

a sense of everything he's

18:49

added to his operation, Nate's walking

18:51

us around G-Line. Here on G-Line

18:53

Ranch, what all we do, a little

18:55

bit of everything. His cattle are at the

18:58

center of his business. His

19:00

income grows for every pound he can put on

19:02

the animals. Goal is to get him

19:04

to a thousand twelve hundred pounds. Yeah,

19:07

which is, takes about a 16

19:10

month process. Keeping

19:12

his cattle healthy with the kind

19:14

of deworming and vaccinations we saw

19:16

gets him a higher price and

19:18

a bigger profit. Because those

19:21

animals, because they know the

19:23

death rate, the sickness rate

19:25

is greatly declined. Raising the

19:27

cattle means buying feed too.

19:30

For all the acres Nate owns, not all of

19:33

it is suitable for grazing. He's

19:35

got to supplement it with hay. So

19:38

Nate started farming hay as well while

19:40

also trying to improve more of his land

19:42

for grazing. It

19:44

all takes a lot of equipment and a

19:46

lot of time. It's 24-7, you know.

19:49

I tell my job, my boys,

19:51

that it's a place open 24-7.

19:54

So there's something to do around

19:56

here all the time. But

19:58

selling hay and raising, breeding,

20:01

and selling cattle. It

20:03

hasn't been enough to make Q-Line consistently

20:05

profitable. The money

20:07

coming in has an outweighed the costs of

20:09

paying for its land, maintaining it, and

20:12

buying equipment and feed. So

20:15

Nate decided to make a big

20:17

move towards Walmartification by

20:20

selling beef directly to customers.

20:24

Trying to sell straight from my farm to

20:27

the plate type of deal. We're selling G-Line

20:30

beef. So, you know, me

20:32

and my wife started this, started doing this about

20:34

2010. We

20:38

didn't really have much success. And

20:40

the internet wasn't as popular. And

20:42

so we've gotten, you

20:44

know, right now, our whole family is

20:47

involved. And so it's a lot bigger and better

20:49

deal now. Everybody's involved and help

20:51

them sell G-Line Ranch

20:54

beef. But selling

20:56

beef to customers is totally different

20:58

from selling animals at a stockyard.

21:01

It means Nate needs to be a marketer too. So

21:05

Nate's gotten into TikTok. He's

21:07

using it to build the Q-Line Ranch. He

21:11

posts videos of life as a rancher, getting

21:14

a cow's head unstuck from a hay

21:16

ring, joking about buying

21:18

feed during a drought, dancing

21:21

with his kids at the corral, cutting

21:23

off a cow's ingrown horn. That

21:26

one has over 4 million views. I

21:30

use, it's called a OB cable,

21:34

used for like amputating your leg because it

21:36

makes a good sharp cut. She

21:38

actually kind of relaxed and

21:40

was like, oh, I just feel so much better. I

21:43

know you're doing what I need. You know

21:45

what I mean? And so- Nate's great at

21:47

TikTok. His videos are

21:50

funny, surprising, and really charming.

21:53

I can see how it would make someone want

21:55

to support him and buy Q-Line beef. One

21:58

of my favorite things about his video- videos are the

22:00

music pairings, like he has

22:02

one about deer hunting paired with these

22:05

lyrics. I wouldn't wait forever,

22:07

just shoot your shot. TikTok

22:10

is a place for Nate to show the

22:12

countless skills that go into ranching, to

22:15

talk about the things that make it hard to

22:17

survive in the industry, and to promote everything

22:19

Keyline is doing. He

22:22

posts videos of cooking with Keyline

22:24

beef, bailing hay, and working on another

22:26

project the family has taken on, processing

22:29

deer meat out of a semi-trailer behind his

22:32

house. It's

22:34

another product line for Keyline,

22:36

another potential income stream. One

22:39

of Nate's sons came up with the idea when he

22:41

realized there was nobody else doing it nearby. Hey,

22:44

Dad, they don't have

22:46

anywhere for deer processing. I

22:49

think we need to get a deer processing. Go

22:52

on over, what can you do? So

22:55

I come across a deal with

22:57

this 52-foot semi-trailer. So

23:02

this semi-trailer has a cooler in front of it,

23:04

and we process deer out of it. We

23:07

make summer sausage, and we're

23:09

going to look at making some other stuff, maybe

23:11

do some deer jerky, jerky

23:14

sticks or something. My son wants

23:17

to do because people had

23:20

a strong interest, and they liked our product. So

23:22

it was like, hey, why not? Another

23:25

product line, another potential source

23:28

of income, and also

23:30

more work. Nate

23:34

and his family do all the labor

23:36

on the ranch. Keyline

23:38

is a product of their skills, ideas,

23:40

and hard work. Unlike

23:43

larger ranches, Nate doesn't have other

23:45

employees to count on. Despite

23:49

all that, Nate's dream lives on. He

23:51

still imagines what his life would look like if,

23:54

one day, all that work made the ranch

23:57

really successful, and all the labor he did was to

23:59

make sure that he was successful. labor wasn't just on him

24:01

and his family. I

24:03

know I have this house here, but I would

24:05

like to cross the street and

24:07

go to the backside and build a new house on

24:09

top of the hill back there

24:11

and, um, have

24:14

a ranch foreman stay in this house

24:16

here. Help me see about the

24:18

ranch. That's

24:20

what, that's what the dream would be. Sounds

24:24

nice. Is

24:26

this business kind of isolating sometimes?

24:30

Um, I would say it's

24:32

really isolating. Um, you know, everybody kind of goes

24:34

through the same thing, but it's, um,

24:37

so it's, I say it's kind of spiritual. It's

24:39

cause you just said, uh, you

24:42

at the mercy of whatever, you know,

24:44

God has to provide, you know what I mean? Um,

24:47

you know, it's not, it's not manmade. Uh,

24:49

this is all about mother nature. Um,

24:52

you can't get closer to God, you

24:54

know, then in, in this business. Yeah.

24:59

Mother nature definitely has a strong hand

25:01

in the agriculture business, but

25:04

farmers and ranchers can get support

25:06

to survive droughts, bad winters, and

25:08

brutal storms. The

25:10

US department of agriculture is supposed to

25:12

help people with that and much more.

25:15

But for Nate and many other

25:17

black farmers and ranchers, getting

25:19

the help they need from the USDA has

25:22

become another battle. More

25:25

after the break. The

25:48

USDA offers farmers and ranchers subsidies

25:50

and loans to help them whether

25:53

agriculture is tough and unpredictable

25:55

economics. The subsidies

25:58

are often direct payments. help

26:00

farmers recover after something like a

26:02

natural disaster or to

26:04

get them through the disruptions of an

26:06

unexpected event like the COVID-19 pandemic. USDA

26:11

loans are a crucial lifeline too.

26:14

A lot of what farmers and ranchers need to

26:16

start and run a business, animals,

26:19

acres of land, big

26:21

equipment like tractors, is expensive.

26:25

It requires a big investment.

26:28

Often it requires a loan. And

26:31

if you're a rancher or farmer, you

26:34

may not be able to borrow from a regular bank. Most

26:37

don't have an agricultural lending

26:39

department or they might see

26:41

it as too risky if

26:43

you have a low credit

26:46

score or little experience or

26:48

because agriculture is so unpredictable.

26:50

Instead, you go to the part

26:52

of the USDA that manages loans, the

26:55

Farm Service Agency or

26:57

FSA. The

26:59

FSA is the primary

27:01

lending agency for family sized

27:04

farms that can't get credit

27:06

anywhere else. But

27:09

the idea is that eventually once a

27:11

farmer or rancher's business is stable, they

27:13

will be able to move to a

27:15

business loan with a commercial bank. In

27:19

a typical year across the country, the

27:21

FSA issues about ten billion

27:24

dollars in loans. FSA

27:28

loan officers are supposed to

27:30

understand the economic realities of

27:32

agriculture. That revenue can be determined

27:34

more by the whims of mother nature

27:36

than the abilities of farmers. Maybe

27:39

your calves, you in a drought year, your

27:42

calves come in, they win 380

27:44

pounds instead of 480 pounds and now you need

27:47

to hold them three months

27:52

to precondition them and

27:55

allow you to sell at a

27:58

higher market. you're

28:00

looking in the situation like, well, I'm short.

28:03

Well, the cow ain't gonna have

28:05

another baby till next year. Loan

28:07

officers are trained to understand a situation

28:09

like that and to respond with flexibility

28:12

and support. But the response

28:14

often depends on the office and its

28:16

leadership. And

28:18

black farmers and ranchers have not had the

28:20

kind of help that white people have had.

28:23

The USDA has a long documented

28:26

history of discrimination against black

28:28

ranchers. Nate

28:31

knew about that history. His dad

28:33

says he experienced it directly and had lost

28:35

land and wealth as a

28:37

result. I was already kind of

28:40

known what I was up against. You know

28:42

what I mean? When

28:45

Nate was starting out, he needed an

28:47

FSA loan for cattle and another to

28:49

buy some land. But he

28:51

was wary. It was not going to help

28:53

me fill in the blanks. I

28:56

knew I had to know how to fill it

28:58

out. So what made

29:00

my situation better than my dad's situation

29:02

was I was

29:05

more educated than my dad. It

29:08

took two years, but in 2000, Nate

29:10

was approved for an FSA loan to

29:12

buy cattle. He then got

29:14

another loan to buy land. But

29:17

in the long run, those loans would

29:19

threaten his business, his land,

29:21

and his home. How would

29:24

I, I cannot say

29:26

this. So it's kind of like

29:29

the farm service agency is kind of like

29:32

you got this got this molester guy in

29:34

the family that you know you don't want

29:38

nobody to be around. But

29:40

he's part of the family and you got to deal

29:42

with it. That's the

29:44

way I went into FSA.

29:47

I mean, I knew I was

29:49

dancing with the devil. This

29:56

season, we're going to follow Nate's

29:58

struggle with FSA. and

30:01

our struggle to get government data that

30:03

could help us really understand how Black

30:05

farmers and ranchers are being treated by

30:07

the FSA. Whether

30:10

the systemic discrimination faced by generations

30:12

of Black farmers and ranchers is

30:14

still at play today. Because

30:17

this isn't just a story about

30:19

Nate and G-Line ramps, USDA

30:22

discrimination has had an

30:24

enormous impact on American agriculture.

30:28

In 1910, Black farmers held

30:30

between 16 and 19 million

30:33

acres of farmland. But

30:35

according to the latest census of agriculture, in 2017,

30:38

they owned just over 2.5 million acres of active

30:40

farmland. That's

30:46

around an 85% decrease. As

30:50

Nate struggled to hold on to his land,

30:52

he's also learned about the broader history of

30:54

Black farmers and ranchers. And

30:57

it's made him even more determined to succeed.

31:01

They came out of slavery,

31:03

and after 1920, 1921

31:05

was a tough race ride and industrial change, you know what

31:07

I mean? The

31:12

world was changing. Dust Bowl rolled

31:15

up. They

31:17

all declined, and the numbers just declined

31:19

off. But how did the

31:21

people gain so much coming

31:25

out of slavery? And now that

31:28

it just was going down, I can't sit here and

31:30

just watch it. For

31:32

many Black farmers and ranchers, their struggles

31:34

with the FSA aren't just about a

31:37

loan or a piece of land. Or,

31:40

in Nate's case, realizing a dream.

31:43

Rural Black life, rural

31:46

Black agricultural life, has

31:48

its own traditions, its own

31:50

place in American culture. Nate

31:53

is part of a very particular

31:55

kind of the cowboy way, one

31:58

that he thinks is worth preserving. We

32:01

do a lot of things in the United States. We

32:03

don't shoot the American Eagle. We don't

32:05

kill it. We don't,

32:08

you know, stuff that's about

32:10

to be extinct, those animals we

32:12

save them. All I'm saying is we

32:14

save a lot of stuff in the United States. You

32:17

know, what is the bad thing about

32:19

saving a black rancher? Next

32:24

time on the heist, Nate

32:26

faces his first big obstacle as a

32:28

rancher and doesn't get the

32:30

support he needs from the SSA. I just

32:34

wasn't, in his eyes, worthy

32:39

of, you know what I mean?

32:42

I've been counted out. Stereotypes.

32:49

This season of the heist is hosted by

32:51

me, April Simpson, and

32:54

brought to you by the Center for Public

32:56

Integrity. This episode

32:58

was written and produced by Camille Peterson.

33:01

Our team

33:03

includes Kiara Powell, Wilson

33:05

Sare, Sarah Nicks, Kechel

33:08

Williams, Daniel Donald, McNelly

33:11

Torres, Matt DiRanzo,

33:14

Jamie Smith-Hopkins, Lisa

33:16

Yannick Litwiller, Ashley

33:18

Clark, Vanessa Lee, Charlie

33:21

Dodge, and Janine Jones. Our

33:25

fact checker is Peter Newbit.

33:28

This episode was mixed by Louis from

33:30

Story Art. And

33:32

this podcast was produced in partnership with

33:34

the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at

33:36

the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism

33:39

at the City University of New York.

33:42

Special thanks to Rural Advancement

33:44

Foundation International USA. Thanks

33:58

again for listening to 2 Indie

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