Farmers

Black farmers accused U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman of leading a racist agency that denies equal treatment in loan programs and allows their income to be "stolen" through land foreclosure. Glickman, in Atlanta to address the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, was taken aback by the harsh criticism. "Mr. Glickman and the racist USDA and racist Justice Department . . .

A $5.25-million settlement has been reached with the Chubb Group of Insurance Cos. and a subsidiary in a dispute over drought insurance sold to Minnesota farmers last spring, it was announced. Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Michael Hatch said about 770 Minnesota farmers may be eligible for payments under the agreement with the New Jersey-based Chubb and its subsidiary, Federal Insurance Co.

Masked gunmen using assault rifles killed eight Indian farmers and wounded three in an apparent land dispute, officials in Chiapas state said. The Thursday killings came a day before Mexican officials gathered in the remote jungle village of Guadalupe Tepeyac, 95 miles east of where the attack occurred, to close an army base. The closure fulfilled the last remaining demand of leftist Zapatista rebels for restarting peace talks.

After releasing 75,000 acre-feet of water to farmers in the drought-plagued Klamath Basin, federal officials will turn off the tap Thursday to protect endangered fish in Upper Klamath Lake. Department of Interior officials said Monday that waters feeding agriculture along the California-Oregon border must be reserved to protect sucker fish and coho salmon in the Klamath River. For months, farmers struggling against the worst drought in 100 years have fought for more irrigation water.

GARDENA farmers market may be the first of the contemporary craze ["The Idea That Shook the World," May 24], but there were many before. The first I know of in Los Angeles began in the late 1940s and was run by the Central Labor Council of Los Angeles. JOE LUBOW Los Angeles

Peach growers and other farmers deployed field heaters in a desperate effort to save their crops from a wave of arctic air washing across the snow-covered Midwest and into the South. Thousands of people still had no electricity in the Midwest, and Indiana sent helicopters searching for snowbound travelers. Flooding had chased about 7,000 people from their homes in the South. Record low temperatures included 9 below zero at Hastings, Neb.

Thousands of farmers blocked highways and clashed with police Tuesday to protest a U.S. trade deal that they say will ruin them financially. Police used tear gas to disperse rice growers who blocked roads and burned tires near Peru's border with Ecuador, and roadblocks by farmers in southern Peru backed up hundreds of buses and trucks along the main regional highways. Hundreds of people marched in Lima, the capital, while farmers blocked streets with rocks in the city of Arequipa.

This hoary old myth needs to be put to rest: Farmers do not use 80% of California's water supply. James Flanigan asserts it as fact in "Creating a Free-Flowing Market to Buy, Sell Water" [Oct. 24], but it's just not true. According to the state Department of Water Resources, agriculture uses 43% of the available water, which in itself is a fraction of the rain and snow that falls on California each year. Furthermore, most California farmers pay full price for their water, receiving no subsidy, and that price can vary widely.

North Korea today released two South Korean farmers abducted last week in the heavily fortified demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, a spokesman for the United Nations Command in Seoul said. The two South Koreans, a 66-year-old mother and her 41-year-old son, were returned at the United Nations truce village of Panmunjom, the U.N. Command spokesman said. On Friday, 12 armed North Korean soldiers abducted the two in a rice field near the village of Taesongdong, the U.N. Command said.

The protest had barred the unloading of a barley ship at the Port of Stockton after the grain dealer announced that it has no immediate plans for future imports. The American Agriculture Movement claimed that Continental Grain Co. agreed not to import any more barley or handle any commodity at American ports unless the price meets the cost of domestic production. The dispute began 11 days ago when longshoremen at the port honored farm pickets against unloading the ship from New Zealand.