Black farmers' $1.25 billion deal may fall through

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Black farmers are worried that a landmark deal to compensate them for discrimination faced over decades could slip through their fingers as a deadline looms without funding approved by lawmakers.

Last month, the Obama administration announced a $1.25 billion settlement with black farmers left out of loan and assistance programs administered by the U.S. Agriculture Department due to racism, one of the largest civil rights settlements in U.S. history.

But the deal was contingent on Congressional approval by March 31. Lawmakers leave on Friday for a two-week break, and there is no clear sign the funds will be approved by then.

Missing the deadline "would mean missing another planting season, more black farmers going out of business, more black farmers dying waiting for justice," said John Boyd Jr, head of the National Black Farmers Association.

The USDA's decision to settle without the money to back up the deal may require Boyd, the government and all of the law firms involved in the case to go back to the bargaining table if the March 31 deadline is not met.

"The reason we took the settlement was because we thought they were going to act swiftly," Boyd said.

But a last-ditch meeting with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and key appropriators and lawmakers on Capitol Hill late on Wednesday gave Boyd some optimism about the looming deadline.

"I don't think Secretary Vilsack would want to walk away from the deal," Boyd said after the meeting. "He seems sincere."

He hopes the administration will declare the settlement an emergency, which would waive Congress from the so-called "pay-go" requirement to trim budgets for other programs to fund the settlement.

The deal, known as Pigford II, was reached with the Justice Department and USDA on February 18. About $100 million had already been approved.

The original Pigford class-action lawsuit, named after North Carolina farmer Timothy Pigford, was filed against the USDA in 1997 after decades of the department not responding to black farmers' claims of discrimination.

It was settled two years later with more than 13,000 farmers receiving monetary awards and debt relief worth more than $1 billion.

But tens of thousands of farmers missed the filing deadline so their claims were denied. The new settlement would allow these farmers to again make their claims.

(Reporting by Jasmin Melvin; Editing by Richard Chang)