I've first hand experienced discrimination based on race and sex when dealing with the USDA FSA loan program for beginning farmers.

I get the sense that there are not a lot of farmers or rural people in this group at all. Seems mostly urban, but does anybody have any other information about this? Data or other info?

FSA has a Beginning Farmer program to help small beginners to get started. With out going into details farming is not an enterprise you go into to get rich. There is a huge up front capital cost and ongoing expenses just to barley get by. It is however an essential underpinning of society. Food. Most of you probably don't give it much thought other than just go to the store. However that food does not magically appear.

FSA has several distinct programs for helping to finance a farm startup. There is:

Minority and Women Farmers and Ranchers https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/farm-loan-programs/minority-and-women-farmers-and-ranchers/index

and

Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Loans https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/farm-loan-programs/beginning-farmers-and-ranchers-loans/index

Among others.

I was told that for all of them not just the Minority and Women Farmers and Ranchers program that if I was not a woman or minority my chances of getting financing are basically zero.

How can this discrimination be legal from a Federal program?