The Aberdeen American News has the most incredible story today. It's about Herman Schumacher, a livestock sale barn owner and longtime advocate for independent cattle producers, who is about ready to lose his property. Schumacher and others had the temerity some time ago to file suit against several large meatpacking companies (Tyson, Cargill and Swift) claiming the companies violated federal law by manipulating prices paid to cattle raisers. Schumacher won. In the spring of 2006, a South Dakota jury ruled in his favor, finding that the packers "knowingly used erroneous U.S. Department of Agriculture price reports to pay less to producers for beef cattle." The jurors awarded the plaintiffs $9.25 million. 

An appeals court overturned that verdict and now Schumacher has a notice on his front door from the U.S. Marshal saying he owes about $16,000 to Tyson. (Picture above.) A federal judge ruled Schumacher owed that to defray the company's court costs. Now if Schumacher doesn't pay the bill, he'll lose his house in Herreid, South Dakota. He wins his case before a jury, but has that verdict taken away by judges.

“In a sense (the writ of execution) is on my door, but it's on the door of any producer that dares speak out” against meat packers, Schumacher said. “I really do think they're trying to make an example of me, to silence me."

John Boyd (above) is the kind of person that makes rural America like nowhere else in the world. The Washington Post has a front page profile of Boyd, a Virginia farmer who has been working eight and a half years to find some justice for nearly 70,000 black farmers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated for years against black farmers, denying them the programs and loans available to white farmers. Boyd was one of them. He lost his wife, family and nearly his farm when government officials literally tore up his loan application as he watched. Boyd joined a lawsuit against the federal government and, in 1999, he was among those black farmers who received a settlement from the USDA. But Boyd soon learned that 70,000 farmers didn't know about the suit or the settlement. 

Nearly 9 years ago, Boyd began lobbying Congress to offer compensation to those farmers, too. The Post follows John Boyd from his soybean farm in southern Virginia to the halls of Congress as he spends his time and money trying to find help for his fellow farmers. It is a story of uncommon will. (Be sure to watch the slide show.) 

President Obama has included $1.25 billion in his budget for these farmers. Boyd figures that is only half of what's needed to make these 70,000 whole. So Boyd leaves his farm — his broken tractor and hay that need baling — to drive to Washington, D.C. to talk to people who probably prefer that he just go away. What the Post story makes clear is that John Boyd isn't going anywhere. 

Back from hearings on the Department of Agriculture's proposed animal-tagging system, Richard Oswald provides an earful.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is holding 'listening sessions' on its plan to tag farm animals. Yonder writer Richard Oswald drives to Jefferson City, Missouri, to testify.