(npr) After rallying across the South last week, black farmers plan to be in Washington, D.C., on Monday to call on the government to "pay up" on its more than 10-year-old promise to compensate for discrimination. Despite the conditions of the 1999 civil rights settlement, more than 70,000 black farmers have yet to see a penny. Vern Switzer is 63 years old, but he still single-handedly farms 19 acres of land along a busy country road just outside Winston Salem, N.C. He is one of only about 30,000 black farmers in America today. These farmers are mostly in the South and represent just 1.5 percent of total farm operators in America, compared to 14 percent back in 1920. Switzer says he is part of a dying breed. "This is why you cannot get any more young black farmers in it, because they see the struggle that the older black farmers got — being discriminated and mistreated," he says. "Why would you want to get into something like that?"

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