USDA Farm Service Agency reserves funds each year to make loans to socially disadvantaged applicants to buy and operate family-size farms. A socially disadvantaged farmer is one of a group whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic, or gender prejudice because of their identity as members of the group without regard to their individual qualities. For the purposes of this program, socially disadvantaged groups have been defined as women, Blacks or African Americans, American Indians or Alaskan Natives, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders.