Food & Climate
Farmers and food organizations across the U.S. are cutting staff, halting investments and missing key funding amid the Trump administration freezing on a broad swath of grants of USDA, more than two dozen of U.S. farmers and agricultural support groups in seven states said.
All this comes as president Donald Trump has imposed new tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, sparking trade wars with the biggest buyers of U.S. farm products.
Trump on March 6 said he would exempt farm products like potash fertilizer from the tariffs until April 2. But if they eventually go into effect, the tariffs would hurt the $191 billion American agricultural export sector, raise costs for farmers struggling with low crop prices and send consumer grocery prices higher, farm groups warn, according a report seen by “Food & Climate” platform.
U.S. farmers sell in domestic market
“Trump said U.S. farmers should prepare to sell more domestic product. This is what we are trying to do. We just need our approved grant funding to be released”, Nate Powell-Palm, an organic farmer outside Belgrade, Montana, said.
Trump has historically enjoyed widespread support across the U.S. Farm Belt, where he won most states in the November election. But recent actions – like a freeze on most humanitarian aid and a broad review of federal spending that paused disbursements – have disrupted some agricultural markets and caused stress and confusion in farm country.
For example, some agricultural production lines have been halted. Two farmers, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive personal financial matters, told Reuters they were weeks away from being forced to file for bankruptcy because of the USDA freeze.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said the administration is making agencies more efficient, including to better serve farmers.
A USDA spokesperson said the administration is reviewing the frozen programs.
Trade wars
Though the U.S. farm sector previously faced sweeping trade wars under Trump, many have remained loyal even as his policies and tariffs damaged American farm sales and resulted in lost global market share that soybean growers still haven’t recovered. But many farmers last fall believed they were so politically important to Trump winning back the White House, that he would help cover their financial losses.
After all, it happened before. Under the first Trump administration, farmers received about $217 billion in farm payments, including crop support, disaster, and aid programs – more than in any prior four-year period since 1933, according to a Reuters examination of USDA data. Adjusted for inflation, the only period with more spending on farmers was 1984 to 1988, when a farm economic crisis battered rural America.
Agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins has said USDA is considering direct payments to farmers again if trade wars lead to farm losses.
Currently, the USDA administers hundreds of programs that support the agriculture sector, either through grants and loans, or direct payments and other subsidies.
Receiving $161 billion from USDA
From financial assistance programs alone, U.S. farmers and ranchers received $161 billion from USDA between fiscal years 2019 through 2023, according to a December report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Several of the grant recipients said their money came from former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provided more than $20 billion for farm and forestry conservation programs.
Trump froze IRA disbursements in his first days in office, though the White House said on January 22 that the freeze only applied to clean energy projects.
Dave Walton, a row crop farmer in Muscatine County, Iowa, said farmers had expected Trump’s administration to improve the federal safety net, not slash it.
“In farming, your word means something. If you sign a contract, that means something,” said Walton, who said he’s waiting on $6,000 from a USDA-funded program for climate-friendly farming.
Grain farmer Steve Tucker was awarded a $400,000 grant through Agricultural Marketing Service, which promotes domestic and foreign farm markets, to build a mill in southwest Nebraska.
He had planned to grind this year’s sorghum crop into flour and sell it to U.S. snack manufacturers, but now that’s on hold.
The broader grant freeze has also affected some farmers’ customers. Ed and Becky Morgan scrimped for years to grow their livestock herd as demand for their sausage varieties boomed, thanks to local public schools hungry for lunchtime links.
But the fate of USDA grants that help schools buy foodstuffs from local farmers – like the Morgans’ flavored sausages – remains uncertain, said Spencer Moss, the executive director of the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition in Charleston, West Virginia.
U.S. farmers have also been affected by spending freezes at other agencies, like USAID, which support programs that buy bulk farm commodities, according to “Reuters”.