2 US farmers2 US farmers - Picture from NBC News

Food & Climate

It has only been a few days since US farmers began to suffer from the effects of new President Donald Trump’s view of climate change, which he quickly turned into decisions that could destroy much of the support they received from his predecessor, Joe Biden, to confront the effects of the climate crisis, and measures aimed at combating it or adapting to it.

In the first Trump administration (2017-2021), officials buried government-funded research that showed the impacts of climate change on US farmers, including issues like volatile weather and increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

In 2019, USDA also refused to release a multiagency plan to help US farmers respond and adapt to a changing climate, according a report seen by “Food & Climate” platform.

Under former President Joe Biden’s Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, USDA spent $3.1 billion on the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, working with private food companies, nonprofits and universities to research ways for farmers to reduce their carbon footprint, develop more resilient crops and restore land.

Under the IRA, Congress directed USDA to pay billions of dollars to farmers for conservation practices, including some that address climate change. But Trump’s Day 1 executive order aims to halt agency payments for major climate, energy and infrastructure projects — and could jeopardize billions in payments as farmers prepare for planting season.

Deleting Website Pages on Climate Change

In a sign of what US farmers may face over the next four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, Agriculture Department employees have been ordered to delete landing pages discussing climate change across agency websites and document climate change references for further review, according to an internal email obtained by “POLITICO“.

The directive from USDA’s office of communications, whose authenticity was validated by three people, could affect information across dozens of programs including climate-smart agriculture initiatives, USDA climate hubs and Forest Service information regarding wildfires, the frequency and severity of which scientists have linked to hotter, drier conditions fueled by climate change. And it is reminiscent of moves made during the first Trump administration to remove references to climate change from federal government websites.

The email sent Thursday afternoon calls on website managers to “Identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” and “Identify all web content related to climate change and document it in a spreadsheet” for the office to review. It set a Friday deadline for handing over titles, links”.

The action comes as funds for clean energy and agriculture programs remain in limbo amid a federal spending review ordered by the Office of Management and Budget.

Donald Trump – Picture from Context News

The Trump administration has pushed to halt and reverse spending from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provided billions of dollars for wildfire management, clean energy investments and credits to store carbon dioxide that benefit rural communities USDA serves.

As of Friday, some landing pages remained active, such as for USDA Climate Hubs, a cross-agency effort to address and adapt to climate change. Others already appeared mothballed, like a page on USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities.

Extreme weather devastates some crops

The new USDA instructions come as California recovers from wildfires that could amount to the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, which scientists said climate change exacerbated. The U.S. Forest Service is the primary federal agency for preparing for and mitigating wildfires.

So, the California Department of Food and Agriculture recommended farmers who have experienced crop loss to look into their Noninsured Disaster Assistance Program, which” pays covered producers of covered noninsurable crops when low yields, loss of inventory, or prevent.

And Farmonaut, a group which targets goal to find real-life solutions to the problems farmers deal with, assessed Los Angeles wildfires Impact on agriculture.

US farmers – Picture from The New York Times

It said that avocado orchards lost 3,500 acres, vineyards fields 2,800 acres, vegetable Farms orchards 1,200 acres, citrus Groves 2,000 acres, and livestock Pastures 5,000 acres.

Extreme weather events just in the last few years have devastated the entire peach crop in Georgia, flooded farms in North Carolina and a disease called citrus greening — made worse by climate change — has led to sharp declines in Florida’s famed citrus crop.