Slim margins, climate disasters, and Trump’s funding freeze: Life or death for many US farms
When the Trump administration announced for the first time a freezing of all federal funding in January, farmers across the country were pushed to be unfair.
More than a month later, the fourth generation farms Adam Chapheel continue to wait for the US Department of Agriculture to pay it for $ 25,000, which he paid from his pocket to implement preservation practices such as coverage crops. Until he knows the fate of federal programs that keep the small rice farm in Arkansas on its feet, unable to prepare for its next crop. Things have become very bad, so that the 45 -year -old is considering leaving the only job he knows at all. “I do not know who we can count on and whether we can rely on it as a whole to accomplish it,” Chapella said. “This is what I am afraid of.”
In Virginia, the freezing of financing forced a sustainable cultivation network that supports young farmers throughout the state to suspend operations. Brent Wales, a producer and director of a livestock program at the Virginia Association for Biological Agriculture, said almost all of the organization’s financing comes from the programs of the US Department of Agriculture that have been frozen or canceled. The three -time team is now scrambling to reach an emergency plan while trying to panic about whether approximately $ 50,000 in debt grants will be compensated.
“It is very devastating,” said Wales. “The short -term effects of this bad enough, but the long -term effects? We cannot even refuse it now.”
In North Carolina, the beekeeping process did not receive 14,500 dollars after emergency financing from the US Department of Agriculture to rebuild after Hurricane Helen washed 60 cells of the cell. “They have more than 45,000 dollars in granting the US -frozen Ministry of Agriculture.” They have delayed production, which led to $ 15,000 of losses. They are also not sure of an additional $ 100,000 future for their grants. “I must rethink my business plan,” Royel said. “I am shocked.”
Within the jurisdiction of the US Department of Agriculture, the freezing of financing aimed at two main categories of financing: grant requests that link agricultural work to the initiatives of diversity, fairness and inclusion and those that were enacted according to the law to reduce inflation, which allocated more than 19.5 billion dollars To be paid for several years. Added to uncertainty in freezing financing, between Tens of thousands of federal employees Those who have lost their jobs in the last weeks of officials who manage the various US Ministry of Agriculture programs.
After the initial freezing, the courts have repeatedly ordered the administration to grant access to all funds, but the agencies followed a gradual approach, and issued funding in “slides”. Although the Environmental Protection Agency and the Ministry of Interior have issued large parts of funding, the US Department of Agriculture has moved slowly, noting the need to review programs with the financing of the Irish Republican Army. In some cases, though, I have completely completed the contractsIncluding those who have relationships with the largest investment ever in the agency in climate agriculture.
In late February, the US Department of Agriculture announced it was Launching 20 million dollars For farmers who have already obtained grants – the first chip of the agency.
According to Lavender, Director of Policy in the National Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, $ 20 million amounts to “less than one percent” of the money due. He appreciates his team Three programs funded by the Irish Republican Army promised a law by about $ 2.3 billion through 30,715 contracts to keep educators, farmers and forests. These contracts have passed through the environmental quality incentives program, the preservation supervision program, and the agricultural preservation program. “In some ways, it is a positive sign that some of them were released,” said Lavender. “But I think, on a larger scale, it’s very unimportant. For the vast majority, [this] Nothing at all. “
Saul Lub / AFP via Getty Images
A week later, US Secretary of Agriculture, Brock Rollins, announced that the agency will be able to meet a deadline on March 21, which Congress imposed to distribute an additional amount of $ 10 billion in emergency relief payments.
Then, on Sunday, March 2, Rollins released an advertisement that provided hope for some farmers, but a few details. in Press statementThe US Department of Agriculture stated that the Agency’s review of the Irish Republican Army Funds has been completed and that the money related to EQIP, CSP and ACP will be issued, but it did not clarify the unexplained amount. The statement also announced a commitment to distribute an additional amount of $ 20 billion in disaster assistance.
Lavender described the Rollins statement as “boundaries of nothing burger” to the point of “mystery”. It was not clear, and he continued, if Rollins refer to the first segment of funding or if the statement announces a second segment – and if the latter is the latter, then what is the amount that is released. “The uncertainty still prevails. We need more clarity.”
The US Department of Agriculture did not respond to GRI’s request for clarification.
Farmers who know that they are women, strange or particularly colored people about the status of their contracts. Roel, beekeepers, said that their financing requests celebrated the various workforce development program for their operations. Now, Royle, who uses their/conscience, fears that their current contracts and suspended applications will be targeted for the same reason. (Federal agencies were following up Executive Take the goal to “end the radical and wasted government DEI programs.”)
“This seems to be an explicit attack on sustainable agriculture, on small companies, strange people, bipoc, and farmers for women,” said Roel. “Because at this point, all our projects are marked as Dei. We do not know whether we are allowed to make corrections for these presentations or if they will become completely because of the language in projects that are made for women or strange people.”
The effects of this financing on this funding on the agricultural economy already in America, Rebecca Wolf, a prominent food policy analyst at Food & Water Watch, is very concerned. With a strain Agricultural recession Wa3 on the horizon in areas such as the Middle West, and the number of American farms Already in a fixed decreaseYou see that the freezing freezing and the continuing mass employees of federal employees “ultimately leads to the way for more monotheism.” Given that the administration “intentionally dismantling programs that help support our young and medium farmers,” Wolf said this may lead to “the loss of these farms, then the loss of land ownership.”
Other consequences may be more accurate, but no less important. According to Umagana Josouami, the world of soil that carries the non -profit union for scientists concerned, freezing financing, demobilizing workers, and Trump administration’s hostility towards climatic measures is to put an agricultural sector in America to contribute more than carbon emissions.
Agriculture is around 10.6 percent Among the American carbon emissions in 2021. When farmers implement preservation practices in their farms, this can improve air and water quality and increase the soil capacity to store carbon. Such tactics can not only Reducing agricultural emissions, But many programs are stimulated by the review now. “When we look at the scale of this, it is huge,” said Josouami. “If this financing is translated, or even removed completely, this means that the effect and contribution of agriculture on climate change will increase.”
The Trump administration’s attack on farmers comes at a time when the agricultural industry faces multiple existential crises. For one, narrow times for farmers. In 2023, the average family income of agriculture was $ 900. This means that half of all families that led to the income from cultivation to a loaded.
In addition, in 2023, natural disasters in agricultural losses caused nearly $ 22 billion. High temperatures slowing plant growth, frequent floods and dryness remove the harvest, and forest fires are burned through the fields. With the insurance for only a sub -group of these losses, farmers are increasingly pushing from his pocket. Last year, the effects of the severe weather, the high costs of employment and production, the imbalances in supply and global demand, and the increase in price fluctuations to all of them What some economists have identified The worst fiscal year in the industry in nearly two decades.
Elliot Smith, who helps the kitchen strategies in the kitchen in Washington, Washington, says that young farmers such as fresh food schools, this position has completely changed how the federal government is seen. Since the main grants of freezing for farmers and food companies that work with them across at least 10 different states, emerging contracts stop and stop a list of ongoing projects, Smith said that the experiment has now made it considered federal funding “unstable.”
Finally, freezing is not only threatened with the future of Smith’s business, but also the future of farmers and local food systems working throughout the country. “The entire ecosystem is stuck in its place. The US Department of Agriculture looks like a dwarf that has seen the sun. It was frozen. He said,” They cannot move. “
