The patience and worry for farmland owners about their financial livelihood got some relief as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced that the first round of expected federal funding will get released after the Trump administration had halted payments. Farmers and investors now wait to find out the status of additional funding that they previously expected.
Secretary Brooke Rollins praised producers in announcing that the USDA would honor contracts for farmers, including nearly $20 million in agreements for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.
“American farmers and ranchers are the backbone of our nation,” Rollins said in a statement released February 20th. “They feed, fuel, and clothe our nation—and millions of people around the world.”
RELATED: U.S. Secretary Brooke Rollins toured an egg-laying facility in Bogata, Texas, and met with farmers in Mount Pleasant, Texas, to discuss response efforts to highly pathogenic avian influenza. Read her office’s account of that visit here.
WFAA-TV reported that Rollins pledged that the Trump administration was working on the surge in egg prices that HPAI’s spread caused. Rollins said, “We will fix it.” Find that story here.
Rollins blamed the Biden administration for the need to pause some federal funding so the Trump administration could review commitments. “The past four years have been among the most difficult for American Agriculture, due in no small measure to Biden’s disastrous policies of over-regulation, extreme environmental programs, and crippling inflation,” Rollins statement read.
“Unfortunately, the Biden administration rushed out hundreds of millions of dollars of IRA funding that was supposed to be distributed over eight years. After careful review, it is clear that some of this funding went to programs that had nothing to do with agriculture—that is why we are still reviewing—whereas other funding was directed to farmers and ranchers who have since made investments in these programs.”
Her statement ended with assurance to producers that their funding would arrive. “We will honor our commitments to American farmers and ranchers, and we will ensure they have the support they need to be the most competitive in the world.”
The lack of initial communication and direction from the administration left farmers and ranchers concerned that they would be on the hook for 100% of the costs of some of the improvement projects that they had already begun. Some of that won’t disappear under the federal funding arrives.
In Alabama, a retired schoolteacher who has been working to convert an abandoned 27-acre property near Birmingham into a working farm wants to know if the Trump administration will fulfill its federal responsibility on the USDA assistance for the conversion.
“I can’t believe that my government would do this to me,” said Jeanine Bell.
Learn about her situation in this story from the Alabama Political Reporter.
There is similar uncertainty for Howard Berk, the president and co-founder of Ellijay Mushrooms in Ellijay, Georgia. Berk had applied for federal grant money for the first time. The experience has been nerve-racking as he now waits to see if the funding will arrive.
“There are more challenges,” he told National Public Radio’s Marketplace, “…more risk if we don’t have those USDA funds and loans.”
Listen to Berk’s concerns about what will happen to his mushroom farm in this story from Marketplace.
