Ideas are no guarantee to become policy. Proposals are no certainty to become law. But one that spans more than 900 pages has some agricultural leaders sounding a warning.
“Project 2025 is awful for Midwest farmers and biofuels,” a guest opinion column headline in the Des Moines Register blared.
Project 2025 is a detailed blueprint for the next Republican president of the United States to use after taking office in 2025. Here are the four main parts:
1. Policy guide
2. Database of personnel to oversee its implementation
3. Training for the new personnel
4. Playbook of the actions to be taken within the first 180 days in office
As the social right in politics got better organized and better funded, it found much more success getting candidates elected that pushed its priorities: limiting or eliminating abortion, ending DEI priorities (diversity, equity, and inclusion), restricting LGTBQ and gender discussions at schools, increasing public funding for private or parochial schools, and minimizing separation between church and state by promoting a Christian nationalism mantra for governing.
The Heritage Foundation, a non-profit based in Washington, D.C., has created what it considers a blueprint for the next president, Republican Donald Trump in this case, to use to remake the executive branch of the federal government and the Americans who work for it.
“…building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish,” the group states about its mission on its website, “to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”
Numerous former Trump staffers helped to create the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Project 2025 would significantly reduce the size and scope of the federal government and make more federal employees political appointees rather than civil service public servants.
But the changes that would impact various aspects of agriculture are what fueled two industry leaders to warn about the impact in that Des Moines Register newspaper opinion column.
“If the Heritage Foundation had its way, the next President would demand that Congress significantly cut federally supported crop insurance, eliminate the Conservation Reserve Program, phase out certain H-2 work visas, and repeal agricultural export promotion programs like USDA’s Market Access Program,” wrote Jon Doggett, former CEO of the National Corn Growers Association, and Bob Dinneen, former President/CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association.
The two write that Project 2025 also wants a full repeal of the Agricultural Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs, “which serve as crucially important safety nets to protect farmers against sudden and unforeseen commodity price crashes and revenue losses.”
The men characterize the two federal programs as imperfect and in need of “tweaks” but say the programs have “generally been effective.”
The leaders also warn of the Project 2025 recommendation to prohibit the USDA from “using its discretionary authority to manage Commodity Credit Corp. funding.” And they point out how if those restrictions would have already been in place during the Trump administration, they would have prevented him from distributing billions of tax dollars to U.S. farmers to offset some of the financial losses they suffered because of his trade war with China.
Ethanol and carbon capture/sequestration growth could also suffer under Project 2025’s proposal, the two leaders contend.
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