The Agriculture Department is cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from a program aimed at helping farmers buy and retain land, three people familiar with the decision confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday.
The Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program, funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, awarded roughly $300 million to about 50 projects across the country for five-year contracts beginning in 2023.
Nonprofits, tribal governments and other organizations applied for the funding to address land access issues for underserved farmers — including access to capital, market expansions, succession planning and efforts to prevent land loss.
The projects were especially targeted to address land access issues facing Black farmers, immigrant farmers, Indigenous farmers, veterans and other underrepresented groups.
According to one of the cancellation letters shared with POLITICO, USDA determined that the program "involved discriminatory preferences based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" as well as "wasteful spending."
The letter also cited a March 2025 directive from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins directing USDA to review existing grants to ensure they do not promote DEI and are "free from fraud, abuse and duplication."
"USDA will prioritize unity, equality, meritocracy, and color-blindness in furtherance of the Department's mission," Farm Service Agency Associate Administrator Steven Peterson wrote in the March 23 letter.
Peterson said in the letter that the grants are discriminatory, do not align with congressional intent and have "unacceptably exposed taxpayers" to waste.
USDA spokesperson Alec Varsamis said in a statement the program was an example of "an egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars" and did not have a minimum requirement for "direct producer support."
"Under this Administration, USDA programs will uphold market principles, engage in fiscal discipline, and provide adequate funding to the farmers it exists to support," he added.
The cancellations come one day after more than a dozen Democratic state attorneys general filed suit against USDA, alleging that Rollins’ new grant spending requirements — which were issued late last year and take aim at diversity, equity and inclusion provisions — violate congressional intent.
The funding cancellations come as the challenges facing farmers — especially young and beginning farmers — remain steep. The vast majority of farmland is owned by nonfarming landlords, according to an annual survey released March 12 by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
The price of farmland, along with other agricultural inputs, also continues to rise, according to USDA’s Economic Research Service.
Amanda Koehler, manager of the Land, Capital, and Market Access Network, said in a statement is that USDA has "actively blocked awardees" from implementing the grants, including by cutting off communication and delaying approval of key activities, and "then cited the absence of progress as grounds for termination."
"After years of public investment in this program, the administration is canceling contracts as it’s finally ready to meet its potential and calling it fiscal responsibility," said Koehler, who confirmed that 49 of 50 contracts were canceled. "The waste here is theirs."
Democratic lawmakers quickly denounced the funding cuts.
“If we want our country’s agriculture production to continue to work, we have to support new and emerging farmers. Otherwise, big corporate Ag entities are happy to continue gobbling up small and independent farms as more farmers retire,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) told POLITICO in a statement. “Canceling these grants for new farmers will just make the problem worse."
House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-Minn.) said the cuts are unlikely to withstand a lawsuit, criticizing about the administration's decision to refuse "to implement a law it doesn't agree with."
via Politics, Policy, Political News Top Stories https://ift.tt/A7ToYnN
