USDA upheaval brings uncertainty to farmers, rural communities

Trump administration funding terminations, freezes and layoffs are keeping some North Dakota farmers and rural nonprofits from continuing USDA and other federally funded projects.

In some cases, projects long in the making were terminated or thrown into uncertainty, washing away months and even years of work.

In others, promised funds haven’t been released, leaving some footing the bill for equipment purchased and work half completed. 

Nonprofit groups that work with local farmers across the state, like the Foundation for Agricultural and Rural Resource Management and Sustainability (FARRMS), are also losing their ability to deliver on projects. 

For FARRMS executive director Stephanie Blumhagen, one frustration has been a lack of information, particularly since funding can go through multiple layers of entities. 

The situation also causes issues where contracts were already agreed upon, meaning work must continue on projects that may not be funded. 

FARRMS, almost entirely funded by USDA grants, had three programs frozen and one large project terminated – unless funding eventually comes through. 

It was also involved in the North Central Regional Food Business Center, a project promoting partnerships with farmers and local economic development commissions and other stakeholders to build stronger local food systems. The project had already been active for two years and involved 35 partner organizations in North Dakota, Minnesota and South Dakota but has now been disrupted by USDA funding freezes.

This included regranting of $205,000 by the Region Five Development Commission to five farms and local food businesses in North Dakota to build out the program last year. FARRMS had to dissolve all contracts related to the program because of funding uncertainty.

“Not only does that represent a financial loss to all of these organizations who had restructured their budgets, (but) we were gearing up to do this work of providing technical assistance to local businesses in their communities,” Blumhagen said. “We've lost all this momentum, and potentially, partnerships.” 

Blumhagen said funding to programs like these run by small rural nonprofits are a “percentage of a percent” of the USDA budget. 

“We’re really efficient. We leverage other resources, we work together, we network. So this funding freeze is creating roadblocks and inefficiencies,” Blumhagen said. “It’s making us spend time restructuring. It’s the opposite of creating efficiency.” 

Program terminations 

So far, federal and USDA program terminations include three in North Dakota. 

Two of those are the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program and the Local Food for Schools and Child Care (LFSCC) program. 

Great Plains Food Bank was a participant in the LFPA, using the funding to purchase food from local farmers, growers and ranchers to support children, families and seniors suffering from food insecurity, according to Darby Njos, communications manager at the organization. 

“Unfortunately, with these cuts now in place, we had to have difficult conversations with farmers expecting to participate in the program,” Njos said. “While this does impact us as a food bank, it more significantly affects our local farmers, growers, and ranchers who were relying on these funds.”

For the LFSCC program targeting schools and childcare facilities, the state would have been awarded $1.8 million to help cover purchases of locally produced food for schools and around $870,000 for purchases for childcare facilities. 

The state applied for the funds but was never approved for the final award since it overlapped with the incoming administration and intensive budget cuts. 

Another termination is the Working Lands Conservation Corps, which supported conservation and agricultural resilience projects by training youth in careers related to climate-smart agriculture and conservation. 

For North Dakota, that means the loss of an internship at the U.S. Geological Survey office in Jamestown under the National Ecological Observatory Network for ecological field data collection.

Dakota Angus, a beef producer near Drake, had been awarded nearly $500,000 under a separate Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP), which was reportedly frozen in some states. 

Ashley Bruner, a member of the family operating the ranch who manages the grant, said the full amount was awarded and the ranch hasn’t been impacted by any freeze.

Reflecting some of the confusion others feel about a lack of information, however, ranch owner Blaine Bruner said it was uncertain if future funding would come through the program.

“Nobody knows,” he said. “Whether it’s markets or whatever, the whole damn country doesn’t know what’s going on. That’s the problem we got.” 

Attempts to get clarity from the USDA office in Bismarck about what programs have been impacted were routed to a national USDA spokesperson. 

The spokesperson said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins is carefully reviewing all Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) implemented during the Biden administration and will continue providing updates on what funding is going forward. 

Funding freezes, layoff disruptions 

Funds for the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Program and the Rural Energy Assistance Program (REAP) are frozen, according to people impacted by those freezes and federal data available about ongoing awards. 

Other programs, such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) were reviewed and approved by Rollins and are going forward. 

“In terms of CSP and EQIP, we are still accepting applications and fulfilling contracts,” Anna Bahnson, outreach coordinator for the USDA National Resources Conservation Service in North Dakota, said. 

“There was a pause initially, and often in any transition there is a pause, but that’s no longer the case,” Bahnson said. 

For those involved in the Climate-Smart and REAP programs, it is uncertain if those funds will be unfrozen. 

Impacted by the freeze of the Climate-Smart program is a $5.75 million cost-share project involving between 150-200 farmers in northeastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota, according to Walsh County district conservation manager Josh Anderson, who was instrumental in securing the grant. 

This project would have incentivized farmers to plant multispecies cover crops and incorporate livestock grazing on cropland to improve soil health, as well as promote locally raised, grass-fed livestock. 

Parts of the state have lost up to 50% of their rich topsoil over the past century, and programs like this are meant to help restore some of that loss or reduce further erosion. 

Funding was frozen just weeks before the first batch was expected to roll in, Anderson said. 

While not yet terminated, a delay means waiting a full growing season if the funds eventually materialize - also still uncertain - setting the project back by a year. 

The proposal was accepted a year ago after several solid months of planning.

“It was locally designed, it would have had a lot of input from farmers and ranchers and conservation districts all pulling together, working together,” Anderson said. “There’s a lot of folks here that were really interested and excited about the prospect of being able to convert some of their acres to this kind of model, which would promote soil health.” 

Brian Mothershead, a farmer and soil conservation board member in Rolette County, is also impacted by the freeze to the Climate-Smart funding. 

He’d been selected for a grant under the program to promote no-till farming and rotational grazing of cattle. Because of this, he purchased a used no-till air seeder, intending to use the funding to help pay for it. 

With the final $8,000 he was owed now frozen, however, he’s stuck with equipment he might not use. 

“I'm unsure whether the program grant has been eliminated or just suspended,” he said. “The only real effect it has on me is this air seeder payment, which I will either figure out a different way to pay for, or sell it.” 

A freeze on $410 million in REAP payments impacts farmers across the country and in North Dakota. The majority had already started implementing energy efficiency and renewable energy projects with expectations the funding would come through. 

REAP was created in the 2008 Farm Bill and absorbed a similar program included in the 2002 Farm Bill. 

NDNC called or left messages with around a dozen farmers who still have unprocessed payouts, but did not get anyone on the phone or receive call backs. 

Several farms in the state are owed between $250,000 to $500,000 in unprocessed REAP payments, according to federal data.

Another area of impact is the on and off again firings or layoffs of federal workers. 

Todd Leake, who farms near Emerado, was concerned after catching wind in recent weeks that several researchers at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service based at universities in the region had lost their positions in Trump administration government efficiency orders. 

This included researchers critical to monitoring ever-evolving wheat and sugar beet diseases. Most have been hired back, he said, but there’s still uncertainty about some of the positions. 

While firings like this might not have had a direct near-term impact, they do have long-term consequences, he said. 

“These researchers are at the forefront of cereal wheat diseases and make it so we can overcome these constant barrages of wheat disease,” Leake said. “It’s extremely important.”

The North Dakota News Cooperative is a nonprofit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org. Send comments, suggestions or tips to michael@newscoopnd.org. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NDNewsCoop.