The cancellation and freezing of critical funding for research, climate resilience, and equity programs have deeply—and swiftly—impacted our food and farm system. Here’s how we move boldly toward a possible future.
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The cancellation and freezing of critical funding for research, climate resilience, and equity programs have deeply—and swiftly—impacted our food and farm system. Here’s how we move boldly toward a possible future.
April 29, 2025
The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: zimmytws/Getty Images)
Over the past 100 days, President Trump and his collaborators have taken a sledgehammer to the federal government and the U.S. scientific enterprise. Their sweeping actions are not about reform or improvement—they are about dismantling the institutions, expertise, and public safeguards that uphold democracy, protect health and the environment, and ensure that America’s farmers, workers, and communities can thrive fairly and securely.
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The fiscal, social, and environmental costs of these actions will overwhelm any claim to efficiency. The cancellation and freezing of critical funding for climate resilience, equity programs, and research have sent shockwaves through the nation’s food and farm system. Combined with mass firings, these actions leave Americans more vulnerable to pollution, climate disasters, and corporate exploitation.
“The Trump administration’s so-called return to ‘free markets’ is not just a rollback to the pre-Biden status quo; it’s an aggressive acceleration toward even deeper consolidation, climate vulnerability, and racial inequity.”
To understand the scale and implications of these actions, recall where we stood before Trump returned to office. After more than a century of agricultural policy dominated by corporate consolidation and environmental degradation, there were signs of transformation. Advocates, scientists, and farmers were successfully pressing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to support a fairer and more ecologically sound food system.
Modest, imperfect policies had begun to shift momentum. Equity-centered programs started to open long-closed doors for historically marginalized producers. Climate-friendly practices like cover cropping, managed grazing, and conservation tillage were gaining ground.
Copious scientific evidence was steering more research funding from extractive, chemical-heavy agriculture toward agroecological systems that nurture soil health and biodiversity. Initiatives supporting local and regional markets helped schools and food banks buy from nearby farms, keeping dollars in communities, strengthening regional food security, buoying small and midsize farms, and delivering healthy food.
All of this was taking shape within a system still dominated by large agribusinesses and monoculture commodity production. Yet these modest reforms offered hope. They represented a real, if fragile, shift away from policies that had long served corporate profits at the expense of rural communities, the environment, and food workers.
Enter the second Trump administration. Informed by Project 2025, this administration is determined to “get the government out of agriculture.” But government has always been in agriculture—from grants of Native Americans’ homelands to white settlers and facilitating slave labor, to ongoing subsidies for polluting commodity crops.
The farm bill, for example, incentivizes farmers to grow corn, wheat, cotton, and rice for export and encourages overproduction of livestock that strains natural resources and pollutes water and air. These policies favor large, corporate operations, while small and midsize farms are increasingly eaten up by a rapidly consolidating agricultural system.
The Trump administration’s so-called return to “free markets” is not just a rollback to the pre-Biden status quo; it’s an aggressive acceleration toward even deeper consolidation, climate vulnerability, and racial inequity. Truly competitive markets, meanwhile, are pushed farther away, for example, when Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins fast-tracked commodity subsidies and promised USDA bailouts to cushion tariff losses.
One of the most destructive acts is the dismantling of equity initiatives. The USDA removed the mechanism for reporting discrimination and froze crucial programs that assist Black, Indigenous, and people of color, beginning, and other underserved farmers in accessing farmland.
Many USDA grant recipients must strip diversity, equity, and inclusion language from proposals or lose funding, and diversity, equity, and inclusion scoring criteria are gone from USDA grant evaluations.
These moves attack racial justice and undermine the foundational role of equity in building a truly sustainable food and farm system, both environmentally and economically.
The administration has also gutted climate and conservation support. Nearly all of the $19.5 billion in Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding for climate-smart agriculture has been frozen. Of the $2.3 billion already promised to farmers, only a tiny fraction has been released at the time of this writing.
Programs to improve soil health, reduce input costs, and enhance resilience to floods, droughts, and pests have been halted. Vital projects funded by the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Program, a $3 billion investment across all 50 states, have been effectively canceled.
The economic consequences for farmers are immediate and severe. Many had already invested heavily in equipment and practices based on signed agreements. With reimbursements now canceled or delayed, many farmers are shouldering unsustainable debt and may go under. Trust in public programs is shaken, with long-term implications for farmer participation.
“We must defend what works, fix what doesn’t, and ensure that those historically shut out of power are at the table.”
Cuts to local food purchasing programs have further harmed farmers and communities. These initiatives provided over $1 billion to help schools and food banks buy from local producers. Now, children and vulnerable populations will lose access to fresh, healthy food—while farmers lose vital markets.
The administration has also undermined the future by freezing and slashing public research funding. USDA science programs have been halted and online climate data and information removed, including technical guidance for cutting emissions and improving resilience to extreme weather.
University-based projects focused on climate resilience, pest resistance, and pollinator health have also been canceled. Even national germplasm banks—a vital seed repository safeguarding crop diversity for future adaptation—are at risk.
Dramatic workforce cuts compound these harms. Roughly 16,000 USDA employees, more than 10 percent of the department’s workforce, have accepted voluntary buyouts, with more cuts on the horizon. USDA field offices—critical hubs for helping farmers navigate complex programs, implement conservation practices, and access disaster relief—are being gutted.
The White House budget plan, if implemented, would shutter many USDA field offices. Even if (when) funding is restored, the loss of experienced scientists and other staff means recovery will be slow.
Just when our food system was beginning to turn toward justice, sustainability, and equity, the Trump administration is governing with a wrecking ball. But this isn’t the end of the story. The very fact that Biden-era programs began to shift USDA priorities was proof that sustained advocacy works. Scientists, organizers, and farmers demanded change and got results.
The past 100 days have been devastating but also clarifying. Now is the time to look forward, and everyone (yes, you!) can join the movement.
First, defend democracy by blogging, podcasting, visiting your representative, posting videos that expose these attacks, and sharing the stories of farmers and food groups harmed by illegal rollbacks—we need the broadest public uprising in history.
Second, support change-makers like HEAL, Rural Coalition, Young Farmers, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, and American Farmland Trust with your time, donations, and voices.
Third, mobilize academia. Universities and scientists must put sustainability and integrity above fears of funding retaliation and have shovel-ready agroecology research projects on deck.
Finally, my organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and allied advocates should be leading the way on our own “Project 2027” to stabilize and defend what remains and a “Project 2029” to rebuild. That means re-staffing USDA with expertise, restoring trust, and achieving genuine efficiency, climate resilience, and equity.
To build a truly resilient, just, and climate-ready food system, we must hold policymakers accountable and double down on organizing. We must defend what works, fix what doesn’t, and ensure that those historically shut out of power are at the table.
We can’t stop at undoing harm—we have to move boldly toward the food and farm future we know is possible.
July 30, 2025
From Oklahoma to D.C., a food activist works to ensure that communities can protect their food systems and their future.
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