Release: NSAC Holds Briefing as USDA Funding Freeze and Layoffs Threaten Farmers and Communities Nationwide<\/strong><\/h3>\nWashington, DC, March 6, 2025<\/em> \u2013 Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), a coalition of more than 150 farm, food, conservation, and rural organizations, held a virtual briefing on how the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding freeze and employee layoffs are affecting farmers and ranchers.\u00a0<\/p>\nPanelists \u2013 who called on USDA to end the freeze and release funding on all signed contracts \u2013 included farmers from North Carolina, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and California. These farmers shared their own stories of how the ongoing federal funding freeze \u2013 in addition to significant layoffs at USDA \u2013 has created challenging and often dire circumstances for farmers and communities from coast to coast, threatening farm viability and livelihoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nRachel Bouresssa<\/strong> of Wisconsin said \u201cI have EQIP and CSP contracts. I also work with organizations with RCPP agreements. At a time that I am looking forward to the growing season ahead, I am unsure if many of my contacts will be paid. \u2026 It\u2019s not just my work. There are many small businesses, from excavating companies to plumbers, engineers, and suppliers that will also be impacted and they may not even know it yet. These are small businesses in rural communities.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\u201cThe NRCS in Arkansas, we depend on it. It has saved our farm a couple of times because it\u2019s allowed us to implement programs and conservation that have allowed us to cut inputs like herbicides and fertilizers and things. And without them, I wouldn\u2019t be here fighting the fight now. And we were already short staffed in Arkansas. We\u2019ve got NRCS agents manning two or three counties and we just lost 40 plus employees. We were short to start with, so what does that mean about payment processing?,\u201d<\/em> said Adam Chappell, <\/strong>a farmer from Cotton Plant, Arkansas.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nSteve Tucker <\/strong>from Southwest Nebraska said \u201cWe have a lot of big companies that do big runs of product, but on the flip side of that, there\u2019s nobody to take care of the smaller brands who are doing more specific specialized products and want to work directly with farmers \u2026. So {I got} a Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) grant \u2026 to try and help provide some funding to help get these things off the ground. I had farmers on board. \u2026 I had {consumer packaged good} brands,\u2026 We put this together, had numbers. And then this freeze happened and I went back to \u2019em and they said, nothing\u2019s going to go until that freeze comes off or the freeze disappears, then we\u2019re done, we\u2019re out,\u201d<\/em> Tucker <\/strong>lamented.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nPatrick Brown<\/strong> of Warren County, North Carolina has 90% of his acreage enrolled in a Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities program. He was scheduled to plant 500 acres of grain this spring and the contract was scheduled to go through 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\u201cNow that the current project has been frozen and we\u2019ve actually already done the work as far as planting those cover crops in the fall, we\u2019re now going into the 2025 growing season with financial uncertainty whether or not I have to face the fact of putting this farm back into collateral and bond operation capital in order to plant a successful crop or wait on the federal government with emergency relief, which we still have not received,\u201d <\/em>said Brown<\/strong> noting that \u201cwithout farming, we don\u2019t eat and it is really terrifying going into this year faced with this level of financial uncertainty, but also the markets and the tariffs that are being announced daily, and the mental health aspect of farming as well.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nAnna Knight<\/strong> of Redlands, California talked about the impact of the funding freeze on Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, saying \u201cevery single week, my farm packs 1,000 food boxes with 12 different kinds of fruits and vegetables sourced from 25 different farming families. \u2026 we receive about $6,000 a week for this produce. We\u2019ve been in contract with USDA for the last 12 months in order to produce these boxes and we\u2019ve been planting, harvesting, weeding, packing in this effort. On Monday, we were alerted that this program was frozen and that tomorrow, Friday the 7th is going to be our last delivery. \u2026For us, this represents an immediate $60,000 loss\u2026Collectively, this suspended contract represents $300,000 that immediately is gone and our farmers don\u2019t have an outlet for. LFPA has been such an important and impactful financial bridge that has helped so many farmers in my region be able to get back on our feet and connect with community members who really need this fresh produce. This is a real economic impact and economic loss for the farmers in my community.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nMike Lavender<\/strong>, NSAC Policy Director, added that \u201cstories like those shared by today\u2019s panelists are playing out in countless communities nationwide. The ongoing federal funding freeze is threatening livelihoods as we speak \u2013 and creating uncertainty, confusion, and anger among the very people the Department is meant to serve. It\u2019s high time for USDA to end deliberation of whether or not to honor its own word, and to immediately release funding on all signed contracts.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n###<\/p>\n
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https:\/\/sustainableagriculture.net<\/p>\n
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For Immediate Release Contact: Laura Zaks National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition press@sustainableagriculture.net Release: NSAC Holds Briefing as USDA Funding Freeze and Layoffs Threaten Farmers and Communities Nationwide Washington, DC, March 6, 2025 \u2013 Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), a coalition of more than 150 farm, food, conservation, and rural organizations, held a virtual briefing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12026],"tags":[13827,12647,10928,27457,27458,15919,22926,15075,38852,11734,30059,53909,17801,26868,23411,53910,2279,24858,14852],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-122287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","tag-briefing","tag-climate","tag-communities","tag-csp","tag-eqip","tag-farmers","tag-freeze","tag-funding","tag-funding-freeze","tag-holds","tag-layoffs","tag-lfpa","tag-nationwide","tag-nrcs","tag-nsac","tag-pcsc","tag-release","tag-threaten","tag-usda"],"yoast_head":"\n
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