During his first presidential term<\/a>, Donald Trump attempted to cut funding to hunger programs, implemented agricultural tariffs, tax cuts<\/a>, and record-setting payments<\/a> to commodity farmers, and rolled back regulations impacting environmental pollution, labor standards, food safety, and nutrition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Despite no big changes to agricultural policy as a result of a farm bill still stalled<\/a> in Congress, President Joe Biden\u2019s governing of the food system looked very different.<\/p>\n Over the past four years, the Biden administration\u2019s priorities have centered on spending billions of dollars<\/a> on food and farm infrastructure, paying farmers<\/a> to implement climate-smart practices, finalizing new regulations related to the environment<\/a>, labor, food safety<\/a>, and nutrition, and distributing more dollars<\/a> to food insecure families.<\/p>\n On December 29, 2024, during the final monthly meeting to track the progress of efforts launched after the 2022 White House Conference<\/a> on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack made the case that those efforts had paid off.<\/p>\n \u201cFolks from across the country have pulled together towards our common goal of ending hunger, improving nutrition, and supporting the farmers, ranchers, farm workers, and food workers who grow and produce our food,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd through that work, we have collectively made progress in transforming the food system from farm to fork.\u201d<\/p>\n Some food and farm advocates have told Civil Eats they agree with that sentiment and point to major accomplishments. Others see a long list of lost opportunities that ultimately resulted in business as usual, a feeling conservatives were able to harness during the election through Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.\u2019s promises to \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d<\/a> under Trump.<\/p>\n It will be many years before the ultimate impacts\u2014good, bad, or neutral\u2014of the Biden administration\u2019s many investments and regulatory changes become clear. To maintain a record as we head into the second Trump administration, we\u2019ve produced an accounting of Biden\u2019s most significant actions impacting food and farming during his tenure.<\/p>\n Six months after his inauguration, Biden issued an executive order<\/a> that included 72 actions to tackle corporate consolidation across all sectors. Agriculture<\/a> was the first industry mentioned, and the ways in which consolidation was driving the loss of small family farms became one of Vilsack\u2019s most-cited talking points throughout the administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Under his tenure, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) restarted progress<\/a> on the 100-year-delayed Packers & Stockyards Act rules meant to protect farmers from meatpacker abuses. Under President Obama, Vilsack had made some progress on those rules\u2014only to have the work thrown out by President Trump. This time<\/a>, the USDA made real strides and finalized three major rules.<\/p>\n Vilsack pushed the third and potentially most significant over the finish line just yesterday<\/a>, making substantive changes to the poultry industry\u2019s notorious \u201ctournament system.\u201d<\/a> Chicken companies will no longer be able to drop base pay based on competitive metrics, for example, and will have to provide more details in grower contracts about required investments for barn and equipment upgrades, among other standard practices. Some farm groups have criticized the agency for taking too long, as it will now be easier for Republicans to withdraw the rule if they choose to. But during a press conference Monday, Vilsack defended the process. \u201cWe\u2019ve taken this opportunity to listen to producers about what would create a fairer system,\u201d he said. USDA withdrew a fourth rule that would have changed the definition of \u201cunfair practices\u201d because the agency ran out of time to finalize it. A fifth rule<\/a> related to creating fairer cattle markets is still in its early stages.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s Department of Justice also obtained consent decrees in two Packers & Stockyards cases brought against poultry companies Koch Foods<\/a> and Cargill, Sanderson Farms, and Wayne Farms<\/a> (with the help of USDA). Those resulted in payments to growers to make up for unfair compensation policies and Sanderson and Wayne Farms agreeing to alter their practices<\/a> going forward. Vilsack\u2019s USDA was actively investigating abuses<\/a> reported by contract growers for Tyson as well, although nothing had come of that investigation by election time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a virtual meeting about reducing the costs of meat through increased competition in the meat processing industry in the South Court Auditorium at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on January 3, 2022 in Washington, DC. President Biden heard from Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and independent farmers. (Photo credit: Sarah Silbiger, Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Vilsack also delivered on another change long pushed for by farmer advocates<\/a>: meat labeled \u201cProduct of USA\u201d must now come from animals born and raised in the U.S., whereas before, meat packaged<\/em> in the country could carry the label even if the animal had been imported. He did not reinstate Country of Origin Labeling<\/a>, the next step on that continuum that many groups are still fighting for.<\/p>\n Investment was also central to the USDA\u2019s approach to consolidation in meat. The agency worked to distribute $500 million<\/a> in grants to small and mid-size meatpacking plants to give them a leg up against the highly consolidated big players. The USDA also invested in local and regional food systems beyond meat, pumping extra funding into popular local food system programs, launching Regional Food Business Centers<\/a>, and making it easier<\/a> for schools to purchase local foods for kids\u2019 meals.<\/p>\n While Biden\u2019s USDA took a lot of action on corporate consolidation, some experts question<\/a> whether the steps will add up to anything more than feel-good spending, since concentration in meat and other markets doesn\u2019t seem to be slowing down. (The USDA says<\/a> it is too soon to assess the impacts.) Plus, Vilsack and the USDA sided with meatpackers on other fronts, such as backing the repeal of California\u2019s animal welfare law, Proposition 12,<\/a> and distributing funds to big meat companies through the Climate Smart Commodities program (more on that later).<\/p>\n At the same time, Biden\u2019s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under Lina Khan spearheaded a revival of antitrust enforcement with profound implications for the food system and farmers. Khan\u2019s FTC issued new merger guidelines and was successful in blocking Kroger\u2019s takeover of Albertson\u2019s<\/a>, which would have increased consolidation in the grocery industry.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s USDA also provided loan forgiveness and direct payments to many farmers. The American Rescue Plan\u2019s (ARP) provision to pay Black farmers for past discriminatio<\/a>n was initially blocked in court after Texas Republican Ag Commissioner Sid Miller led a lawsuit<\/a> alleging racism against white farmers. Then, Democrats in Congress created a new \u201crace neutral\u201d program through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). That resulted<\/a> in the USDA distributing $2.5 billion in loan forgiveness<\/a> to 47,800 farmers labeled \u201cdistressed borrowers\u201d and $2 billion in payments to 43,000 farmers who experienced any past discrimination in USDA loan programs, based on race, gender, or other factors.<\/p>\n The Biden administration also pumped significant funds into efforts to bolster climate-smart practices on farms. The USDA\u2019s marquee project on this front was the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Program<\/a>, which invested just over $3 billion of IRA money into 135 projects across the country. According to the USDA,<\/a> more than 21,000 farms and 5.2 million acres of farmland are involved as of January 2025. Some of the funding went to nonprofits, states, tribes, and universities, but the biggest chunk went to businesses<\/a>. Some went to giant agricultural corporations like Tyson and Land O\u2019Lakes, which led to criticism<\/a> of the program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The IRA also added $19.5 billion<\/a> in additional climate-specific funding for oversubscribed conservation programs like the Environmental Quality Improvement Project (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) to be distributed over several years. So far, the USDA has allocated about $2 billion to farmers who are using the funds to pay for practices such as agroforestry and prescribed grazing. Some experts have questioned how big of an impact some of these efforts will have, though, because how much carbon gets put into the ground and how long it stays there is still a matter of debate, especially for two of the most popular practices\u2014no-till and cover crops<\/a>.<\/p>\n So far, the USDA has allocated about $2 billion to farmers who are using conservation funds to pay for practices such as agroforestry and prescribed grazing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On the global stage, the USDA created another farm-and-climate initiative, AIM for Climate<\/a>, in partnership with the United Arab Emirates. That project is even more reliant<\/a> on collaboration with big corporate players including Bayer, Syngenta, ADM, and PepsiCo.<\/p>\n But while most don\u2019t directly touch farms, the IRA\u2019s investments in renewable energy and Biden\u2019s other actions to shift away from fossil fuels (such as rejoining the Paris Agreement and pausing development of new LNG terminals<\/a>) might have the longest lasting impact on the food system. Experts agree that phasing out fossil fuels is the number one non-negotiable step toward securing a livable planet, and any incremental progress on that front could save farms from droughts, flooding, extreme heat, and other weather events that threaten their operations. Biden\u2019s USDA also invested $2.2 billion<\/a> in 7,200 on-farm renewable energy projects, including installing manure digesters and solar panels and $6 billion in rural electric coops<\/a>.<\/p>\n In October, the administration unveiled a national strategy to reduce food waste<\/a>, which is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It\u2019s unclear if that strategy will remain in place under Trump.<\/p>\n Ongoing pesticide approvals and regulations generally chug along without much disruption\u00a0even as administrations change. That was true under Biden, barring a few exceptions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The most significant: After five decades of ignoring its pesticide obligations under the Endangered Species Act and several lawsuits, Biden\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took several huge steps<\/a> to begin evaluating pesticides\u2019 risks to endangered species. It finalized an herbicide strategy<\/a> that will direct farmers to mitigate risks to threatened species when using weedkillers and released a draft<\/a> of a similar plan for insecticides. And it began tackling a long backlog of chemicals currently in use that haven\u2019t been properly assessed for their risks to endangered species.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nTaking on Consolidation and Corporate Power, and Supporting Farmer Livelihood<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/civileats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/250115-Biden-four-years-promoting-competition-Getty-Images.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nTackling the Climate Crisis<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n
Regulating Pesticides and Other Chemicals<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n