Producers Criticize End of USDA Program That Helped Emerging Farmers

DEI disdain trumped a federal program that provided funding for some beginning farmers in 40 states. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has become a target by Republican-led governmental entities across the United States over the past several years amid criticism that the efforts to aid groups that have faced discrimination are themselves racist.

Supporters of DEI say that the programs help various demographic communities that have not had the same economic opportunities that others have had.  

The USDA notified farmers in recent weeks that it was ending most of the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program financial assistance that previously benefited young, new, or historically underserved farmers. The $300 million program received funding through the Inflation Reduction Act, the legislation passed by Democrats in Congress during the Biden administration in 2022.

Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program Approved in 2022

“The program funds cooperative agreements or grants for projects that help move underserved producers from surviving to thriving,” the USDA previously stated on its website in support of the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program.

The post continued, “Land access is critical to the success of agriculture. Underserved producers have not received the amount of specialized technical support that would benefit the launch, growth, resilience, and success of their agricultural enterprises.

The Increasing Land Access Program is intended to address this problem by increasing access to farm ownership opportunities, increasing access and improving results for those with heirs’ property or fractionated land, increasing access to markets and capital that affect the ability to access land, and increasing land ownership, land succession, and agricultural business planning.”

Trump Administration Ends Most of Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program

But the change from the Biden to the Trump administration has apparently led to a change in focus for the USDA. Farmers, ranchers, and associations that support them are expressing their disappointment that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins ended the program that could have brought more people into the industry at a time the country lost 15,000 farms last year. 

But the USDA has questioned the intent of the program.

"USDA will prioritize unity, equality, meritocracy, and color-blindness in furtherance of the Department's mission," AgWeek reported after reviewing a letter that it said the USDA sent to a producer notifying the person that the funding initiative would cease.  

JohnElla Holmes, CEO of the Kansas Black Farmers Association, told AgWeek that the USDA cancelations will affect six farmers who had been relying on down payment assistance to buy small farms and may now lose that opportunity.

Holmes said, “We come from a legacy of resilience forged through hardship — generations who endured injustice and yet still built, cultivated, and contributed so much to this country. Still, we find ourselves fighting for access to the very opportunities that others are encouraged to pursue freely.”

Jan Joannides, executive director of Renewing the Countryside, a Minnesota-based organization, told Minnesota Public Radio that her organization had hoped to help 20 farmers access farmland with the Increasing Land Access Program.

“And now it's just all disappeared overnight,” she said.

RELATED: This American Farmland Owner piece profiled U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.