Federal Funding Freeze Leaves Farmers' Climate Projects in Limbo

MADELINE REILLY, HOST: In 2022, the Biden administration launched a grant program to help farmers address climate change. But the Trump administration recently froze that funding without notifying farmers. Hannah Weaver has more on the impacts. 

TYLER EATON: Out in front of our main barn are the main pasture for our milking flock. Facing kinda Northwest we look out over the Wilmington range and Whiteface Mountain here in the Adirondacks. 

HANNAH WEAVER, BYLINE: That’s Tyler Eaton. He’s the owner and operator of Blue Pepper Farm. There, he and his family raise about 50 sheep for yogurt, wool, lamb — you name it. 

WEAVER: This time of year, the sheep spend most of their time cozied up in the barn, munching on hay.

WEAVER: But in summer, the sheep are subject to the hot sun, and in recent years that’s gotten more intense. This causes heat stress, which decreases milk production. So, Eaton was planning on planting hundreds of trees to provide shade, enrich the soil, and capture more carbon. That effort was possible from a USDA grant called the Climate-Smart Commodities Project. Now, though, the Trump administration has frozen funding for the program. And Eaton says although the freeze isn’t immediately impacting their business…

EATON: It does stop a whole lot of potential long term benefits to both, like our farm, our sheep's welfare, and therefore our like milk production and yogurt production, and revenue, and income. 

WEAVER: Jon Ignatowski works with the Adirondack North Country Association, a non-profit that supports economic development in the region. The Association helped Tyler Eaton write the grant for the project. 

IGNATOWSKI: These farms were really leaning on this program and excited about this program to provide an opportunity to become more resilient in the headwinds of economic change and environmental change, and to have this money potentially disappear is devastating. 

WEAVER: Ignatowski says these projects also impact consumers in New York City. 

IGNATOWSKI: If we can't make the investments in farms in the North Country region, in New York State, if these farms start to suffer. We're losing food supplies that can be exported to New York City, which creates a supply issue, which inevitably results in higher food prices. 

WEAVER: The USDA has frozen funding for a number of grant programs to farms across the state, but hasn’t explained the criteria for the freeze. 

O’NEIL: Most of what I see happening with those kind of funds certainly isn't wasteful.

WEAVER: Kitty O’Neil is an agriculture climate resiliency specialist at Cornell who helps farmers with the business side of things. She said this funding freeze has effectively halved the money available for farm climate projects in New York state. 

O’NEIL: It's really strengthening the farming system across the state, keeping farms like Blue Pepper, sort of moving forward in a sustainable way, economically, environmentally, climate-wise.

WEAVER: Eaton says he hopes if the production is disrupted by climate change, it will send a message to consumers that farming conditions are important, and that farms need to be supported.

EATON: Disruptions create lots of opportunity, lots of teachable moments or learning

experiences … So that people will be like, “Hey, why isn't this happening?” Or “why isn't this available?” 

WEAVER: Some USDA farm grants were frozen, and then later made available. Tyler Eaton says he hopes the funding comes through for his tree planting project, but in the future he’ll be looking for support from private grants. One option is The American Farmland Trust, which recently announced an emergency grant fund for farmers.

For now though, Eaton says his farm will put their tree plan on hold and focus more on day to day operation rather than longer-term solutions.

Hannah Weaver, Columbia Radio News.