For decades, environmental and farm groups pushed Congress, the USDA and farmers to adopt new conservation programs, but progress came in incremental steps. With each Farm Bill, some lawmakers threaten to whittle down conservation programs, but they have essentially managed to survive and even expand.
The country’s largest farm lobby, the American Farm Bureau Federation, had long denied the realities of climate change, fighting against climate action and adopting official policy positions that question the scientific consensus that climate change is human-caused. Its members—the bulk of American farmers—largely adhered to the same mindset.
But as the realities of climate change have started to hit American farmers on the ground in the form of more extreme weather, and as funding opportunities have expanded through conservation and climate-focused programs, that mindset has started to shift.
“They were concerned about what climate policy meant for their operations,” Bonnie said. “They felt judged. But we said: Let’s partner up.”
The Trump administration’s rollbacks and freezes threaten to stall or undo that progress, advocacy groups and former USDA employees say.
“We created this enormous infrastructure. We’ve solved huge problems,” Bonnie added, “and they’re undermining all of it.”
“It took so long,” Stillerman said. “The idea that climate change was happening and that farmers could be part of the solution, and could build more resilient farming and food systems against that threat—the IRA really put dollars behind that. All of that is at risk now.”
Burk says he plans to continue with conservation and carbon-storing practices on his Michigan farm, even without conservation dollars from the USDA.
But, he says, many of his neighboring farmers likely will stop conservation measures without the certainty of government support.
“So many people are struggling, just trying to figure out how to pay their bills, to get the fuel to run their tractors, to plant,” he said. “The last thing they want to be doing is sitting down with someone from NRCS who says, ‘If I do these things, maybe I’ll get paid in a year.’ That’s not going to happen.”
This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.
