Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is renaming and changing the rules of a $3.1 billion program testing the ability of a variety of conservation practices to produce climate-smart commodities.
A USDA release said the Trump administration was canceling the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities program, which it called a “Biden-era climate slush fund,” but said it would allow projects to continue if they can show that “a significant amount of the federal funds awarded will go to farmers."
Participants had sought to persuade Rollins to keep the program in place, arguing that it was benefiting small farmers.
“We continue to support farmers and encourage partners to ensure their projects are farmer-focused or re-apply to continue work that is aligned with the priorities of this administration,” says USDA’s press release, issued today.
The renamed Advancing Markets for Producers initiative will be aligned “with current Trump administration priorities,” USDA’s release says.
Specifically, the release said:
- A minimum of 65% of federal funds must go to producers.
- Grant recipients must have enrolled at least one producer as of Dec. 31, 2024.
- Grant recipients must have made a payment to at least one producer as of Dec. 31, 2024.
Funds for the PCSC, which involves more than 130 projects funded by the Commodity Credit Corporation, have been frozen while the administration reviews the program.
The PCSC “was largely built to advance the green new scam at the[non-governmental organizations], not American farmers,” Rollins said in the release.
“The concerns of farmers took a back seat during the Biden administration,” Rollins continued. “During my short time as secretary, I have heard directly from our farmers that many of the USDA partnerships are overburdened by red tape, have ambiguous goals, and require complex reporting that push farmers onto the sidelines. We are correcting these mistakes and redirecting our efforts to set our farmers up for an unprecedented era of prosperity.”
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Robert Bonnie, who managed the development of the initiative as USDA's undersecretary for farm production and conservation in the Biden administration, welcomed the department's decision to allow projects to continue under modified rules.
“I’m pleased Secretary Rollins has agreed to extend Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities, largely intact albeit under another name. Don’t let the bombastic statement fool you, Secretary Rollins learned from producers just how popular and effective this program is," he told Agri-Pulse.
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Asked about the impact of the new rules, Bonnie said, "USDA placed a high priority on money going to farmers when we approved the projects. I’m concerned about smaller, innovative projects that may have higher administrative costs."
Kirk Leeds, CEO of the Iowa Soybean Association, said the multi-state project his group is sponsoring may have to be restructured between public and private funding to comply with a new rule that 65% of the USDA funding goes to farmers.
“Given the way the grant was structured, most of the expenses were allocated to USDA funds. At the end of the day, we are hoping that we just need to resubmit and reallocate expenses. ... The farmers will continue to receive [the] same amount of dollars,” Leeds said in an email to Agri-Pulse.
The project, called the Midwest Climate-Smart Commodity Program, was awarded $95 million from USDA and matched by more than $60 million in private sector funding. Farmers in 12 states, including Iowa, have enrolled 900,000 acres in the project.
Leeds said farmers receive $1.20 for every dollar USDA provides the project.
Based on a previousAgri-Pulseanalysis of 82 PCSC projects with $5 million or more in overall funding, 19 of them would meet the threshold for providing at least 65% of federal funds to producers.
Two of the 82 projects did not include information on the total producer incentives, and the remaining 61 projects would not appear to meet the 65% threshold, based on the contract agreements.
The information was listed on budget narratives in the agreements for each project that was published by USDA. The website with those agreements and other information about the program is no longer available as part of a Trump administration scrub of climate-related information from federal websites.
The amount of federal funds used for producer incentivesvaries project-to-project.Additionally, the ways some project sponsors offered payments varied, with some offering payments for implementing practices while others offered funds for the emission reductions associated with practices.
Some projects analyzed byAgri-Pulsealso utilized non-federal funds to incentivize producers.
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