How the Nation is Stepping Up to Support U.S. Farmers

This story about farmer support in the United States is part of The Solutions Effect, a monthly newsletter covering the best of solutions journalism in the sustainability and social impact space. If you aren't already getting this newsletter, you can sign up here.

Farmers in the United States already face problems like changing climates, labor shortages, growing monopolies and degrading land. Now, during the crucial preparation season before planting begins, farmers are losing access to the federal funding and data they rely on to simply run their farms.

Early this year, thousands of federal webpages featuring information on topics like climate change and diversity initiatives were taken down or altered based on orders from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Some offered important information and tools for farmers adapting to changing growing conditions and extreme weather events. At the same time, federal funding freezes hit farmers. Those with active grant projects from paused government programs are left without the money to pay for projects and contracts they’ve already committed to. 

Many are also feeling the effects of the Trump administration’s recently introduced tariffs, which involve some of the country’s most important agricultural trade partners. “It is a full-blown crisis already,” Peter Friedmann, executive director of the leading export trade group for farmers, the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, told CNBC about the tariff-related financial losses hitting the industry. Brooke Rollins, U.S. agriculture secretary, recently announced that the administration is prepared to offer farmers subsidies if the current trade war continues, as it did during President Trump’s first term. But industry experts say farmers would prefer to earn money by harvesting and selling their crops instead, Axios reports. 

Some farmers are organizing and taking action, joining a complicated web of litigation playing out across the nation’s courts. That includes a lawsuit brought forward by several environmental and farming groups, claiming the mass purge of online climate information violates several federal laws while directly harming farmers, The New York Times reports. Another lawsuit filed by nonprofits and municipalities across the country argues that the Trump administration does not have constitutional authority to freeze funding already granted by Congress and is violating the First Amendment protection of free speech. That case is centered on programs that include funding for farmers, among other initiatives. The presiding judge recently gave the administration a week to provide more evidence to support its funding pauses, ordering it not to refreeze funds already released due to other litigation, Inside Climate News reports. 

Amid the chaos, leaders rising to the occasion to do what they can are making a big difference for farmers as they try to navigate the situation — and solutions journalists are covering it. Lawyer Dãnia Davy offers free educational information and pro-bono legal services for U.S. farmers through Land and Liberation LLC. The company charges for work with nonprofits and projects sponsored by nonprofits to subsidize working with farmers for free. This year, Davy is working with individual farmers more often than her typical institutional clients, largely focusing on supporting Black, brown and Indigenous farmers directly or indirectly impacted by funding freezes, Sentient reports. Though Davy can’t meet the need for legal support and advice alone, she also holds training sessions and weekly “WTF?! Office Hours” as educational resources to the public. And the company’s website offers explanations, updates and expected impacts of relevant executive orders in plain language. Davy’s work tracking ever-changing policies and informing farmers allows them to stay focused on producing food during an already overwhelming time. 

Even without the additional stress of changing policies, farming is associated with increased risk of anxiety and depression. It has one of the highest suicide rates of any occupation. Knowing this, licensed social worker Kaila Anderson created a new way for healthcare providers to recognize unique emotional stressors linked to farming and connect with farmers, the Food and Environment Reporting Network reports. Focused on reaching areas with a shortage of mental health professionals, Anderson trains family doctors, crisis hotline staffers, county health workers, and pharmacists to recognize statements farmers make that signal underlying emotional struggles. Understanding the deep, often generational connection between farmers and their land, Anderson’s LandLogic model uses aerial photos of individuals’ farms to kickstart an open dialogue about how they’re really feeling. Healthcare professionals can draw from that conversation to create mental health interventions that involve getting hands-on at the farm, instead of relying on abstract in-office exercises detached from farmers’ day-to-day experiences. 

States are also taking steps to support farmers and their environmental and adaptation efforts. Tennessee, for example, just established a $25 million fund dedicated to providing financial assistance to farmers and forest landowners developing conservation easements, which ensure the land is permanently preserved for farming or forestry, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. Utah’s already successful Agricultural Water Optimization Program helps farmers modernize and improve the efficiency of irrigation equipment, allowing them to adapt to shrinking water supplies and reduce water use, KUNC Radio reports. The program is set to continue this year, with grant recipients announced in June. And lawmakers in Texas are looking to expand the reach of an existing grant and low-interest loan program that supports new, young farmers, The Texas Tribune reports. If the legislation is passed, the program will offer even lower interest rates to any farmer of any age. 

Of course, these individual supports lack the widespread reach of federal funding and programs, and many state-based initiatives still face uncertain futures as federal polices continue to shift. But when taken together, they add to a growing nationwide support system for farmers as they continue their vital work supporting us. 

Dive deeper into this solution: 

• Apprenticeships Bring a Fresh Generation to Small Dairy Farms, Civil Eats 
• ‘This Business Just Wouldn’t Exist’ – Farmer Says Federal Program Was Critical to Success, The Daily Yonder
• Government Science Data May Soon Be Hidden. They’re Racing to Copy It, The New York Times