Our community shares how the federal funding freeze is hurting their businesses, stalling progress on essential improvements, impacting the contractors and suppliers they work with, and threatening their ability to feed their communities.
Farmers feel the freeze
“Our farm was established in 1972, by my conservation-minded parents Dick and Pat Lee. It was passed down to my sister’s and my families in 2014. Our plan is to preserve the farm in order to pass it down to our children. However, we need to adapt to our changing environment in order to help us pivot our operation to make it sustainable.
We were approved for a $45,000 silvopasture fencing project grant through the Climate-Smart program. We are unable to complete this project, now that the federal funds to support this initiative are frozen. We requested the grant funds to help solve a forage resource problem on our farm.
We continue to experience changes in weather in southeastern Pennsylvania, which has required us to make changes to the way we rotationally graze our sheep flock and goat herd. As we experience hotter summers and more drought, the grass in our pastures is not able to grow as quickly as we need it to. Our goat herd currently spends April – October in 20 acres of fenced woods. Our flock of sheep traditionally grazes the grass pastures. However, when the pastures do not rebound because of drought, the sheep and goats need to share the resources in our woods.
When the fodder in the woods runs out, we end up feeding livestock the winter stockpiles of hay, for portions of the summer. Some years we end up buying more hay, costing us more money, because there is not enough hay to get through the winter.
The grant was going to fence in 10 acres of unused, wooded land on our farm and make it available to rotationally graze our goat herd. The herd grows each year, but this project would have initially supported 25 does and 30 kids. There are many invasive plants growing in this area, including multiflora rose, autumn olive, and honeysuckle. Goats do well as browsers, rather than grazers. They also do well on rougher terrain, rather than pasture. Terrain with rocks helps to naturally wear down their hooves and keep them trimmed. When goats are on traditional pasture, their hooves need continual maintenance.
This project would have increased forage availability during the summer, cleaned up invasive species, kept invasive species at bay, reduced the need to purchase additional hay, decreased parasite sickness in the goats, and minimized farmer time trimming/maintaining goat hooves.
A multiyear rotational grazing plan for silvopasture was part of the project. Once the herd of goats cleaned up the invasive species and opened up the woods, we would have moved forward with planting grass and trees for appropriate silvopasture forage. This project also would have served as a research opportunity for implementing similar pasturing systems in the northeast.
More than 95% of the grant funds were planned to go to Pennsylvania based businesses. We planned to hire a fencing contractor from Lancaster County to build the fence and hire a local heavy equipment operator to complete the site prep. In addition to our farm not solving a resource need, other Pennsylvania-based businesses lost the opportunity for work.”
“My urban farm focuses on specialty crops and fresh produce that are not widely available in my region, including heritage varieties and nutrient-dense foods tailored to the needs of my community. My business supports local food access while creating economic opportunities through direct sales, wholesale partnerships, and future value-added products. However, recent executive actions that have frozen federal funding and eliminated programs supporting farmers like me have placed my business and its economic future at risk.
I am participating in the Climate Smart and Marketing Program designed to help farmers implement land stewardship practices that improve productivity and long-term viability. I had planned to install a wildlife exclusion fence to prevent crop loss, establish windbreaks that would both protect crops and produce additional harvests, and plant conservation cover to support honeybee forage. These steps were not just theoretical—they were part of a larger, carefully planned investment in my farm’s future.
Over months, I worked with a local fencing company, spending more than 40 hours designing and quoting a fence that was approved for funding. This project would have allowed me to expand my offerings and secure reliable harvests. Now, with the federal funding freeze, my contract is stalled, leaving me unable to move forward. This doesn’t just affect my farm—it affects my suppliers, the businesses I work with, and my customers who rely on my produce.
Farming is sequential. Losing time on critical projects means losing years of future production. Without this support, I cannot move forward with expanding my vegetable fields or honey and fruit production, all of which were essential to expanding my farm’s revenue streams. Many of these crops take time to establish, and the delay directly impacts my financial planning and business growth.
My farm also serves as a direct source of fresh, culturally relevant produce for my community—particularly seniors, children, and low-income populations who often struggle to find high-quality, affordable, locally grown food. By halting these programs, the government is not just disrupting small farms like mine, but also limiting access to fresh food for people who need it most.
Additionally, the framing of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as illegal, discriminatory, and lacking merit is deeply hurtful. My experience with these programs has never been about receiving unearned opportunities—it has been about recognizing and supporting the work of those who have been historically excluded from leadership and economic investment.
The reality is that farmers like me are not asking for special treatment—we are asking for fair access to resources and opportunities that have long been controlled by a select few. The elimination of these programs feels like a deliberate effort to erase those efforts and reinforce barriers that have existed for generations.
I understand the need for responsible federal spending. But canceling programs midstream—after the government, program administrators, contractors, and farmers have already invested time, labor, and resources into them—wastes far more than it saves. These initiatives were designed to strengthen local food economies, support conservation efforts, and create economic resilience for small farms. Instead, their abrupt termination has left departments, organizations, and farmers like me scrambling to reassess our future.
I urge policymakers to reinstate funding for these critical programs and recognize that investing in local agriculture benefits not just farmers, but consumers and entire communities.”
“I own a sheep dairy which we’ve operated for the past seven years. We recently bought a neighboring plot of land to expand our grazing pasture and were approved for Climate-Smart funding through Pasa for fencing and planting the new pastures.
The fencing project was scheduled to start in March 2025 and the planting shortly thereafter.
Since this funding has been cancelled by the current administration, I will have to go into debt to fence these new pastures.”
“We recently received official notice from the USDA that the FY 2025 Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grants are cancelled and that the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) will not review our application or award Farm to School grants this year.
Our farm has worked incredibly hard to build durable relationships built on trust with our rural school district partners. As budgets are tight for these school partners, this lack of funding will likely mean a pause or cancellation of the planned farm-to-school partnerships which impact approximately 500 fourth and seventh grade students each year.
We also participate in a number of hunger relief and donation partnerships, which we will continue to do regardless of the recipient organization’s ability to partially reimburse us.”
“We purchased a no-till grain drill in the fall of 2024, with the understanding under the Climate-Smart program application submitted there would be funding to encourage the cover-cropping and no-till practices this equipment enables.
Now our Climate-Smart contract is on hold, and the full weight of this purchase is on our farm.”
“I am a local beef producer and was in the final steps of applying for a livestock pipeline to supply water to our pastured livestock. With this pipeline we would be able to rotate our cattle from pasture to pasture and keep them supplied with clean fresh water.
Without it, we’re severely limited in how many cattle we can maintain on our land.”
“We were expecting a grant that would pay for an organic sprayer for our apple, cherry, peach and pear orchard as well as paying for some part-time help. The grant has been put on hold.
This impacts the care of our trees and fruit, and possibly the size of the sellable harvest. If we aren’t able to sell much fruit because of disease pressure and lack of labor, our income will decrease and the public won’t benefit from the healthy fruit, grown without synthetic chemicals.
We need more organic produce to be grown, not less, for the overall health of people and our ecosystem.”
“I was just told that the North and South Carolina Local Food Purchasing Assistance (LFPA) program has been shut down. Between 15-25% of our total wholesale sales were through this program in 2024. This sudden closure of this program will mean that the produce we are contract growing for the program will likely go to waste and our farm will take a huge financial hit.
This directly impacts our farm’s bottom line and our ability to conduct business as usual. We have budgeted our labor needs according to the belief that the LFPA program would continue through the 2025 season, so as a result of this sudden changes, we might need to make cuts to our staffing or explore other expenses cutting approaches.”
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