Letter to House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Thompson on the federal funding freeze

Author: Marie Hathaway

Pasa Executive Director Hannah Smith-Brubaker sent the following letter to US Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, regarding the impact of the Executive Memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget paused action on both existing and future federal assistance programs, including most climate- and equity-related grants—including Pasa’s grant through USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program.

Chairman Thompson,

We have known each other for going on 15 years. The first time we met in person, I was serving as the president of the Pennsylvania Farmers Union and awarded you NFU’s Golden Triangle. I did this because you were a reasonable and accountable voice for the farm bill that year. While we certainly haven’t agreed on a few significant policy fronts over the years, I, today, still find you to be someone who is a reasonable voice in what can seem like a completely dysfunctional government system. The wasted resources and confusion over the last few weeks with regard to congressionally allocated federal grants is dizzying. We are in desperate need of clarity and your advocacy for reasonableness.

Please consider the following points specific to the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program and please consider following up with Secretary Rollins:

• Thousands of farmers will be negatively impacted to the tune of billions of dollars if the Climate-Smart program is canceled including farmers being supported through projects led by Pasa but also Penn State University, the Iowa Soybean Association, John Deere, Farm Credit, Land O’Lakes Dairy, Nestle Purina, American Farm Bureau, Walmart Foundation, National Bison Association, Cargill, JBS, Rural Community Assistance Partnership, National Association of Conservation Districts, Pheasants/Quail Forever, US Cotton Trust, Milk Producers Council, National Milk Producers Federation, Bayer, and multiple timber producers associations. Regardless of the program’s name or USDA’s original goals, or even if you believe the program was implemented in “rogue” fashion, 2,000 farmers from Maine to South Carolina trusted us when we asked them to trust that USDA had their best interests at heart. Many farmers who had never before even interacted with USDA, signed contracts because we trusted USDA and asked them to do the same.
  
  
• For Pasa, we applied for this grant because we heard over and over again from our farmers that they weren’t a priority for their local NRCS office. They were too small, too diversified, even too innovative, too sustainable. Simply put, they weren’t the priority for NRCS. As I brought up at your listening session at the PA Farm Show, we were just beginning to recover from the gutting of the USDA staff from the last administration, had glimmers of hope that there would be enough technical support providers in the pipeline, and now USDA has been gutted again, and the program we developed to train the next generation of technical support providers (PCSC) is in jeopardy. We took seriously USDA’s proposal to leverage the trust our farmers have in us to improve USDA technical support service delivery. 
  
  
• In addition to the impact on farmers, longstanding (34 years) small to midsize nonprofits such as Pasa convinced our boards that we could trust USDA, trust the federal government, and signed these binding agreements. If this funding freeze lasts much longer, we will likely need to lay off 70 employees (most of whom live in Pennsylvania) who have been out in the field, supporting farmers gaining the experience to eventually fill some of the technical support positions greatly needed at NRCS. Many of our employees also currently farm or have farmed full-time in the past. We bring a unique perspective and set of skills to the field that will be gone nearly overnight.
  
  
• As you are aware, Pennsylvania is number one in the nation for young farmers. The farmers enrolled in our Climate-Smart program are disproportionately young since the concentration of our farmers is in Pennsylvania. This combined with the marketing support farmers receive through the program disproportionately impacts young farmers who are our promise for the next generation of farmers. Farmers who can actually make a go at farming and succeed.
  
  
• One concrete example of an arbitrary nonsensical approach being taken by DOGE and impacting USDA: A third-party environmental reviewer is required in order to approve certain NRCS practices (for example where there is land disturbance). DOGE canceled that third-party entity’s contract, but they had already been paid in full. The DOGE website itself says there is $0 savings from canceling the contract. The real impact on the ground? Dozens of farmers who were transitioning to pastured livestock now are stuck in a system where the approval they need to build their fences and install their waterlines and frost-free hydrants has been arbitrarily removed because the contract said the word, “Environmental Review”. And talk about waste! $8,000,000 was paid to a contractor who now cannot perform the work they were contracted to perform over the next 3.5 years. That’s not a cost savings, that’s criminal. How will we look in the eyes of dairy farmers, providing the whole milk for which you’ve advocated, and tell them that, to save the government $0, we have to cancel work that would have brought them more stability and more business?
  

Therefore:

• Existing signed farmer contracts MUST be fulfilled and payments be made without delay. USDA allocated these funds and we, in turn, have allocated these funds to YOUR farmer constituents.
  
  
• Funding delays or terminations endanger farm businesses and thousands of jobs in rural communities. The conservation practices our farmers are installing impact not only their business, but all the businesses contracted to help them: the fencing companies, the tree nurseries, the seed companies—the list is endless.
  
  
• You, of all people, are aware of how challenging it is to make ends meet as a farmer. Delaying funding or breaking contracts leaves farmers with bills they may be unable to pay. The executive branch and elected officials are not keeping their promises to farmers. In order to equip farmers and ranchers to make the best decisions about their farms for next year, funding must continue to flow, and all existing contracts must be honored.
  
  
• This program is not a handout. These binding agreements allow farmers to leverage their own sweat equity to build a more resilient food system. Like you, we want a decentralized food system. This program is strengthening our food system, and as you’ve said numerous times, our national security. This isn’t symbolic: it is your farmer’s trust on the line because it may be their farm on the line.
  

Most sincerely,

Hannah Smith-Brubaker, executive director