Cotton
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April 21, 2025 - WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity last Thursday filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Department of Agriculture demanding information about its Monday cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities program.
President Trump had already frozen payments under the program, through which $3.3 billion had been committed to help farmers increase climate-conscious practices.
“The Trump administration claims it wants to help farmers, but instead it pulled the rug out from under them,” said Ben Rankin, environmental health attorney at the Center. “The president needs to stop playing politics with people’s livelihoods and our country’s food security.”
The funds taken from the canceled Partnerships program will be spent instead on a new, yet-to-be-defined Advancing Markets for Producers initiative, for which current grantees must meet new eligibility requirements to participate.
The Center’s public records request seeks details about how the Trump administration is changing the program, including its climate goals, eligibility criteria and data collection.
The announcement states that eligible expenses incurred prior to April 13 will be honored, but it is unclear whether, or how, producers will be able to comply with the new requirements for those payments.
“By removing the climate focus, failing to collect critical data and risking the loss of benefits to family farmers, this program could wind up being just another giveaway to polluting, industrial agribusinesses,” said Rankin. “Canceling climate-smart funding doesn’t erase the reality that American farmers face climate-fueled storms, heat and droughts that are upending agriculture.”
In July 2024 the Center petitioned the USDA to improve data collection and transparency for the Partnerships program and establish clear methods for selecting and evaluating projects’ climate benefits. The USDA’s Monday announcement indicates that the administration is doing the opposite by deemphasizing climate resilience and data collection as goals of the new program.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.8 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Source: Center for Biological Diversity
