By Mark Schonbeck, VABF Policy Liason
Finishing up the NSAC Week of Action
Making Your Voice Heard – April 28 and 29
First, a big Thank You to all who have participated in any one or more of the first four days of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s Week of Action that started on Earth Day April 22nd with the push to get additional Congressional co-sponsors for the Agriculture Resilience Act, advocacy for the Local Foods Procurement Assistance (LFPA) and Local Foods for Schools (LFS) programs on Wednesday the 23rd, a farmer sign-on letter for comprehensive disaster assistance on Thursday the 24th, and celebrate and protect federal employees on Friday the 25th.
This week on Monday April 28th is our opportunity to hold Congress and USDA accountable for the immediate and full release of funding and reinstatement of USDA programs and contracts. Ask your Members of Congress to co-sponsor the Honoring Farmers’ Contracts Act which obligates USDA to do so. If you have been affected directly by the funding freeze, tell your story! For resources to help you develop your phone or email message to your Members of Congress, see this toolkit and scroll down to page 24, April 28 Release Funds and Honor Contracts.
This week on Tuesday April 29th, which happens to be Trump’s 100th day in office, the National Young Farmers Coalition is organizing a Congressional briefing on the impacts of the hiring freeze on young farmers. Call your Members of Congress and invite/ urge them to participate in the briefing. See this toolkit and scroll down to page 29, April 29 – Congressional Briefing.
Again – thank you so much for whatever you decide you can take on for this week of action. And don’t worry if you cannot do it al – if each of us makes one call or sends one email, we will have a significant impact.
Program rebranded
Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities
Advancing Markets for Producers
On April 14, the USDA announced that they are canceling the Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities (PCSC) effective immediately, and that individual projects that meet certain criteria will be allowed to proceed under a new program, Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP). These criteria include:
- At least 65% of a project’s budget must consist of direct payment to farmers.
- At least one farmer must have been enrolled and received payment by the end of 2024.
In a misleading press release, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins framed the canceled PCSC program as overly bureaucratic and designed to help non-profits and not farmers. Three large projects in which a number of Virginia farmers have been actively engaged include:
- An agroforestry endeavor led by the Nature Conservancy in which Appalachian Sustainable Development of Abingdon, VA (https://www.asdevelop.org/) received a sub-award to provide vital technical assistance to help farmers design and implement agroforestry plantings and to develop markets for farmers’ agroforestry products.
- A project led by the Rodale Institute on cover cropping in diversified vegetable rotations in the southern Piedmont, in which VABF was coordinating and providing technical assistance to Virginia farmers.
- A project led by Pasa Sustainable Agriculture (https://pasafarming.org/) to help farmers implement agroforestry, prescribed grazing, cover crops, reduced tillage, and other soil health / carbon sequestration practices.
In its review of PCSC projects to decide which ones to terminate, USDA utterly failed to take into account the tremendous amount of technical and financial support that NGO award recipients offer farmers. While USDA decided that the Nature Conservancy and Pasa Projects did not make the 65% criterion, they missed the obvious. The technical support provided by ASD and Pasa have made them regional powerhouses for building farmer capacity and prosperity through everything from practical training and assistance in building healthy soils and planting trees successfully to market development for new agroforestry products.
PCSC awardees who have their projects canceled in this way can apply to the new AMP to fund a modified project that meets the above criteria and “furthers the agenda of the current administration.” However, this is too little and too late. The suspension of funding at the end of January followed by the April 13 cancellation came as a heavy blow that forced ASD and Pasa to lay off staff, leaving them with limited capacity to redesign the project and reapply. Meanwhile, dozens of farmers who enthusiastically signed up to install diverse agroforestry plantings and other conservation systems now find themselves in debt for thousands of dollars invested in planting stock for which they will no longer be reimbursed.
Other NSAC News and Blog Posts
USDA Programs Freeze: What We Know, dated April 2, summarizes what NSAC staff knew at that moment in time about the funding freezes, pauses, and program cancellations and suspensions, and their impacts on farmers and food systems. Watch the NSAC website for future updates as they become available.
NSAC also published and in-depth analysis of USDA Crop Insurance Programs, how they work, and why they do not currently serve smaller scale and diversified farms all that well and need reform.
On a brighter note, here is a link to NSAC’s new and updated Farmer’s Guide to the Conservation Stewardship Program, which has undergone significant improvements to make it more accessible and valuable to smaller scale, diversified, and high-level conservation farmers.
Perennial Opportunity
James River Buffer Program
Designs and installs riparian forest buffer at no cost to you
If your farm is located within the James River watershed and you would like to plant a forested buffer to protect water quality, provide wildlife habitat, and improve farm biodiversity, check out the James River Buffer Program. The James River Association, the Virginia Department of Forestry, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation are working with farmers and landowners across the middle and upper James River watershed to restore or create forest buffers that improve the quality of local waterways. The program works with you to select tree species, plants the buffer, and provides maintenance for the first three years at no cost to you. Plantings can include income generating species such as sugar maple for syrup production.
Perennial plantings will play a vital role in addressing the climate crisis by enhancing resilience, sequestering carbon, and intercepting nutrients.
Special note: I believe that this program does not depend on federal funding; therefore, it should not be affected by the DOGE “chainsaw.” Thus, it will play an even more important role in helping farmers and land owners protect the James River and Chesapeake Bay watersheds in the days and years ahead.
