In the News
‘Like a ghost town’: Employee exodus hammers farm conservation agency
A federal agency that provides critical land management assistance to American farmers has quietly gone dark in swaths of rural America. Agriculture Department offices for the government’s Natural Resources Conservation Service are operating with skeleton crews across the country — or no staff at all, in some cases — at a time when farmers want
Read More ‘Like a ghost town’: Employee exodus hammers farm conservation agency
Regenerative Ag and MAHA Now Linked | By Chris Clayton, DTN Ag Policy Editor
USDA will spend up to $700 million to help more farmers use regenerative agricultural practices as part of the Trump administration's "Make America Healthy Again" agenda. The pilot program will use $400 million from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and $300 million from the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and will also leverage private funding to promote conservation practices such as cover crops while helping farmers reduce the use of chemicals such as pesticides. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the pilot program on Wednesday with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Read More Regenerative Ag and MAHA Now Linked | By Chris Clayton, DTN Ag Policy Editor
Oversubscription in EQIP, CSP increased in fiscal 2025, analysis finds.
Only about 24% of EQIP applications and 37% of CSP applications resulted in awarded contracts in fiscal year 2025, a drop from 43% and 54% the year before, according to an Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy analysis of USDA data. Conservation advocates say a Trump administration freeze on climate funding, increased applications, and NRCS
Read More Oversubscription in EQIP, CSP increased in fiscal 2025, analysis finds.
Trump Pledged a ‘Golden Age’ for Farmers. They Can’t Access Help.
Gabe Arveson, a farmer in Polk County, Minnesota, used to be able to easily contact his local Department of Agriculture service center when he needed help. Now he can’t. For farmers across the country, the Trump administration’s federal workforce cuts have resulted in unreturned voicemails and signs on locked office doors warning visitors of staffing
Read More Trump Pledged a ‘Golden Age’ for Farmers. They Can’t Access Help.
The agency that helps farmers protect the environment lost a third of its staff last year. And more cuts could be coming.
“For a brief shining moment, there was an NRCS representative in New Orleans,” she said. “He was just part of the community here, which was really special to have that as a representative. And he was also very proactive about reaching out to us when there was some funding available.” NRCS offices across the country,
Read More The agency that helps farmers protect the environment lost a third of its staff last year. And more cuts could be coming.
Under Trump, the Department of Agriculture Has Ditched Conservation and Climate Efforts
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. Amanda Koehler has spent the past decade working to help young and first-time farmers gain access to land—the single biggest obstacle for people who aspire to grow crops or raise animals but can’t afford the soaring cost of acreage.
Read More Under Trump, the Department of Agriculture Has Ditched Conservation and Climate Efforts
USDA in Minnesota, already hit hard by DOGE cuts, faces more lost jobs
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency hit hardest in Minnesota by federal cuts last year, now faces additional defunding under President Donald Trump’s second-year budget proposal. The White House wants to reduce the USDA’s 2027 budget for discretionary conservation funding from $850 million to just $111 million. If the latest USDA cuts are approved,
Read More USDA in Minnesota, already hit hard by DOGE cuts, faces more lost jobsNEWS RELEASE: Statement from Invest In Our Land Executive Director Rebecca Bartels on House Passage of the Farm Bill
Washington DC, Thursday, April 30, 2026 – Today, Invest in Our Land issued the following statement in response to the passage of the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 by the House of Representatives: “From high input costs and volatile markets to increasingly destructive weather, American farmers and ranchers are navigating the toughest stretch in a generation,” said Rebecca
Read More NEWS RELEASE: Statement from Invest In Our Land Executive Director Rebecca Bartels on House Passage of the Farm Bill
Invest in Our Land in Action
Invest In Our Land is committed to bringing farmers and policymakers together to protect the future of American agriculture.
