STOP WORK NOW!

Any doubt about whether IRA-funded conservation payments are frozen is gone

Author’s note: Although many of you know me through my work with American Farmland Trust, the information and opinions I share on this Substack newsletter are mine and mine alone. I’m writing from the perspective of someone who works with NH farmers every day to improve soil health, increase farm viability, and improve the environment through careful management of livestock. I hope you find some parts of it helpful.

If you read my newsletter yesterday and you have open contracts with NRCS, I hope you’ve checked your paperwork to determine whether your agreement was funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. If it was, I hope you have done everything you can to stop work on your projects. It’s unequivocally true: you will not be paid timely for the work you’re doing under an IRA funded contract, and you may not ever get paid.

Despite the administration’s assurances that its freeze of federal payments wouldn’t effect money flowing to individuals, and despite USDA’s efforts to keep the freeze quiet — telling contract holders about it only if and when they asked — the story has gotten out. Major news organizations have confirmed the rumblings I first started to hear late last week.

DTN Progressive Farmer broke the story on Friday on its Ag Policy Blog, prompted by a viral video by Missouri cattle farmer Skylar Holden. Holden has spent tens of thousands of dollars on water pipeline under an EQIP-IRA contract to improve the grazing infrastructure for his herd, and was told he won’t be paid what he’s owed for the foreseeable future and maybe not ever. Reuters picked up the story over the weekend, and on Monday it was followed by the general press: the story has now appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, and the agricultural trade press.

USDA has said little about the freeze. In a statement to the Washington Post, an unnamed USDA spokesperson said the Trump administration “rightfully has asked for a comprehensive review of all contracts, work, and personnel across all federal agencies. Anything that violates the President’s Executive Orders will be subject for review. The Department of Agriculture will be happy to provide a response to interested parties once Brooke Rollins is confirmed [as secretary of agriculture] and has the opportunity to analyze these reviews.

Translated: “We got your money right here.”

The White House has said even less.

Both the act of freezing funding for valid contracts using money obligated with Congressional authorization and the way USDA and NRCS have failed to warn the farmers they are supposed to assist are unconscionable. A federal judge in Rhode Island, who earlier ordered the administration to unfreeze Congressionally authorized payments, including EQIP-IRA payments, yesterday ruled that the White House has not complied with his order.

How the next few days play out will tell us a lot about whether this administration is willing to hang farmers out to dry by tearing up perfectly valid contracts because it doesn’t want to bother to ask Congress to repeal a law it doesn’t like. In the meantime, the only wise course of action for a farmer with an EQIP-IRA contract is to stop digging if you have started, and don’t start if you haven’t.

Even if we ultimately prevail on this and force the administration to honor valid contracts, faith in NRCS will be badly eroded, and I’m pretty sure that’s the point. Farmers remember, he doesn’t need your vote anymore. He’s not going to run for re-election.