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The Trump administration's FY2019 budget proposal seeks to slash 16 percent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's discretionary spending budget by eliminating several programs that support organic and sustainable farming, as well as cutting farm bill investments by $260 billion.
Chief among the cuts outlined in the $4.4 trillion budget request unveiled Monday is zero funding for the USDA's flagship organic research program, the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI). Just last week, bipartisan legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate that would reauthorize OREI for an additional five years and gradually increase its funding from $30 million in FY2019 to $50 million in FY2023.
The budget request also zeroes out the $4 million in funding for the Organic Transitions Program, a research grant program that helps farmers overcome some of the challenges of organic production and marketing.
Trump's budget plan also eliminates the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the nation’s largest and most comprehensive conservation program, with more than 72 million acres - about 8 percent of all agricultural land - currently enrolled in whole-farm conservation contracts.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) said the budget request "is the most anti-rural, anti-farmer proposal the agriculture community has seen in years."
Members of Congress are already lining up to reject the Trump budget plan.
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, said the budget proposal "is out of touch with our farmers, families, and rural communities. If taken seriously, this budget would make it impossible for Congress to pass a farm bill this year. The proposed cuts to both the USDA and the farm bill would hurt American agriculture, neglect rural businesses, and leave families and seniors behind."
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway (R-Texas), also dismissed the budget proposal in a joint statement: "As Chairmen of the Agriculture Committees, the task at hand is to produce a farm bill for the benefit of our farmers, ranchers, consumers and other stakeholders. We are committed to maintaining a strong safety net for agricultural producers during these times of low prices and uncertain markets and continuing to improve our nation’s nutrition programs.”
The National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC) also expressed its frustration with Trump's budget request.
“After a year spent talking about the needs of farmers and rural communities, President Trump’s budget is dramatically disconnected from that rhetoric, and from the economic headwinds farm families are facing,” said Andrew Bahrenburg, NYFC’s national policy director. “Young farmers are out there defying the odds and fighting to stay afloat, and the President is proposing to pull the rug even further out from under them.”
