Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins today announced the “cancellation” of the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities, the Biden administration’s signature program to address climate change in American agriculture, but in the same news release said it has been “reformed and overhauled … into the Advancing Markets for Producers initiative, and the USDA has identified changes to align the initiative with current Trump administration priorities.”

USDA said it will contact current partners individually to provide information about their future participation, and that it will honor all eligible expenses incurred before April 13.

“This reform effort will utilize existing funding, with no new funding made available for these partnerships,” USDA said. “Select projects may continue if it is demonstrated that a significant amount of the federal funds awarded will go to farmers.”

The Biden administration set aside $3.1 billion from the Commodity Credit Corporation, USDA’s line of credit at the Treasury, for the program.

Congressional Republicans have said the partnerships was an improper use of the CCC, a fund set up in the 1930s to help farmers with their problems throughout the year. A USDA civil servant with a knowledge of the program told The Hagstrom Report in February that less than half the $3.1 billion had been disbursed, and that the remainder was in an account at USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

It is unclear whether Rollins’ statement about “existing funding” means that only the money that has been committed so far will be available or whether the remainder of the $3.1 billion will be available. 

In 2022, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the program as a way for farmers to address climate change through a voluntary program set up as a series of experiments to reduce carbon emissions and create products that would be sold as “climate-smart.”

Vilsack said he believed that both domestic and foreign consumers would pay more for products that were marketed as having been grown in a manner that resulted in fewer carbon emissions than other products. The project was complicated, with large nonprofit groups getting grants that, in turn, paid money to other entities including farmers to achieve the goals. Each project was to report back to USDA on what worked and what didn’t in both reducing carbon emissions and creating climate-smart commodities.  

Today Rollins said, “The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative was largely built to advance the green new scam at the benefit of NGOs, not American farmers.”

“The concerns of farmers took a backseat during the Biden administration,” Rollins said. “During my short time as secretary, I have heard directly from our farmers that many of the USDA partnerships are overburdened by red tape, have ambiguous goals, and require complex reporting that push farmers onto the sidelines. We are correcting these mistakes and redirecting our efforts to set our farmers up for an unprecedented era of prosperity.”

Robert Bonnie, the USDA undersecretary for farm production and conservation (FPAC) in the Biden administration who developed the project, told DTN/Progressive Farmer that his read on USDA’s announcement is that the Trump administration largely left the program intact with a new name.

“I’d be very surprised if the vast majority of our projects don’t meet the new requirements,” Bonnie said.

“So my initial read is that Secretary Rollins heard from producers about how popular this program is and they were looking for a face-saving way out, and this is what they did.”

Sam Kieffer, the vice president of public policy at the Republican-leaning American Farm Bureau Federation, said in an email, “Farm Bureau has long supported the goals of voluntary, market-driven programs that support America’s farmers and ranchers while protecting the natural resources they’ve been entrusted with.”

“We are just learning of USDA’s decision and will assess the impact of these changes on growers,” Kieffer said.”We are grateful the administration is focused on being there and delivering for farmers and ranchers. We also urge USDA to honor contracts already signed where farmers and farmer-led organizations may have already made investments and paid for supplies or services based on the assumption they would be reimbursed by this grant program.”

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said the creation of the new program was “met with some optimism as well as significant concerns.”

“After months of self-inflicted uncertainty, today’s announcement is a significant and welcome step toward the clarity that farmers, ranchers, and the organizations who support them have desperately needed, particularly the farmers who have spoken in favor of the program,” said Mike Lavender, NSAC policy director. 

“Unfortunately, this clarity will also bring unnecessary hardship nationwide to farmer serving organizations and likely farmers as a result of USDA changing program requirements and cancelling projects mid-stream,” Lavender said.

Richa Patel, NSAC policy specialist, said, “Direct producer payments are important, and strong cost share can make all the difference for many farmers and ranchers seeking to adopt new practices in their operations.”

“However, it is disappointing to see the administration disinvest in other valuable elements of PCSC projects beyond direct payments, including technical support for producers designing, implementing and maintaining conservation systems.

“Coupling this announcement with USDA’s reductions in force, the administration must take every opportunity going forward to increase access to technical assistance and support the staffing levels necessary to provide efficient and dependable customer service for our farmers — those working directly with USDA and those working with the farmer-serving organizations it partners with.”

Ambrook Research recently published an article by a journalist trying to understand the complicated program while USDA was reviewing it.