WASHINGTON, D.C. — When President Donald Trump’s 2018 spending bill landed on lawmakers’ desks last week, it jolted the agricultural industry from its roots, with one farm group declaring, “This budget fails agriculture and rural America.”

 

Trump’s fiscal year 2018 request, A New Foundation for American Greatness, calls for a dramatic undoing of the USDA’s farm and food programs vital to the country’s growth and for feeding America for decades. He is proposing to slash $230 billion, or 21 percent, of the USDA budget over the next 10 years, eliminating many programs and cutting thousands of jobs – more than 5,000 positions next year alone.

Congress is saying it will push back and draw up its own budget, and many of Trump’s proposals could face the axe. At a hearing on the USDA’s budget, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) told colleagues on the House Appropriations agriculture subcommittee that the budget was “a broken promise to America” from the President.

Fellow committee member Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) called it “cruel and heartless” in a hearing for budget explanations from new USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue. He struggled at times to answer all the committee’s questions, reminding lawmakers in the May 24 hearing that he’d only been on the job for five weeks, and indicated he was still working with his staff to understand and adopt the cuts presented to the agency by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Criticism of the spending plan has come from across the agricultural community, from farm organizations to policy groups. The National Sustainable Agricultural Coalition (NSAC) said the budget reductions “would effectively cripple the USDA’s ability to serve American family farmers effectively.”

 

“It is disappointing that the administration as put forward a budget proposal that shows such disregard and disrespect for farmers and rural communities,” said Greg Fogel, NSAC policy director.

Trump sent Congress his 62-page, 10-year spending plan on that includes next year’s $4.1 trillion budget and proposes deep cuts at the USDA, stripping billions of dollars in popular agricultural initiatives, including the agency’s crop insurance program. Beginning Oct. 1, the proposed budget would cap farm premium subsidies at $40,000 per farmer. The plan also calls for eliminating the harvest price option (HPO) that the OMB says would save more than $1 billion annually.

For over 10 years, the budget slashes $28.5 billion – or roughly 36 percent – in crop insurance to aid farmers. The White House says capping the subsidies saves taxpayers $16.2 billion over the decade. “The President’s proposed budget is an assault on the programs and personnel that provide vital services, research and a safety net for American’s family farmers, rural residents and consumers,” said Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union. “It is deeply disappointing that the President would propose such cuts, especially in the midst of a farm crisis that has family farmers and ranchers enduring a drastic, four-year slide in farm prices and a 50 percent drop in net farm income,” he said in a statement emailed to reporters.

More cuts proposed

“Weakening crop insurance and making it more difficult for farmers to bounce back during tough times will jeopardize rural jobs and will find little support in rural America or on Capitol Hill,” said a group of crop insurance organizations. 

 

“Farmers are willing to help fund their own safety nets – collectively spending $50 billion out of their own pockets in crop insurance since 2000 – because they know privatesector efficiency will speed aid when it is needed the most.” The American Soybean Growers Assoc. (ASA) stated, “This budget is a blueprint for how to make already difficult times in rural America even worse.”

ASA president Ron Moore added, “The crop insurance program is widely used by soybean farmers, and the harvest price option was selected in 99.4 percent of soybean revenue insurance policies sold in 2016. Thirty-six percent is the most extreme proposed cut to crop insurance I’ve seen in my 40 years on the farm. This is a program that exists to sustain farmers who suffer catastrophic losses.”

Also hard hit is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), facing a dramatic reduction of $193 billion over 10 years.

For rural America, the White House plan cuts housing subsidies, mortgage loan guarantees, programs vital to maintain clean water and other utilities and farm and immigrant job training funded from across USDA programs. Funding for research through the agency’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) – which funds scientific research focused on issues related to farming, livestock, nutrition and food safety – would see its discretionary allocations cut by $165 million.

In a joint statement from Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) – who each chair their chamber’s Agriculture Committee – both pledged to protect farm and nutrition programs.

“We support the Trump administration’s goal of achieving 3 percent economic growth for our nation (a forecast in Trump’s budget of which many private economists have voiced skepticism in media). USDA’s latest estimates find agricultural, food and related industries contribute $992 billion to our economy.

“As we debate the budget and the next farm bill, we will fight to ensure farmers have a strong safety net so this key segment of our economy can weather current hard times and continue to provide all Americans with safe, affordable food,” they stated.

Conaway added, “I anticipate Congress will produce a final budget that reflects these concerns and enables us to craft an effective, efficient bill.”

Other proposals in the 10-year plan reduce conservation spending by $5.8 billion, such as freezing enrollments in the Conservation Stewardship Program and dropping the Regional Conservation Partnership Program.

The budget would cut international food aid by slashing the $1.7 billion Food for Peace program, which provides U.S. commodities to address hunger overseas, revenue produced for U.S. farmers. Also eliminated would be the $3.1 billion Market Access Program, the Foreign Market Development Cooperator Program and the Biomass Crop Assistance Program.

Criticized is the elimination of the $477 million Rural Economic Development program that provides zero-interest loans through rural utility organizations that are used to finance local development. Two other programs to be abolished are the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and the Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program Account.

Throughout the entire government Trump proposes cutting 66 programs that involve thousands of jobs providing services in almost every community across the country. His budget proposes $54 billion in cuts in non-defense-discretionary funding to offset boosts to the defense budget.