Newly Confirmed Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Joins Trump and Musk in Dismantling Federal Government.
Rollins announced her agenda at USDA Friday: jobs cuts, de-funding projects awarded grants under Biden, an end to prioritizing equity, canceling all things climate, and kicking people off SNAP.
Brooke Rollins was confirmed as Secretary of Agriculture last Thursday in a 72-28 Senate vote and wasted no time implementing the President Donald Trump-Elon Musk agenda of slashing budgets and firing workers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
On Friday, Rollins announced the termination of 78 contracts worth over $132 million following an initial review by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). An additional 1,000 contracts remain under review for possible cancellation. Alongside these cuts, thousands of USDA employees were fired across multiple agencies according to reporting from DTN/Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton.
The number of USDA worker firings has not yet been announced by the Secretary, DOGE, or the White House (so much for transparency). It is likely that employees were fired from other agencies, such as the critical Farm Service Agency that handles government payments to farmers and Rural Development that supports rural infrastructure, telecommunications, energy and economic development efforts.
Rollins also ordered an end to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at USDA, stating that the agency will instead focus on "unity, equality, meritocracy, and color-blind policies." As part of this shift, 948 employee trainings were canceled, 758 of which were DEI-related.
Further, Rollins announced executive action on SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program also known as food stamps) cuts, tightening work requirements and limiting what recipients can purchase with benefits. She will collaborate with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Musk’s DOGE team to define eligible foods.
Rollins defended these changes, stating, “I look forward to working with Bobby Kennedy to ensure taxpayer dollars aren’t spent on unhealthy food and sugary drinks for children who need more nutritious options.”
"Here at USDA, we are servants for all Americans," Secretary Rollins told USDA employees Friday. "And we understand here at USDA that we do not just have a job, we have a mission." Rollins’s guidance aligns closely with the core demands of the rightwing Project 2025’s call for a mission realignment at USDA.
Rollins was previously the Founder, President, and CEO of the America First Policy Institute (AFPI). AFPI helped to write and shape Project 2025.
Project 2025 is highly critical of the USDA mission under Biden:
“To serve all Americans by providing effective, innovative, science-based public policy leadership in agriculture, food and nutrition, natural resource protection and management, rural development, and related issues with a commitment to delivering equitable and climate smart opportunities that inspire and help America thrive.” Part of the Biden USDA’s vision was, “An equitable and climate smart food and agriculture economy that protects and improves the health, nutrition and quality of life of all Americans, yields healthy land, forests and clean water, helps rural America thrive, and feeds the world.”
(NOTE—The Cocklebur does not consider this a very controversial—and in no way radical—mission statement. The Biden/former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack Team regularly supported mainstream Industrial Agriculture policy prescriptions. See “feed the world” above. )
Project 2025, as a contrast, calls for re-writing USDA’s agenda as:
“To develop and disseminate agricultural information and research, identify and address concrete public health and safety threats directly connected to food and agriculture, and remove both unjustified foreign trade barriers for U.S. goods and domestic government barriers that undermine access to safe and affordable food absent a compelling need—all based on the importance of sound science, personal freedom, private property, the rule of law, and service to all Americans.”
No equity. No notion of conservation. No rural development. No nutrition. No climate anything. Under the leadership of Rollins, Trump, and Musk, USDA is going to be a very different agency.
The Cocklebur previously outlined Project 2025’s conservative USDA make-over HERE.
The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.
Non and no. She is a rich kid who did livestock showing and her kids do the same. That’s all I know so far.
Brooke Rollins supporting Trumps dictatorship!