Project 2025—The Conservative Policy Playbook on USDA and Farm Bill Programs.
Their plan: Radically Shrink USDA, Cut anti-hunger programs, Terminate CRP, Cut Down National Forests.
Project 2025 has been getting a lot of attention in recent weeks from mainstream media and some candidates for federal office. The policy action plan, put together by the Heritage Foundation and their allies from conservative think tanks and political organizations, provides a detailed playbook for executive and legislative branch priorities in a potential second Donald Trump Presidency. The policy playbook is one piece of plan to “pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook.” These four pillars make up what the Heritage Foundation calls the “2025 Presidential Transition Project.”
This edition of The Cocklebur documents Project 2025 plans for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Farm Bill programs. If implemented, USDA would be a much smaller organization with a much smaller budget addressing a very narrow range of research and food safety issues. USDA would no longer be in charge of hunger and nutrition programs (and those programs would face budget cuts and administrative procedures that limit participation). Conservation programs would be eliminated or face austerity. Logging would explode on U.S. Forest Service land.
A Summary of Project 2025 Directives for USDA and Farm Bill programs:
Radically Cut Government Payments to Farmers. Project 2025 includes provisions to eliminate many of USDA programs that pay farmers to survive low prices, increased costs, lower-than-average yields, or weather disasters. Specifically, the policy guidebook calls for elimination of the federal sugar program, repealing the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs, and reducing government subsidies for federal crop insurance.
Eliminate the Conservation Reserve Program. Heritage’s policy guidance includes their longstanding position to destroy the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), one of USDA’s longstanding cornerstone conservation programs. CRP pays farmers to take rowcrop land out of production in order to reduce soil erosion, support biodiversity and pollinators, and expand wildlife habitat. Terminating CRP would remove conservation program participation from more than 25 million acres nationwide.
Cut SNAP, and move the critical nutrition program out of USDA and the Farm Bill process. Some conservatives have fought for years to move SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps) from USDA to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Their thinking is that SNAP would be easier to cut at HHS than it is through the Farm Bill re-negotiation process. Republicans have been unsuccessful in this effort, but held up the last two Farm Bills in their attempts. Project 2025 also proposes SNAP and additional burdens that make it more difficult for poor and working class people to access the program.
Cut a lot more timber in National Forests under the guise of managing wildfires. The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is housed at USDA, and is responsible for fighting wildfires across the country. The timber industry, along with support from think tanks like Heritage and many Republican legislators, wants to aggressively harvest National Forests. Many conservationists and climate action advocates are opposed to the types of practices employed by the industry. Instead, they prefer thinning the understory, clearing brush, retaining older and more fire resistant trees, and maintaining the forest while reducing wildfire risks. Many communities in the West are tapping in to federal funding to build small-scale renewable energy projects to utilize the thinnings and brush.
Eliminate Marketing Orders and Checkoff Programs. This is the rare policy area where Project 2025 overlaps with many family farm and rural progressive organizations. As previously reported in The Cocklebur, the system of “mandatory commodity checkoffs” is in dire need of reform, according to many family farm groups. That’s because many checkoff-funded organizations, such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), and Dairy Management International, are also large and impactful lobbying groups with close ties to corporate agribusiness.
Project 2025’s Policy Blueprint Laundry List for USDA.
1.) Defend American Agriculture.
2.) Address the Abuse of CCC Discretionary Authority.
3.) Reform Farm Subsidies.
4.) Move the Work of the Food and Nutrition Service.
5.) Reform SNAP.
6.) Reform WIC.
7.) Return to the Original Purpose of School Meals.
8.) Reform Conservation Programs.
9.) Eliminate or Reform Marketing Orders and Checkoff Programs.
10.) Focus on Trade Policy, Not Trade Promotion.
11.) Remove Obstacles for Agricultural Biotechnology.
12.) Reform Forest Service Wildfire Management.
13.) Eliminate or Reform the Dietary Guidelines.
Project 2025’s Core Argument: The Government is the Enemy.
In their own words, here are a few passages that capture Project 2025’s view of USDA and Farm Bill programs:
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) can and should play a limited role, with much of its focus on removing governmental barriers that hinder food production or otherwise undermine efforts to meet consumer demand.”
“Agricultural production should first and foremost be focused on efficiently producing safe food.”
“The federal government does not need to transform the food system or develop a national plan to intervene across the supply chain.”
“The Biden Administration’s centrally planned transformational effort minimizes the importance of efficient agricultural production and instead places issues such as climate change and equity front and center. The USDA’s Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2022–2026 identifies six strategic goals, the first three of which focus on issues such as climate change, renewable energy, and systemic racism. In the Secretary of Agriculture’s message, there is only one mention of affordable food— and nothing about efficient production and the incredible innovation and respect for the environment that already exists within the agricultural community.”
“Taking these factors into account, below is a model USDA mission statement: 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.”
NOTE—I am inviting readers of The Cocklebur to respond to Project 2025. I would like to publish responses by the end of this week. So drop me a line and let me know what you think about the Project 2025 USDA and Farm Bill policy recommendations.
Thanks,
—Bryce
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.
Excellent analysis.