The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) traces its earliest roots to the farm crisis of the 1980s, when cycles in the global economy and federal agricultural policy combined to push farmers losing their farms into the national spotlight. The 330,000 farm families who lost their farms between 1978 and 1992 were, unfortunately, not the last. The total number of farms has continued to steadily decrease since then, with the loss of mid-sized farms at a particularly concerning rate.

Within the past couple of years, there has been mounting evidence suggesting a tipping point for farmers and ranchers not unlike that of the 1980s. Today, high production costs, unstable markets, and low crop prices driven by uncertain export markets and overproduction have converged to create an economic climate in which farmers’ livelihoods are threatened. Earlier this year, hundreds of farmers – reportedly more than 500 – attended a single meeting to ask for help. Moments of farm crisis – like the one we are in now – stand out from the decades-long drumbeat of farm losses across agriculture.

While the current threat of farm loss is driven by global economies and issues far outside of farmers’ control, the fate of farm families is and will continue to be determined by the structure of US federal farm programs. Agriculture will always have disruptive events, from market disruptions and natural disasters to pandemics and pests. Yet the structure of federal policy determines the impact of those disruptions on farm families, their communities, the land, and the country. Too often federal programs have been structured to amplify the benefits of scale, while further eroding the strength of our communities.

Keeping farmers on the land is in NSAC’s DNA. For decades, NSAC has championed policies that promote markets and production systems that build farmers’ autonomy and self-determination and lessen their vulnerability to disasters. Today, federal policy can still be a vehicle to build a truly sustainable, just agricultural economy – one that sustains farm families and livelihoods, protects natural resources, and supports communities nationwide. 

This blog post offers an in-depth examination of the current state of the US farm economy, the impacts of a down farm economy, and the federal policy solutions necessary to put the US agricultural economy – and the farmers, ranchers, and communities who depend on it – on firm footing for the future.

• The Current Farm Economy
• Impacts to Individuals, Families, and Communities
• Comprehensive and Proactive Solutions
• What Comes Next

The Current Farm Economy

The US farm economy can be exceedingly complex to navigate. Nationwide, there are more than 1.9 million farms. These farms – from rural communities to urban centers and everywhere in between – are incredibly diverse in almost every way imaginable. 

The overwhelming majority of US crop production is represented by just two commodities – corn and soybeans – which were planted on roughly 175 million total acres in 2023. Broadening the scope slightly, wheat (50 million acres) and cotton (10 million acres) enter the picture. Beyond row crops, there are hundreds of thousands of specialty crop farmers in the US, growing almost every imaginable variety of fruit, nut, and vegetable. In 2023, 4.3 million acres were devoted to vegetables and just over 6 million acres in orchard production. Meanwhile, 568,972 farms – roughly 30% of all US farms – specialized in cattle or dairy production in 2022. Another 19% of US farms specialize in other livestock: hogs and pigs, poultry and eggs, sheep and goats, and beyond.

Each farmer must build their own business model – factoring in their unique scale, type of production, and market – to achieve success and longevity. Each of these factors carries with it its own risks and opportunities for growth and stability. Consequently, it’s important to note that farmers can have significantly divergent experiences within the same farm economy. Some may be particularly well positioned to navigate a challenging economy thanks to their strategy or even where they farm, while others may have an entirely different experience.

Yet all farmers – whether they are raising livestock or growing row crops, specialty crops, or even both – face similar hurdles: namely, production costs, crop prices, and market access. 

Production costs

One of the most significant costs nearly all farmers face is for inputs – items produced off farm – that they deem necessary to their farm’s success. Some of the most common production costs include fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds. Determined in large part by global market conditions, fertilizer and pesticide prices are difficult, if not impossible to control with domestic policy, and recent turbulence in most global markets has only exacerbated the problem. In 2024, the cost to farmers of these combined crop inputs (chemicals, fertilizers, and seeds) rose by nearly $20 billion dollars (comparing 2024 to 2016). During that time period, pesticide production expenses jumped 42%, seed expenses jumped 26%, and fertilizer, lime, and soil conditioner expenses rose 44%. During that same time window, the amount of US acres in farms declined significantly, signalling that dramatic increases in production expenses are not being driven by expanded acreage. 

Crop prices

While production costs have risen significantly in recent years, nationwide, farmers are also facing low crop prices. Since the peak highs in 2021 and 2022, crop prices for corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton have all fallen significantly – corn, soybeans, and wheat are all down more than 50% per bushel, while cotton is down more than 40%. On the back of these low prices, total crop cash receipts – including receipts from farm products like fruits and nuts – are forecast to decrease $6.1 billion (2.5 percent) in 2025. When focusing on some of the most prevalent row crops, we see that the combined cash receipts are even lower – corn, soybeans and wheat are forecast to fall by $6.8 billion in 2025.

Similarly, many specialty crop prices have either dropped or failed to keep pace with the rising production costs highlighted above. Cash receipts for vegetables and melons are forecast to be $520 million lower in 2025 than in 2024 and nearly $1B lower than 2023. At the same time, specialty crop producers have faced increasing production and labor costs. Specialty crop farms also have the highest labor costs as a portion of total cash expenses and are particularly affected by rising labor costs and labor shortages. 

The factors driving low prices are, of course, multifaceted. Farm policies and economic structures incentivize maximizing yield, which often result in overproduction of major US crops – corn, soybeans, wheat – creating a price glut that quickly and severely depresses prices for producers. Similarly, unstable domestic and international market access also impacts the price that farmers receive.

Market access

The US agricultural economy is heavily reliant on international markets. From livestock to grains, commodity production in the US has long exceeded domestic demand for the majority of major commodities. Because domestic demand is exceeded, the US agricultural economy relies on – and is exposed to – often volatile international markets. Sudden changes to trade rules and tariffs have made our usual buyers – like China and Argentina – nervous. Because they cannot reliably count on us, they are now buying from other countries instead. This has introduced significant uncertainty for farmers about markets and dropped crop prices – soybean sales are down 23% from the same time last year because of lower prices. While recently announced trade deals could shift this trend, legitimate uncertainties remain.

Instability of Federal Partnership

Finally, it is worth stating that 2025 has brought unprecedented instability in federal partnership. Although stability is essential for farm planning, farmers have experienced unexpected contract cuts and unpredictable, abrupt trade policy shifts. In January 2025, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) began freezing and even terminating the lawfully held contracts of farmers and farmer-serving organizations, disrupting planning for the 2025 planting season.

From commodity farmers selling into international markets to specialty growers selling at a market down the street, collectively, these freezes and terminations have been felt across all scales and types of American agriculture. Each farmer develops their own unique financing strategy, and federal programs can be an essential piece in the puzzle to demonstrate stable income for the year. But when federal contracts are frozen or terminated with little warning, it not only casts doubt on government dependability, it ultimately undercuts the ability of federal programs to serve as a stable support for farmers of all scales. The damage is much more extensive than just the loss of that specific income. Sudden loss of any source of federal support can impact a producer’s ability to work with their lenders to secure or maintain necessary lines of operating credit for the growing season.

This uncertainty has permeated federal programs throughout 2025, impacting programs that help farmers enter new domestic markets, adapt to natural disasters and add-value to their crop, and expand access to USDA programs and services. It has even jeopardized popular farmer-led programs as recently as September 2025.  Over the summer, Congress passed and the President signed a budget reconciliation bill. This bill cut billions in food assistance and funneled that savings toward commodity payments, all while programs that support the vast majority of farmers and rural communities are excluded from the bill entirely. On top of all of this, USDA has lost nearly 20,000 employees since January while simultaneously proposing a massive department-wide reorganization without any input from farmers – both of which serve to undermine USDA’s support for farmers.

Sum of the Parts

When the tide of these baseline factors turns bad, keeping farmers in business – and on the land – requires a federal response that is finely tuned to the full range of farm and farmer needs.

By nearly any measure 2025 has presented American farmers with an array of serious challenges that, collectively, threaten farm viability nationwide. In fact, a recent survey of agricultural lenders indicates that less than half of US farmers are likely to be profitable in 2026. Yet, this moment of farm financial crisis is not particularly unique, and is just one in a long line of past and future disruptions. The ongoing loss of farms and the difficulty for new farmers to enter farming demonstrate where farm safety net programs have gaps, and how these programs are built to pick winners and losers. Farms going out of business is not a necessity of these disruptions, or even a function of disruptions, but a demonstration that federal safety net programs are not universal.

Over time, intentional decisions made by policy leaders have pushed many farmers toward narrow production choices that often make it difficult to diversify or explore new markets without sacrificing stability. Simultaneously, suffocating consolidation – among but not limited to input producers and livestock processors – leaves farmers squeezed on both ends. Taken together, these dynamics prevent many farmers – whether they grow crops, livestock, or both – from creating a business that can better buffer against shocks, and leaves them highly exposed to risk. 

Ultimately, in this model of agriculture, some years can be good, yet many years are not, even with government support: between 2017 and 2022, more than 140,000 farms were shuttered. Of those, 128,000 (91%) were smaller than 1,000 acres and 82% were smaller than 500 acres. Farms over 5,000 acres were the only category that increased – by over 5% – during this period. And no matter their size, farmers themselves faced “incredible financial, legal, and emotional stress.” Unfortunately, the impacts don’t end there.

Impacts

When the agricultural economy suffers, farmers suffer – ultimately, leading farmers and ranchers out of business. When a farm goes out of business, individuals, families, and communities are impacted, first and foremost as people. Rural communities have alarming rates of mental illness, depression, and suicide. Furthermore, farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, and the suicide rate has increased by 46% in rural America in the last 20 years.

The loss of farms also exacerbates land consolidation. While farm sector consolidation may carry some efficiencies in the aggregate, unchecked consolidation creates a fragile farm economy that is exceedingly expensive for taxpayers and siphons vitality from farming communities.  Data from USDA’s most recent Census of Agriculture continues to show a long-term, concerning trend of more land held by ever fewer farms. As farms go out of business, that land is often subject to development pressure, threatening to permanently remove it from agricultural production. If the land stays in production, it is often bought by a neighbor or corporate investor. Over time, this simple process leaves more and more land in the hands of fewer and fewer farmers. With fewer farms – oftentimes not owned by the farmer themself – the economic diversity and resilience of American agriculture is diminished, leaving it more vulnerable to shocks and dependent on federal payments.

Last but not least, during challenging economic times, not all farmers are impacted equally. Compared to established farmers, new and beginning farmers tend to have less capital on hand, making it more difficult to absorb and survive economic shocks like those presented in 2025. This fact threatens an entire generation of new farmers unless we act swiftly.

Comprehensive and Proactive Solutions

Clearly, farming is a challenging enterprise. Consequently, much of federal food and agriculture policy is rightly structured around supporting farmers when times are tough. The farm safety net – including federal crop insurance, commodity support programs, and disaster assistance programs – is an essential pathway for farmers to manage risk.

While the increased farm subsidies included in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill may offer some farmers short-term relief, relying solely on commodity support programs is not a durable solution to farmers’ financial challenges, in part because the current farm safety net has significant gaps in coverage and efficiency. Moreover, previous farm bill efforts, including the 2018 Farm Bill, proved that simply increasing subsidies has failed to stabilize the farm economy over the long term, leaving producers vulnerable once again. 

Yet even if ideally constructed, the farm safety net is just one aspect of building a thriving agricultural economy. Federal policy must holistically promote markets and invest in production systems that build all farmers’ autonomy and self-determination and lessen their vulnerability to disasters. Ultimately, we cannot afford to continue looking only at short-term solutions while ignoring the warning signs of longer term structural issues.

Rather, our immediate goal must be to keep farms in business now, coupled with a commitment to overhauling the safety net and building out financial resilience. While we face economic signals of farm distress similar to the 1980s, it is time for a fundamental change in how the US responds to those signals. To keep farmers on the land, it’s imperative.

Below, NSAC offers a non-exhaustive set of policy solutions as a starting point for what is needed in both the immediate and near term. Given the diversity of American agriculture, policy solutions may not apply to every farmer and rancher. For example, some may be tailored to commodity crop producers or livestock producers, whereas others are tailored toward specialty crop growers.

Collectively, these solutions prioritize keeping farms in business in the short term and building farm financial independence, self determination, and the ability to weather all nature of disruptions in the long term. These solutions – which reflect the importance of farms at all scales and of all products – prioritize farmers’ entrepreneurship, stewardship, and connection to their community while reducing dependence on taxpayer funds. We encourage Congress and USDA to utilize the full range of tools at their disposal, including government procurement, marketing, regulatory and granting programs, to increase farm viability in both the short and long terms.

The solutions are structured as follows:

• Immediate Needs
  • Farm Loans, Cash Flow Assistance, and Revenue-Based Relief
  • Rental Payments for Marginal Land
  • Enhanced Support for Input-Reducing Conservation Practices
  • Stronger, Reliable Markets for American Farmers 

• Near-Term Needs
  • Prioritize the Next Generation of Farmers
  • Comprehensive Federal Food Procurement Reform
  • Strengthen Regional Food Supply Chains
  • Build a Stronger Farm Safety Net for All

The solutions offered in this section are arranged as indicated above based on the immediacy necessary to keep farmers on the land. Immediate solutions include cash-flow and farm loan assistance, short-term contracts to retire marginal land, and stronger, more reliable markets. Near-term solutions include land access for beginning farmers, increasing market access for meat and poultry producers, comprehensive federal food procurement reform, and more.

Immediate Needs

Farm Loans, Cash Flow Assistance, and Revenue-Based Relief

USDA must provide immediate and near-term relief for all producers to ensure no farms or farmland are lost due to acute financial hardship. The structure of how this support is delivered is vital to ensure that no farms are lost, and farmland is not consolidated further into a diminishing number of larger operations. To ensure that all farms facing financial stress receive the support they need, USDA should:

• Provide loan support to any producer struggling to meet their next payment installment in order to prevent farm loan defaults. 
• Offer cash-flow assistance programs for producers specifically unable to meet payments due to interruptions or challenges in their cash-flow.
• Implement additional assistance payments with broad eligibility and payments administered directly to farmers calculated based on a farm’s revenue, rather than by crop and acreage, to ensure all farms can fairly participate in such a program.

• Ensure all funding goes to active farmers running the operation, not investors or non-operating landowners.
• Allow the use of Farm Service Agency (FSA) Direct Farm Ownership loans for refinancing other debt. 
• Require preferred guaranteed lenders to obtain FSA concurrence before initiating any foreclosure or asset liquidation activities for distressed borrowers.
• Authorize future loan assistance to borrowers who previously received debt forgiveness.
• Make USDA’s Distressed Borrower Set-Aside Program permanent.
• Increase the lifetime debt forgiveness threshold from $300,000 to $600,000 to align with the Direct Farm Ownership loan limit.
• Increase the microloan limit from $50,000 to $100,000 to make this key, streamlined financial tool more useful for a greater number of farms in filling financial gaps.

Rental Payments for Marginal Land

During extended periods of crop prices below cost of production, or exceptional market turbulence, USDA should provide producers with a stable source of income in exchange for conservation value. In this challenging farm economy, this short term source of guaranteed income will afford producers the chance to explore opportunities for new markets, diversified cash crop rotations, or a strategic sale of land. USDA should: 

• Provide short term contracts offering annual rental payments to producers who place marginal land in their operation into perennial cover. 
• Offer a maximum contract length of 3-years.
• Authorize USDA to enroll up to 30 million acres nationwide.
• Offer producers optional support for making profitable changes to their farm business on expiring contracted acres:
  • Offer financial support for business planning services to aid producers in building a value-added component to their farm business.
  • Provide organic technical assistance (TA) for those seeking to transition contracted land into organic production and obtain certification.
  • Allow for construction of infrastructure to support management-intensive rotational grazing on enrolled acres when they are returned to production.
  • Include a 1-year extension of rental payments to the contract holder should they sell contracted acres to a beginning farmer or rancher at the end of the contract.

Dedicated Support for Input-Reducing Conservation Practices

Commitment to soil health-building conservation practices offers a clear pathway to reduced production costs – namely by reducing fertilizer applications – and increased profits per acre over time. USDA should target support to producers eager to adopt conservation practices that significantly reduce the total amount of fertilizer they require, leaving farm businesses far more resilient to spikes in fertilizer prices. Congress should:

• Provide a large, one-time, targeted infusion of funding to working lands conservation programs, Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), requiring that:
  • The majority of funds must be used for Comprehensive Nutrient Management Planning (CNMP) on a wide variety of farms and all facilitating practices necessary to implement such plans.
  • CNMPs should be designed to achieve a reduction to <60% of current rates or <60% of LGU recommended rates for total fertilizer applied across the farm within the life of the plan.
  • A portion of the funding is used to hire NRCS staff capable of writing CNMPs and designing facilitating practices.

Similarly structured investments could also be provided, aiding producers in reducing their reliance on additional inputs like herbicides and pesticides.

Stronger, Reliable Markets for American Farmers 

Reliable markets, whether down the road or across an ocean, are foundational to farmers’ success. This is particularly true during a period of high production and labor costs and relatively lower prices. On the heels of the abrupt cancellation of domestic market initiatives earlier this year, federal policy must play an essential role in fostering the development of new, more robust markets. USDA should:

• Enter into cooperative agreements with states to promote state purchasing and management of contracts with local supply chains to fulfill the annual needs of local, federally funded nutrition programs, such as the National School Lunch Program and The Emergency Food Assistance Program, that are typically managed by USDA commodity procurement. 
• Invest additional funds in new market opportunities for small and mid-size farming operations by awarding states multi-year funding to partner with local businesses and networks to purchase locally produced specialty crops, dairy, and protein to distribute to food insecure communities.     
• Promote increased connectivity between schools and local farmers by authorizing a voluntary pathway that would allow schools the flexibility to use a portion of their school meal entitlement funding to purchase foods directly from farmers in their regions.
• Expand outreach for the Cooperative Interstate Shipment programs footprint to new states in order to expand markets for producers and processors. 

Near-Term Needs

Prioritize the Next Generation of Farmers

During a farm crisis, beginning farmers are often the most at risk. In these moments, the transition of the farm to the next generation can be an important tool to keep the farm in the family’s hands, and both are critical to keeping the land in agriculture. Facilitating a farm transition to a beginning farmer protects the land from development, and maintains the farm as an opportunity for a new generation of farmers to build a future and raise their children on the land. To keep existing early-career farmers on the land and to facilitate farm transitions to the next generation of farmers, USDA should:

• Provide funding for direct assistance and services at FSA to help the next generation of farmers and ranchers afford and acquire land by covering closing costs and down payments; capitalize infrastructure and site improvements; and acquire business technical assistance and farm viability training.
• Prioritize FSA projects that provide direct financial assistance to producers, involve collaborative networks or partnerships, and facilitate transition of farmland from existing to new producers.
• Waive farm management experience eligibility requirements for loan applications where the farm is being transitioned either within the extended family or to a current farm employee.
• Expand access to the Down Payment Loan Program (DPLP), especially for borrowers for whom the program will increase loan feasibility and loan approval, provide a 2-year delay in the start of DPLP repayment or repayment alignment with the new enterprise’s anticipated cash flow, and make down payment loans forgivable after 5 years for borrowers who stay in farming.
• Improve the ability of USDA to identify and address the barriers to intergenerational land transition and new farmer entry by reauthorizing the USDA Commission on Farm Transitions.
• Authorize FSA to make grants or enter into cooperative agreements to assist with heirs property issues, including the creation of Heirs Property and Fractionated Land Legal Clinics.
• Strengthen the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development program.

Comprehensive Federal Food Procurement Reform

USDA’s annual food expenditures represent an opportunity to address underlying causes of the farm crisis by creating markets that reduce production costs and support business growth and viability among groups underrepresented in the agricultural sector. Specifically, it means creating fair market opportunity for all producers, including beginning, young, veteran, and other historically underserved farmers and ranchers. USDA should:

• Open market access for more farmers and businesses to secure federal food contracts by developing criteria, and dedicating 20% of annual food spending, that consider metrics beyond least cost to reward producers who are using organic production methods and protecting our environment and businesses that purchase from underserved and socially disadvantaged producers.  
• Create a set aside within USDA food purchases to increase meat and poultry purchasing from small processors and small producers that increases over time to provide a stable market while providing recipients with healthy, nutritious protein products.

Strengthen Regional Food Supply Chains

A key element to promoting the integrity of local and regional supply chains – and thereby market opportunities for farmers – includes investing in the middle of the food supply chain, including critically underfunded infrastructure. Congress and USDA should:

• Establish state block grants to build states’ capacity to manage grant and loan programs for food supply chain infrastructure, including for aggregation and distribution, processing, and storage for specialty crops, meat and poultry, and dairy. 
• Continue investment in processing capacity. Together with changes to meat procurement policy at the federal level, this could provide stability to the domestic livestock and poultry sectors, especially independent producers who feel squeezed by a lack of competition in purchasers and processors. Providing a series of small grants, up to $500,000 per grant, to continue to fill gaps in processing capacity across the country would  support the expansion of domestic markets. 
• Promote a variety of technical assistance opportunities for producers that addresses barriers to farmers’ market access.  This includes technical assistance targeted toward food safety planning and certification, business development, and supply chain coordination.
• Build upon the success of the Dairy Business Innovation Centers by establishing regional technical assistance centers that provide business development and other forms of training and resources that fill existing regional gaps and promote growth in emerging sectors, with at least one center specifically around meat and poultry issues

Build a Stronger Farm Safety Net for All

All farmers and ranchers deserve a strong safety net that protects them in times of crisis. The design of farm safety net programs, including crop insurance and commodity support programs, promote a focus on yields and efficiency rather than resiliency. This system currently leaves out many producers altogether, particularly smaller, beginning, and diversified farmers. USDA should: 

• Improve risk management tools including Whole Farm Revenue Protection and the Non-Insured Disaster Assistance Program by streamlining applications, expanding coverage limits and options, and increasing access for small and beginning producers.
• Reform disincentives against the adoption of conservation practices that are perpetuated by federal crop insurance rules, and restructure safety net programs to support on-farm resiliency and reduce the need for ad-hoc disaster relief.
• Structure any supplemental disaster relief programs to maximize eligibility for all impacted producers, and ensure that payments reflect the true value of their losses through revenue-based assistance programs.

The post Keeping Farmers on the Land appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

press@sustainableagriculture.net

Tel. 347.563.6408

Release: New Lending Rule Signals More Savings for Farmers

Washington, DC, August 7, 2024 – The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) applauds Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Zach Ducheneaux for the announcement of a new final rule: Enhancing Access and Delivery for Farm Loans.  

“It is clear that the rule, in addition to a suite of actions from the agency in the last three years, aims to address challenges farmers experience by improving loan accessibility and flexibility to keep farmers on the land,” said Billy Hackett, Policy Specialist. “The provisions will act together to make FSA more responsive to the needs of farmers at the beginning of a lending relationship, invest in farmers’ long-term financial health, and reduce instances of default.”

Specifically, the final rule includes provisions that: 

• Support farmers with optional business plans tailored to their farm and flexible repayment terms which include smaller interest-only payments for one year with longer loan terms;
• Lower collateral requirements from a maximum of 150 percent to 125 percent of direct loan amounts and reduce scenarios where a farmer needs to pledge their home as collateral; and
• Establish the Distressed Borrower Set-Aside Program, which will allow a borrower to defer one annual loan installment per existing loan at a reduced interest rate.

In announcing the rule, Administrator Ducheneaux remarked: “The changes in this rule signal a producer-centric approach to finance. Our tools can now be used to provide borrowers the financial freedom and flexibility to improve profitability and resilience. Allowing the borrower the opportunity and means to save for long-term needs and make strategic investments from their existing production income can help demonstrate that when the terms of finance meet the “actual needs” of the producer, everybody wins; it’s akin to giving our producers a raise.”

USDA is seeking public comments on the final rule, which goes into effect on September 25, 2024. The comment period will end on October 7. 

The full text of the final rule can be found here. 

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The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: New Lending Rule Signals More Savings for Farmers appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net 

Release: USDA Announces $800 Million in Assistance to Distressed Farmers

Washington, DC, October 18, 2022 –– Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the phased implementation of Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides $3.1 billion in funding for USDA to provide relief for distressed borrowers with at-risk agricultural operations. Nearly $800 million has already been disbursed to distressed borrowers with direct or guaranteed loans administered by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA).

“The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) applauds USDA for expeditiously acting to deliver needed relief for economically distressed borrowers at the direction of Congress,” said Mike Lavender, NSAC Interim Policy Director, adding, “This relief is a critical step to stabilize farms and farm families at particular financial risk, including small- and medium-scale and diversified farmers, especially those historically underserved by USDA. This announcement creates the opportunity for these farmers and ranchers to begin building generational wealth and investing in the future.”

Of the roughly $800 million already provided to farms, USDA announced $600 million was paid directly to the accounts of 11,000 borrowers with qualifying delinquent loans. Notably, $200 million was used to resolve any remaining debt for 2,100 borrowers whose debt was referred to the Treasury Department, which means these farmers will not face garnishment of Federal benefit payments including tax refunds and social security. 

USDA also announced a concierge process to manually assist 1,600 farm loan borrowers with about $330 million in more complex debt on a case-by-case basis, including those facing bankruptcy and foreclosure. Aid will vary according to the particular circumstances of each case. In addition, up to 14,000 other financially distressed borrowers with cash flow challenges may be eligible to apply for assistance to avoid delinquency via a second case-by-case process established under existing FSA loan servicing criteria.

“The debt relief provisions announced today are historic actions in scale and scope which establish a foundational precedent to aid underserved farmers who have long trod an uncertain path,” said Billy Hackett, NSAC Policy Specialist. “In addition to our members who are working daily to assist economically distressed borrowers, NSAC is grateful for the leadership of partners including the Intertribal Agriculture Council, Rural Coalition, Federation of Southern Cooperatives, Farmers’ Legal Action Group, and others at the forefront of these efforts. We look forward to working in partnership to ensure eligible producers receive promised aid and to support FSA in the continued rollout of debt assistance programs under the mandate of Congress and using existing authorities,” added Hackett.

Last week, the USDA also announced next steps for a separate provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, Section 22007. This provision included $2.2 billion to aid farmers and ranchers who have experienced discrimination when navigating FSA farm loan programs. USDA opened a public comment period to inform the process to determine who may be deemed eligible for aid on the basis of discrimination. That comment period closes on November 14. 

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: USDA Announces $800 Million in Assistance to Distressed Farmers appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net 

Tel. 347.563.6408

Comment: NSAC Responds to the Lower Food and Fuel Cost Act – H.R. 7606

Washington, DC, June 17, 2022 – Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) issued the following comment, attributable to Eric Deeble, NSAC Policy Director, in response to the Lower Food and Fuel Cost Act – H.R. 7606 which passed yesterday in the House. 

“The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) applauds the House for taking decisive action to support the creation of a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) special investigator to enforce fair-play rules in the highly concentrated meatpacking industry when they passed the Lower Food and Fuel Cost Act – H.R. 7606 on Thursday. This fundamental reform would create the “Office of the Special Investigator for Competition Matters” within the USDA Packers and Stockyards Division, which oversees the implementation of the Packers and Stockyards Act.”

This office would address anticompetitive practices in the meat industry by facilitating the coordination and consultation between the USDA, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission. NSAC is particularly pleased to see that the House version includes the poultry sector. NSAC urges the Senate to support the creation of the Office of the Special Investigator for Competition Matters when they meet next week and to provide appropriated funds to ensure USDA can build a team of professionals and lawyers dedicated to implementing and enforcing antitrust and anti-competitive rules.”

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Comment: NSAC Responds to the Lower Food and Fuel Cost Act – H.R. 7606 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net 

Tel. 347.563.6408

Release: NSAC Applauds Proposed Rule to Reform Poultry Tournament Payment System

Reforms Would Bring More Transparency and Fairness for Contract Poultry Growers

Washington, DC, June 8, 2022 – Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition applauded Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for the publication of a long-awaited proposed rule regarding “Transparency in Poultry Growing Contracts and Tournaments.” This is the first of several expected rules to strengthen the century-old Packers and Stockyards Act (PSA) announced in President Biden’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. 

“The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) applauds this long-delayed step toward leveling the playing field for family farmers and rural communities and improving the poultry sector. Today in the US, just four companies represent 73 percent of beef processing, 67 percent of pork processing, 54 percent of chicken processing, and 45 percent of the retail grocery market. This concentration hurts farmers and consumers while returning maximum profits to corporations. Farmers deserve a fair shake.” said NSAC Policy Specialist, Billy Hackett.

The poultry tournament system pits farmer against farmer, ensuring that half of all farmers in the tournament will always lose, and bases the selection of winners and losers on factors outside the control of contracted producers and determined solely by big chicken companies (e.g., the quality of feed and chicks). Integrators have been known to manipulate these two variables in order to punish contract growers who have spoken out against industry abuses, almost systematically against farmers of color, which exemplifies the need for the proposed rule to prohibit retaliation against growers.

“The proposed ‘Transparency in Poultry Growing Contracts and Tournaments’ rule will improve the poultry payment system by guaranteeing some important transparency measures for producers. This rule, however, does nothing to address the fundamental structural issues of the poultry tournament system,” added Hackett. 

Specifically, the transparency measures announced in the proposed rule include: 

• Requiring poultry companies to disclose the number of flocks and minimum flock stocking density that they will contractually guarantee annually, as well as any “sale of farm” policies. 
• Requiring poultry companies, when finalizing a new contract, to disclose to prospective growers the income range, broken down by quintiles, of current growers in a prospective grower’s region. 
• Requiring poultry companies to disclose information about the quality of the inputs they provided, and any relevant feed discrepancies, to growers both when inputs are delivered and on settlement sheets, when growers receive their pay.
• Requiring poultry companies to provide each grower anonymized information about the quality of the inputs provided to every other grower in their “tournament group” on settlement sheets. 
• Requiring poultry companies to disclose how their tournament system formulas account for input quality variability.
• Requiring poultry company CEOs to sign agreements that require the implementation of internal controls frameworks necessary to provide accurate disclosures, and compliance with USDA audits of disclosed data.

The PSA was passed a century ago to combat anticompetitive practices in the livestock and poultry industries as corporate meatpackers and processors (also known as integrators) consolidated and amassed substantial power over producers. The commitment to begin a new rulemaking process to strengthen the PSA follows on the heels of an announcement from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) last year.   

USDA also issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) today. The purpose is to collect input in response to numerous complaints from poultry growers about the use of tournament systems. Comments in response to this request would help AMS tailor further rulemaking in addition to that already planned and under way to address specific industry practices in relation to tournament systems.

USDA is seeking public comments on the proposed rule and the ANPR. The comment periods end on August 8, 2022 and September 6, 2022, respectively.  

To learn more about livestock consolidation and concentration reform, read NSAC’s blog series.

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/

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As this unpredictable year comes to a close and we look to the future, here at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) we’re taking a look back at our coalition’s hard-fought wins towards building a more sustainable, equitable food and farm system in 2021.

Build Back Better through Budget Reconciliation

NSAC spent much of 2021 organizing to ensure Congress made once-in-a-generation investments to tackle the climate crisis through budget reconciliation. Thanks to our advocacy, the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) includes approximately $90 billion in critical food and farm system investments, many with a strong climate change focus.  Unfortunately, Congressional efforts to pass BBBA – the budget reconciliation package – before the end of the year have stalled. While the fate of the BBBA is uncertain, NSAC remains cautiously optimistic and will continue to advocate for the important investments included in the bill.  A more comprehensive look at how the food and agriculture portions of the Build Back Better Act have evolved can be found here.

Conservation and Energy Wins in BBBA

• $9 billion in new funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). This would represent roughly a 50% increase in program funding. 
• $4.1 billion for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). This would represent roughly a 55% increase in program funding. 
• $7.5 billion for the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), a roughly 250% increase in program funding.
• $2.0 billion in new funding for Rural Energy for America (REAP), that would amount to a 300% increase relative to the 2018 Farm Bill. 

Sustainable Agriculture Research Wins in BBBA

• $120 million for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (SARE).
• $60 million for the Organic Research and Education Initiative ((OREI). 
• $285 million for the Agriculture Food and Research Initiative (AFRI). 
• $60 million for the Specialty Crop Research Initiative to carry out education, extension, and research relating to climate change.

Pandemic Response

• The Emergency Coronavirus Relief Act of 2020, signed into law December 28th, 2020, contained a number of major investments for food & agriculture, including program improvements compared to the previous coronavirus package, many of which reflected major NSAC priorities and programs that could support more sustainable, equitable, and just food systems. Specifically, the bill contained nearly $26 billion in support for agriculture to be split equally between anti-hunger and nutrition programs and farm and food programs. NSAC has been working throughout 2021 to help ensure program spending from this bill is distributed promptly and equitably, including through direct farmer payments and through one-time funding increases to programs like the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) and Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach Program (FOTO).
• The American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law March 11, 2021, provided significant funding and additional resources to help farmers mitigate the prolonged impacts of this pandemic, including marginalized communities who were impacted the most. This included critical debt relief resources for farmers of color and new investments in supply chain safety and resilience for workers and farmers. NSAC members and staff worked to ensure that the USDA programs developed from this bill, including grant and loan programs to support small and mid-sized processors and enhancements to local and regional food procurement programs, build towards a more resilient, regional food system.
• The Pandemic Response and Safety (PRS) Grant Program, announced in October, will make more than $650 million in aid to food processors, distributors, farmers markets, and producers available to those who have been impacted by the pandemic. NSAC engaged with USDA to ensure that there was certainty around the types of the expenses that were eligible for reimbursement, that paperwork required was appropriate for even the smallest producers, and that farmers markets could participate fully.
• Significant Investment in Training Next-Generation Farmers and Ranchers, announced in October 2021, USDA is providing funding for 140 organizations and institutions that teach and train beginning farmers and ranchers. This investment was a result of new funding for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021. Several NSAC members were among the grantees including Kansas Rural Center, National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), Land for Good, Georgia Organics, and Michael Fields Agricultural Institute.

Competition and Consolidation

• Livestock Consolidation and Concentration have been issues of concern for NSAC members for decades, but they are resurgent in Washington, D.C this year as President Biden signed an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, signaling a whole of government effort to address concentration and consolidation in US markets, including in agriculture. NSAC staff and members have worked with allied groups and USDA political and professional staff to inform the much-anticipated Packers and Stockyards Act rule expected early in 2022.
• An Opportunity to Reform Crop Insurance began when USDA announced the new Pandemic Cover Crop Program (PCCP) in June 2021. The program offered a $5 per acre premium discount to producers who planted qualifying cover crops during the 2021 crop year and enrolled in eligible federal crop insurance policies. The PCCP was administered by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) and used funds from the USDA Pandemic Assistance for Producers (PAP) program. NSAC has long advocated for aligning crop insurance with conservation practices. While imperfect, the PCCP was a welcome support for farmers and may represent an important next step toward aligning crop insurance with soil and water conservation programs in the future, a key element of NSAC proposals to reform crop insurance.

Grassroots Organizing

• The Appropriations Virtual Farmer Fly-In, hosted in April 2021, brought together farmers, ranchers, and researchers from ten states to discuss agriculture appropriations for the 2022 fiscal year (FY22) with their Congressional delegations. The primary focus was the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension (SARE) program, a long-standing priority program of NSAC members, which is slated to receive increased funding for FY22 thanks to this advocacy. The pandemic continues to reshape how grassroots work is accomplished and virtual fly-ins offer the opportunity for farmer advocates, who might not have time during their growing season to travel to DC in person, to participate in advocacy opportunities and make their voices heard by policy makers.

• The Agriculture Resilience Act Virtual Farmer Fly-In, hosted in June 2021 after the reintroduction of the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA), built on the success of the earlier Appropriations fly in. The virtual farmer “fly-in” on climate and agriculture brought together farmers and advocates from 12 states who held 17 meetings with lawmakers to ask them to support the ARA and its bold vision of a climate-friendly future for agriculture. NSAC continues to work to make certain that farmers are at the center of our national response to climate change and took this opportunity to share stories around farmers’ role in tackling the climate crisis.

Organics and Research

• Significant Funding for Organic Cost-share and Transition was announced in November 2021, when USDA created the Organic and Transitional Education and Certification Program (OTECP) and pledged $20 million in pandemic assistance to cover certification, education, and other expenses for agricultural producers who are certified organic or transitioning to organic. NSAC members continue to urge the USDA to provide greater support for organic farmers and ranchers and are working to ensure that USDA’s broader plan to support producers transitioning to organic facilitate is comprehensive and accessible to everyone, especially BIPOC growers who have described difficulties accessing certification services.

• First Ever SARE Briefing was co-sponsored by NSAC and SARE and the briefing showcased the impact SARE has had on supporting farmers as they overcame production challenges and worked to educate the next generation farmers. NSAC has been advocating for SARE to receive the full funding of $60 million authorized by Congress over 30 years ago. The SARE virtual briefing underscored just how important the program has been, and how much more it can do to help farmers and ranchers seeking to build the resilience of their operations and adapt to, and ultimately mitigate, the impacts of climate change.

As we put this tumultuous and unpredictable year behind us, we recognize there are more challenges ahead. But those challenges can also be opportunities and so we take this time to celebrate the hard-fought victories of this coalition as we prepare to build on them in 2022. We can’t do our work without the support and engagement of our members, allies, champions, and supporters – without you. 

The post A Year in Review: Wins and Reflections for Sustainable Agriculture in 2021 appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

It’s that time of the year! Farm Service Agency (FSA) County Committee elections and Urban County Committee elections are underway in certain counties. Perhaps you are not able to make the trip to influence agriculture policies and programs in Washington, DC, but these decisions are also in the hands of farmers, ranchers, and rural community members across the country – like you! It is crucial that every eligible producer take part in these elections because county committees are a direct link between the farm community and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). 

Important Information

USDA is mailing ballots to all eligible agricultural producers and private landowners across the country. Producers must participate or cooperate in an FSA program to be eligible to vote. Producers can find out if there is an election in their area and if they are eligible to vote by contacting their local FSA county office. 

To be counted, producers and landowners must return ballots to their local FSA county office or be postmarked by December, 6, 2021. 

Read the full press release from FSA here.

Background

Historically, FSA County offices have been responsible for delivering and administering FSA programs at the local level. These include the Direct and Guaranteed Farm Ownership Loan programs (including down payment loans and microloans), Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), CRP Transition Incentives Program, Non-Insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, Farm Storage Facility Loan program, and National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program.

Elected FSA County Committee Members have an important role to play by helping to organize and oversee outreach for these programs. While County Committee Members do not have legislative powers, as the primary liaisons between farmers, community members, and FSA administrators, they do have a considerable platform to make recommendations to agency leaders and legislators and to push for programmatic and policy changes.

FSA County Committee Members are also asked to serve as a check to ensure that FSA decisions related to outreach, technical assistance, and potential programmatic changes support and incorporate the needs of socially disadvantaged (SDA) farmers and ranchers (including minority, tribal, and women producers). 

Until last year, there were few mechanisms by which urban growers could inform USDA about whether programs that work in rural communities translated well into the urban context, and even fewer ways they could influence USDA program priorities and funding. Urban and Suburban County Committees now work to encourage and promote urban, indoor, and other emerging agricultural production practices. They may address issues such as food access, community engagement, support of local activities to promote and encourage community compost, and food waste reduction. Committee members also make determinations, listen to appeals and make decisions, and conduct outreach to urban and suburban farms and farmers for both FSA and NRCS.

Elected members serve three-year terms and committees consist of three to 11 members. Nearly 7,700 farmers and ranchers across the country are currently serving on committees. You can find spotlights of FSA County Committee Members and learn how they serve their communities with this platform here.

For more information, visit the FSA website at www.fsa.usda.gov/elections. You may also find and contact your local USDA Service Center or FSA office via http://www.farmers.gov.

The post ELECT COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO INFLUENCE FARM POLICY AT LOCAL LEVEL appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post that originally appeared on Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service’s blog, Organic Broadcaster. MOSES is an NSAC member based in Spring Valley, WI, and promotes organic and sustainable agriculture by providing the education, resource and expertise farmers need to succeed in the region. Written by Jeff Schahczenski, Agriculture and Natural Resource Economist from the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), another NSAC member.

“I am a regenerative organic farmer, and I want to limit tillage and assure soil health, but crop insurance rules get in the way of developing a resilient system in the face of growing extreme weather and climate disruption.”

Craig Schmitt, organic grain farmer, Wolf Point, Montana.

I wish that Mr. Schmitt’s problem with crop insurance rules and complexities were an exception. The issue of how the USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) defines organic, sustainable, and good farming practices continues to cause significant problems for farmers and ranchers trying to develop climate friendly and resilient systems of production in the face of climate disruption. Many national organizations and federal policymakers worked to change the negative impact of crop insurance rules on the adoption of innovative organic and sustainable practices during the 2018 Farm Bill debate, with limited success. 

The federal crop insurance program rules are set by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), administered by the RMA, and implemented through federally subsidized policies serviced by 14 private crop companies (known as Approved Insurance Providers). The rules view past practice as the key determinant of the future. Any deviation from past farming practices that jeopardizes the insured crops’ “ability to make normal progress toward maturity and produce at least the yield used to determine the production guarantee or amount of insurance” is by the federal crop insurance program definition, NOT a Good Farming Practice (GFP).  

The innovative changes in practices that are very familiar to sustainable and organic farmers can jeopardize crop insurance coverage because of the likelihood that such practices may have some, difficult to predict, impact on yield. These practices include cover cropping, green-manuring, inter-seeding of cash and non-cash crop, integrating livestock into cover crop production for forage and termination, development of long complex rotations, varying planting spacing, alley cropping, prairie strips, and changing degrees of tillage intensity. But yield maximization is not the only goal for resilient production systems that can adapt to coming climate disruption and neither should it be the only focus of our federal farm programs. 

The 2018 Farm Bill attempted to solve these problems. The Senate version of the bill would have required that all conservation-oriented practices be automatically qualified as GFP. The final version of the bill unfortunately cut this back to apply only to cover cropping, and then only when the farmer followed either evolving cover crop termination guidance set by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service or received approval by identified agricultural experts.  

Unfortunately, the Natural Resources Conservation Service guidance on cover crop termination has not kept up with emerging better practices developed by farmers and cover crop researchers. Moreover, farmers have little time to search out official sanction by non-farmer experts who often do not have easy answers on how best to adopt a given innovative conservation practice in each ecology and each soil type and cropping system, without impacting historic yield.  

What are the solutions? 

First, implement policy changes that severely limit the responsibility of the FCIC and RMA in regulating what constitutes good farming and ranching practices. Actuarial accountants, crop insurance agents, and insurance adjusters have limited understanding of what good farming practices are or how they are evolving for particular types of farming and ecologies. Only if a crop insurance agent or adjuster has evidence of fraudulent behavior, where a farmer or rancher is purposefully and willfully engaged in the destruction of their insured production to garner an insurance claim, do they need authority to limit or terminate payment of claims.  

Second, any farming and ranching conservation practices that are defined and financially supported by USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, ought to meet a minimum standard of a good farming practice, without any requirement that the farmer prove that the practice will have zero yield impact.  

Third, when certified organic farmers and ranchers are following an approved Organic Systems Plan, this ought to suffice as evidence that good organic practices are being followed.  

Finally, further research using crop insurance data to assess the relative yield and price risks of varying systems of production is critical in these times of extreme weather and climate crisis. This is not so much needed to further lower the premium rates of a highly subsidized system of insurance for crop and livestock production, but rather to suggest paths toward further innovation that are critical to the economic viability of farmers and ranchers and their communities.  

Scientists agree that extreme weather and climate disruption is going to be our future. Farmers and ranchers need insurance in the short term to weather this future. No matter how resilient the farming or ranching practices that are used, floods, droughts, winds, fires, pests and even volcanoes will continue to be destructive. 

Crop insurance is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, crop insurance has tended to reinforce current agriculture practices that are significantly climate-unfriendly and that have been made less risky by subsidized insurance. On the other hand, it has been helpful in maintaining some degree of economic and productive viability which in turn allows farmers and ranchers the very ability to engage in often needed risky production system changes. Growing research is likely confirming this conundrum (AGree, 2021; Wang, R., et. al., 2021).  

Mr. Schmitt and other farmers are still waiting for a satisfactory solution to their desire to continue down the path of adopting organic regenerative practices without jeopardizing their ability to be insured through the federal insurance program. The USDA can and should make the needed changes in their policies to remove these barriers to the improvement of a longer-term resilient system of production. 

Further Resources: 

For a more detailed discussion of the issues discussed in this article visit attra.ncat.org for many National Center for Appropriate Technology and ATTRA publications. You may also continue to browse NSAC’s website for additional blogs and resources.

The post Crop Insurance Rules Challenge Organic and Sustainable Farming Practices appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Laura Zaks, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
press@sustainableagriculture.net

RELEASE: NSAC Applauds USDA Announcement of $500 Million for Expanded Meat and Poultry Processing Capacity

Washington, DC, July 9, 2021 – Today the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) applauds the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announcement of $500 million in additional funding to bolster small- and medium-scale meat processing plants, and additional actions to level the playing field for farmers and ranchers.

“National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) commends USDA for its commitment of $500 million to help expand meat processing capacity by strengthening tools to empower small- and medium-scale operators,” said Eric Deeble, NSAC Policy Director.  “For far too long we have witnessed how inadequate competition stifles economic growth and innovation throughout the agricultural supply chain,” Deeble added. 

The announcement from USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack arrives on the heels of President Biden’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, signed earlier today, signaling a whole of government effort to address concentration and consolidation in US markets. The Executive Order includes 72 initiatives to address a variety of competition issues that permeate the US economy, several of which we are pleased to see could have a far-reaching impact on agriculture.

“This announcement is a significant step in the right direction, given that in recent decades agricultural markets have become increasingly concentrated. Just four corporations are responsible for 65 percent of sales in the global agrochemicals market, 50 percent of the seed market, and 45 percent of farm equipment sales. In the US, just four companies represent 73 percent of beef processing, 67 percent of pork processing, 54 percent of chicken processing, and 45 percent of the retail grocery market.  This concentration hurts farmers and consumers and while returning maximum profits to corporations,” commented Deeble.

The USDAs commitment of $500 to expand meat processing capacity in the form of grants to small- and medium-sized operations developed as part of a process soliciting comments and stakeholder input on USDA’s strategy, and NSAC looks forward to continuing this dialogue with the USDA. NSAC is also appreciative that USDA implemented the small processor fee relief authorized in the The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, today.

NSAC is also pleased to see that USDA will issue new rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act. As directed in the Executive Order, this new rule will make it easier for farmers to bring and win claims, stopping chicken processors from exploiting and underpaying chicken farmers, and adopting anti-retaliation protections for farmers who speak out about bad practices.  NSAC also applauds similar directives to issue new rules that will define when meat can bear the “Product of USA” label. This will ensure greater transparency in consumer labeling and help farmers earn a fairer price for their products. The directives also include plans to augment access to markets for farmers, including supporting alternative food distribution systems like farmers markets and developing standards and labels. 

“NSAC is committed to leveling the playing field for sustainable farmers and small- and medium-scale food processors by bringing grassroots perspectives to the table and pushing back against the dominance of big business. Now is the time for serious reform to restore fairness, transparency, and competition in agriculture and address concentration and consolidation, the structural root of many challenges that farmers, ranchers, and food processors face. NSAC believes that increased funding for grants towards technical assistance, infrastructure, and professional development are also critical pathways for a more sustainable, equitable agricultural sector,” stated Deeble.

USDA also released today a report directed by the 2018 Farm Bill which was conducted by Oregon State University’s Niche Meat Processors Assistance Network in partnership with NSAC, about the effectiveness of existing outreach, guidance, tools, and responsiveness to small and very small processing plants. NSAC is excited to continue dialogues around the report with both USDA and small processors across the country to ensure USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service continues to support and provide education, guidance, and assistance to small processors. The report is available here.  

For a deeper analysis of the impacts of consolidation and concentration in the agriculture industry on farmers and the broader food system, as well as a path forward, read NSAC’s two-part blog series by NSAC Policy Associate, Billy Hackett:

Farmers Trapped in an Unsustainable Cycle by Biotechnology, Seed Consolidation  

The Time is Ripe for Competition and Antitrust Reform in Agriculture 

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/

The post RELEASE: NSAC Applauds USDA Announcement of $500 Million for Expanded Meat and Poultry Processing Capacity appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

In the waning days of the Trump Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a final rule on the undue or unreasonable preference provision, Section 202(b), of the Packers & Stockyards Act of 1921 (P&SA). Unfortunately, the rule fails to protect livestock and poultry farmers from the abusive and exploitative practices that have become customary in the meat industry. Though NSAC submitted recommendations to USDA to strengthen the rule, these changes were not incorporated. This means that integrators will continue to circumvent the purpose of P&SA while our farmers and ranchers continue to cede their ability to compete in the marketplace.

“Undue Preference” Background

The P&SA was passed just under a century ago to combat anticompetitive practices in the livestock and poultry industries as corporate meatpackers and processors (also known as integrators) consolidated and amassed substantial power over producers. Attempts to strengthen P&SA have spanned the last decade, prompted by a 2008 Farm Bill mandate to publish rules to support the act, but have been largely unsuccessful due to congressional obstruction, stalling by the Administration, and agency inaction.   

The undue or unreasonable preference provision of P&SA is intended to prevent corporate integrators from giving unwarranted advantages or disadvantages to growers who produce the same type and quality of livestock or poultry in the same relative geographic area. In a food system where just four corporations have concentrated their market share to control 73 percent of beef processing, 67 percent of pork processing, and 54 percent of chicken processing, these integrators possess outsized leverage to set favorable terms of a contract with small poultry and hog producers, or set the price that beef producers receive in consolidated markets. Fair negotiation is simply not a realistic option for small growers under these conditions. 

The Secretary of Agriculture is given the authority under P&SA to determine when an integrator may be abusing their relative power by exhibiting positive or negative “undue or unreasonable preference” toward any producer (e.g. giving certain growers favorable or unfavorable contract terms or prices without reasonable or due cause). In the 2008 Farm Bill, members of Congress charged USDA to make this process less subjective by creating criteria that the Secretary may consider when determining if a preference is undue or unreasonable. 

This is not the first time we have been here, or at least near this point. The Farmer Fair Practices Rules proposed in the waning days of the Obama Administration included an interim final rule on this undue preference provision. NSAC applauded the rules as historic for their clear intent to bring fairness and order to the poultry and livestock industries by providing clear criteria to help integrators and producers understand what conduct amounts to an undue or unreasonable preference. These rules would have instituted fair footing for farmers growing under contract with big meat and poultry processing corporations.

The Trump Administration, however, promptly delayed and then withdrew these rules as one of its first official acts. NSAC raised the alarm when the administration issued a revised interim final rule on the undue preference provision. Instead of protecting small poultry and livestock ranchers, it offered defenses to protect corporate integrators from a farmer’s claim of undue or unreasonable preference. Unfortunately, the new final rule upholds this damaging paradigm. 

Final Rule Overview

The final rule lays out four criteria that the Secretary of Agriculture will use to evaluate a claim of undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any individual. According to these criteria, an integrator’s preference or advantage for one grower over another can be justified:

1. On the basis of a cost savings related to dealing with different producers, sellers, or growers;
2. On the basis of meeting a competitor’s prices;
3. On the basis of meeting other terms offered by a competitor; and
4. As a reasonable business decision. 

These criteria create a blanket defense for corporate integrators in the poultry, hog, and beef markets at the expense of small-scale or contracted producers. If treating one or more contract growers more favorably than others can be justified according to one of these criteria, and is not found to violate any other, an integrator’s practices will be vindicated. 

These criteria directly contrast the Farmer Fair Practice Rules, which listed explicit instances where an integrator may be in violation of Section 202(b). Those criteria would have enabled the Secretary of Agriculture to determine “whether an undue or unreasonable preference or advantage has occurred in violation [of P&SA],” a direct interpretation of language in the 2008 Farm Bill. This final rule, meanwhile, turns that statute on its head; it establishes criteria to determine what actions are “justified,” or allowed, instead of what preferences or advantages violate P&SA.

The list of criteria is not exhaustive. USDA may consider “additional criteria” when investigating a violation of this section of the P&SA. The inclusion of this clause is a tool that has potential to be misused as a blanket justification for any exercise of preference by an integrator that is not protected under the criteria above – which are already exceptionally broad and subject to interpretation, as we remark below. 

USDA Ignored NSAC Recommendations 

NSAC made a number of recommendations to strengthen the rule and create real protections for farmers in our comment to USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), which has had jurisdiction over P&SA enforcement since 2017. Just part of one of our recommendations was ultimately adopted by AMS. You can read their responses to comments and justification for their actions here.

Integrators should be required to maintain written records to prove preference on the basis of the first three criteria.

NSAC recommended that integrators maintain written records to prove why any exercise of preference may have been necessary (i.e. on the basis of cost savings, etc.). This would institute some degree of accountability and transparency to the rule’s implementation, which may otherwise amount to the word of the multinational corporate integrator versus the word of a farmer. AMS responded by saying they “expect” integrators to keep these kinds of records – which fails to implement any accountability mechanism. 

Cost savings based solely on volume should be prohibited to avoid discriminating against smaller livestock or poultry growers.

This recommendation would have placed additional guardrails on the first criterion, which allows corporate integrators to justify their preference for one grower over another on the basis of cost savings. It is often more cost effective for a meatpacking or poultry company to do business in bulk with the largest contracted growers, rather than smaller operations, due to reduced costs otherwise incurred in transportation, supervision, and inspections per operation. NSAC made recommendations to give small farmers fair footing when pitted against the largest producers, and it is extremely disappointing that USDA rebuffed these suggestions to instead pave the way for packers to legally discriminate against small farms.

Protection of ‘reasonable business decisions customary in the industry’ should be eliminated in its entirety. 

The fourth criterion in the final rule modifies the interim final rule to an extent, which would have upheld a preference or advantage deemed a “reasonable business decision that would be customary in the industry.” AMS noted that most comments to the rule called for the removal of this “customary in the industry” language, given the unlawful and discriminatory practices which have become commonplace in the industry.

USDA may continue to uphold a preference deemed a “reasonable business decision” – still inherently subjective and unclear, which highlights the need to eliminate the entire criterion as NSAC recommended. AMS defended the choice by arguing “reasonableness is an objective measure with timeless application,” which, if true, would directly contradict the need to define an “unreasonable” preference or advantage (the task at hand). Regardless of intent, we hope that USDA holds integrators accountable under this new standard, and consider not only short-term but long-term impacts of what may be considered “reasonable” with climate, workers, and industry sustainability in mind.

Clearly state that there is no requirement to prove “competitive injury.”

The P&SA does not require a livestock or poultry grower to prove “competitive injury” when bringing a claim of undue or unreasonable preference, or provide evidence that the act harms competition in the industry overall. That said, a number of courts have misinterpreted the statute and issued rulings that uphold this elevated burden of proof. NSAC recommended that USDA issue a clarification that growers need to only prove that their own operation was harmed by an undue or unreasonable preference in accordance with the P&SA. 

AMS cited the inclusion of a similar provision in the Farmer Fair Practice Rules as the explicit reason for the rules’ revocation; their position was that it is not “appropriate,” for rulemaking to interpret the intent of statute, and defers to court precedence – which has not been consistent – to settle the matter. The decision to not clarify the intent of Congress and avoid the “competitive injury” issue altogether is a weak response by USDA and renders this rule ineffective. It only succeeds in placing another insurmountable obstacle before growers to bring a claim of undue or unreasonable preference. 

Provide protections based on protected class and based on the right to association and communication.

NSAC recommended provisions to protect growers on the basis of protected class (e.g. race, sex, religious affiliation, etc.) and their right to associate, as included in the Farmer Fair Practice Rules. The clear record of discrimination against growers of color and retaliation against farmers and ranchers who speak out – even to their member of Congress – about unfair practices in the livestock and poultry industries makes these recommendations necessary. AMS refused to add these basic protections to the final rule, claiming that they are already protected by existing federal statute. Existing laws have not prevented these practices in the industry, however, and AMS’ failure to reinforce these basic protections for all growers will perpetuate discrimination and retaliation in ways that have unfortunately become customary in the industry. 

You can read NSAC’s full comment here. 

What Now?

USDA refused to adopt NSAC’s recommendations to the final rule, which would have afforded accountability to, and explicit protection for, farmers in an otherwise arcane, subjective process. Instead of outlining clear practices that would be considered violations of Section 202(b), the agency chose to pacify the interests of corporate integrators, effectively side-stepping the intent of Congress. What now? 

1. Undo the undue preference rule. This rule, which has now gone into effect, will further erode the ability of small, contracted growers to compete in the industry and perpetuate the consolidation of livestock operations. NSAC calls on Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, renominated to retake his role atop USDA, to roll back or issue revisions to this rule so that it more closely follows the 2016 Farmer Fair Practice Rules.
2. Reissue a competitive injury rule. Among the most pressing obstacles to P&SA enforcement is the manufactured requirement in a growing number of court circuits for farmers to prove that an integrator’s actions threaten competition across the entire industry – rather than demonstrate harm against their individual operation. This does not reflect the intent of Congress and is an unrealistic burden of proof for a small farmer. NSAC calls on the Secretary to reissue the competitive injury rule included in the Farmers Fair Practice rules, or otherwise clarify that there is no requirement to prove competitive injury under P&SA.
3. Think bigger. Predatory and anticompetitive practices have become common in the meat and poultry industries. While the recommendations above address the most egregious obstacles for small farmers and may be accomplished with relative speed, foundations must be laid for an industry that is more resilient, equitable, and sustainable in the long-term. To read more about the bigger picture, read NSAC’s ongoing competition and antitrust blog series.

NSAC will continue to fight for policies and regulations that establish fair footing for small livestock producers and restores competition in that marketplace. We look forward to working with our members, allies, and champions in Congress and the new administration to make this possible.

The post Undo the Packers and Stockyards “Undue Preference” Final Rule appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.