VIEWPOINT | USDA funding freeze, staff cuts pulling rug out from farmers

Guest column by Travis Entenman, executive director of Northern Prairies Land Trust

Travis Entenman

What happens in Washington, D.C., can often feel far away, disconnected from everyday life in the rest of the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) recent efforts to streamline the federal government has, and will continue to have, unintended consequences for farmers and ranchers’ efforts to conserve water, soil and wildlife habitat if they continue to make cuts with a hatchet and not a scalpel.

Freezing conservation funds promised to farmers, many of whom have already spent the money, and slashing Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) staff is only exacerbating the uncertainty farmers feel every year during planting. Efforts to make government more efficient and responsive to local needs may be pulling the rug out from America’s farmers when certainty is what’s needed most.

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