The change of presidential administration is poised to have a big impact on farmers and our food system.
The Biden Administration had several clear priorities: to increase equity in our food system, address the problems of consolidation and food chain disruptions laid bare by the pandemic and tackle climate change. “We’re really proud of the work that’s been done these past four years in this administration,” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said at the final White House meeting on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in December 2024.
As we head into President Trump’s second term, Farm Aid wanted to take a look back on some of the biggest wins for farmers from the last four years.
Leveling the playing field for livestock farmers and taking a stand against corporate consolidation
- In 2021, President Biden issued an executive order to promote competition, with a specific focus on the agriculture industry. For the first time in decades, the USDA re-vamped parts of the Packers & Stockyards Act, finalizing three major rules to address issues of unfair competition practices and increase transparency in the poultry and livestock industries.
- USDA finalized a rule mandating that the claim “Product of the USA” can only be made if the animals are born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the U.S. Before this, meat that was simply packaged in the U.S. could bear the claim. This rule gives American farmers a leg up against international corporations in the grocery store and gives eaters more transparency about where their meat comes from so they can make their own choice to support U.S. farmers by producing products labeled “Product of the USA.”
- In an effort to bolster small and mid-sized meatpacking plants, the USDA distributed $500 million in local meat processing grants.
- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), under the leadership of Chair Lina Khan, took on issues of antitrust. Importantly, the FTC successfully blocked the Kroger-Albertsons merger, which had it gone through, would have been a major acquisition in the already consolidated grocery sector.
Fighting climate change and supporting sustainable agricultural practices
- The Biden administration helped farmers transition to sustainable practices: USDA launched the Organic Transition Initiative to help farmers with the cost of technical, cultural and market challenges during the transition period from conventional to organic production.
- The Climate-Smart Commodities program invested more than $3.1 billion in 141 projects to support the production and marketing of climate-smart commodities. The goal of these projects is to expand markets and revenue streams for farmers and ranchers. The projects affect more than 25 million acres and sequester carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.
- The Inflation Reduction Act funneled $19.5 billion dollars into over-prescribed, chronically underfunded agriculture conservation programs, allowing farmers to receive crucial financial support to lead the way in the fight against climate change.
Efforts to address long standing issues of inequity in our food and farm system
- The Biden administration launched the USDA Equity Commission to review USDA’s programs, policies and practices in order to produce recommendations for how to root out systemic discrimination and create programs that center equity and accessibility.
- $550 million went to support projects that enable underserved producers to access land, capital and markets and train the next generation of diverse agricultural professionals.
- The Heirs’ Property Relenting Program provided capital to help heirs find a resolution to partition sales by third parties. According to the USDA, heirs’ property is most predominant among African American landholders, contributing to land loss from 16 million to 4.7 million acres over the last hundred years. It is also an issue for Latino families in the Southwest, Indigenous families on reservations, and low-income families in Appalachia.
- The Farm and Food Workers Relief Grant Program gave beneficiary payments to 1 million farmworkers, meatpacking workers and grocery store workers who incurred pandemic-related health and safety costs.
- The USDA also made efforts to improve the H-2A visa program, including the creation of a pilot program that gave grants to 141 farm employers to defray costs associated with paying and recruiting workers from abroad in exchange for improving working and living conditions for workers.
Supporting rural America and regional food systems
- $2 billion was invested to expand access to reliable, high-speed internet for rural Americans.
- The USDA invested more than $1 billion in food procession, distribution and infrastructure as well as meat and poultry processing capacity.
- The Local Procurement Act, part of the American Rescue Act, funded cooperative agreements with state and tribal governments to procure and distribute local and regional foods.
Loan forgiveness and direct payments to farmers
- USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) undertook a deliberate and intensive effort to improve its lending programs to provide better customer service to farmers, ensure its loan programs work as intended to keep farmers farming and modernize its operations to be more accessible, inclusive and equitable.
- FSA demonstrated a commitment to keeping farmers farming. As of 2023, there was a 70 percent reduction in Chapter 12 bankruptcies (an indicator of larger trends in financial distress) compared to long term averages, and the lowest number of bankruptcies since 2007.
- Through the Inflation Reduction Act, USDA distributed $2.5 billion in loan forgiveness to 47,800 farmers who were “distressed borrowers” and $2 billion to farmers who experienced discrimination in USDA loan programs.
- FSA established the Distressed Borrower Assistance Network, which will work to provide technical assistance to farmers and ranchers navigating USDA’s loan programs and train individuals to provide this assistance.
… and many more changes that directly supported farmers. To read more about how agriculture was impacted by the Biden Administration, check out this detailed account by Civil Eats.
Looking at the next four years
Despite these policy wins, America’s farmers face many urgent challenges. Corporate power and consolidation has harmed farmers. The climate crisis is making it harder to farm and is resulting in more intense and frequent natural disasters. Meanwhile, many farmers lack a sufficient safety net to help them when faced with disasters and difficult times. According to the 2022 agricultural census, the U.S. lost more than 150,000 farms over the period of 2018-2022 and is poised to continue losing them if we don’t address these issues.
Trump campaigned on lowering food prices; one way to address this issue is to continue the work that the Biden Administration started to enforce antitrust legislation and prevent more mergers in the already incredibly concentrated food and agriculture industries. Deporting millions of immigrants (and consequently a significant number of farmworkers) and raising the price of farm inputs through enacting tariffs are two of the new administration’s top priorities, which will result in higher costs for farmers and higher prices for eaters in the grocery store. And history has shown that deregulating the food and farming industry leads to corporate consolidation and negatively impacts farmers.
Gains made for farmers under the Biden Administration are already under threat. As of day one of the second Trump presidency, an executive order was signed mandating that all federal agencies, including USDA, abandon their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, ending progress to make the USDA workforce better represent the diversity of the farmers that they serve. Farm Aid will continue to fight for family farmers and advocate for policies that make our food and farm system more sustainable and equitable. Regardless of who is in the White House, we stand firmly with farmers who have been historically discriminated against and disadvantaged, including BIPOC farmers and LGBTQ+ farmers.
