WASHINGTON: US farmers who are caught up in President Donald Trump‘s flimsy plan to freeze all national funding gathered in Congress on Tuesday to demand solutions after provides to their politically significant sectors were put on hold.
Farmers in rural America say they did not anticipate being impacted by the Republican’s exceptional attempt to reduce US government spending. They did so after Trump won the election for president last year.
The farmers claim that no money has been reimbursed them for two USDA ( USDA ) programs designed to assist them in investing in renewable energy generation and conservation.
These initiatives were funded by the Inflation Reduction Act ( IRA ), one of former president Joe Biden‘s signature pieces of legislation that contributed billions of dollars to clean energy projects across the nation. Trump denounces US efforts to combat climate change and calls the IRA the “green fresh scam.”
” I’m extremely concerned about the security of our fields”, 44-year-old Elisa Lane, who owns and runs a plantation producing fruit and flower farm in the US state of Maryland, told AFP on Monday.
Lane was awarded$ 30, 000 by USDA past summer to pay a$ 72, 000 solar panel installation on her 15-acre land.
However, Trump signed an executive order mandating that all organizations “immediately pause the allocation of money” appropriated through the IRA shortly after taking office on January 20.
Eight days later, a letter from the White House Office of Management and Budget ( OMB) that had previously withdrawn all federal grant funding was released.
That prevented Lane and other producers from receiving the money they needed to finish expensive projects.
Lane claimed she has not received the grant money since the OMB note was made public last month, despite an Mac explanation that stated that money for landowners and small businesses would” not be paused” by the cash ice.
” We are American farmers, and so we are the people that when we hear’ America first ‘…, that message is supposed to be for us”, Lane said, referring to Trump’s nationalist, right-wing slogan.
” We’re the ones that are supposed to be elevated and cared for”, she added. ” And this is in direct conflict with that worldview”.
After being invited by liberals on the committee, Lane planned to attend a hearing that the property agriculture committee would hold later on Tuesday.
A request for comment was never received by the USDA.
” Avoid confusion immediately.”
In response to the OMB’s brief-lived money ice, Skylar Holden, a 27-year-old animals farmer from the Western state of Missouri, disclosed to AFP that he also had his USDA money frozen.
Holden had agreed to support another IRA-funded USDA initiative that would assist farmers in carrying out restoration job on their fields.
He is now putting a stop to the USDA’s$ 240, 000 restoration job he is planning for his 260-acre plantation.
” The worry is that if I finish these projects, I won’t have the funds I need to make the land payment or buy the grass we need for the winter,” he said.
Since the OMB memo was released last month, situations like those involving Lane and Holden have been making headlines in the US, causing calls for the Trump administration to take action.
National Farmers Union President Rob Larew said in a statement shared with AFP that” USDA and various organizations may honor their commitments to landowners and rural areas.
Agriculture is currently experiencing significant economic uncertainty, he said, despite the usual for a new management to periodically evaluate programs and funding.
We call on the management to provide urgent funding clarification and to protect farmers and remote communities, he continued.
