What Do Proposed USDA Budget Cuts Mean for Eco-Agriculture
On April 3, 2026, the Office of Management and Budget released its “President’s Budget” for the 2027 fiscal year. It proposes cutting the non-defense budget by 10 percent but increasing defense spending by 44 percent, for an overall 15.3 percent ($288.4 billion) increase over the 2026 budget. The supposed cost-saving measures merely funnel money away from civilian to military programs.
USDA would be one of the seven departments hit hardest by this proposal, with a 19 percent budget cut—$4.9 billion. The proposed cuts affect five programs—the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) formula or capacity grants, the Rural Business Service, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program, and Community Facilities Grant Earmarks. The two areas that could have the most potential impact on eco-farming are NIFA and AMS.
While most news articles mention that the National Organic Program is part of AMS, there is no indication that the funding cuts will directly affect it. The document is vaguely worded, saying that the cuts will be made by “eliminating programs that provide annual, taxpayer-funded carve-outs for the same grantees every year without proper competition” and giving examples of festivals and educational programs.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition says that the NIFA funding cuts would impact the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SARE) and Organic Transitions Research, Education, and Extension Program (ORG), among others. However, it’s not clear what it is basing that information on, because both SARE and ORG are funded by competitive grants, and the proposed cuts are only for capacity grants—set amounts of money earmarked for specific universities.
The proposed NIFA cuts are politically targeted at land-grant university researchers in retaliation for “woke radical left projects these grants previously funded” during the Biden Administration. Fortunately, although the words “green” and “climate change” are included in the list of “woke” terms, nothing organic or soil health–related is used as an example of a “radical left project.”
Assumedly, the proposal targets capacity grants because USDA has less control over which projects that funding is used for than it does with competitive grants. But since 44 percent of NIFA funding goes to capacity grants and the money is not being reallocated to competitive grants, this cut would seriously impact all researchers at land-grant universities—whether or not they ever conducted research the administration considers “woke” (which the majority of agricultural research is not).
This document is used as guidance for budget negotiations, but the final decision whether to follow its recommendations or not is up to Congress. That means there’s still time for eco-farmers to contact their legislators to ensure that, even if these cuts materialize, NOP, SARE, and ORG are protected. Considering that USDA just gave farmers another $12 billion in Farmer Bridge Assistance payments, it should be easy enough to keep the handful of USDA programs that benefit eco-farmers funded no matter what the final budget looks like.
