A Texas farm grant worth $7.5 million was canceled recently as the USDA terminated it as part of the administration’s broader effort to eliminate DEI programs, citing the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program (ILCMA) as wasteful spending.
The farm grant was awarded to the Harlingenbased nonprofit HOPE for Small Farm Sustainability in March. The USDA cited 'wasteful spending' and 'discriminatory preferences' based on DEI initiatives. The grant was part of a $300M nationwide program, with the Texas grant aiming to help beginning farmers buy land. The cancellation is part of a broader review of grants by the Trump administration.
Funding for the USDA’s Increasing Land program came from the American Rescue Plan Act, a Biden-era COVID-19 relief bill, to improve access to land.
Texas is losing working land at an alarming rate. Between 1997 and 2022, the state lost more than 3.7 million acres of privatelyowned farms and ranches. Of those, 1.8 million acres were lost in just the final five years of that period. The Rio Grande Valley, where Padilla is based, lost 751,000 acres of farmland in that same 25 years. Small family farms now represent 86% of all U.S. farms, down from 89% in 2021. That share is still shrinking.
Judith McGeary, executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, called the situation a national security threat. She said when a country cannot grow its own food, it becomes dependent on imports far more than most people realize.
P. Wade Ross, director of the Texas Small Farmers and Ranchers Community Based Organization, said government decision-makers often don’t understand the farming landscape when they cut programs that are actually working toward their own stated goals, without realizing the damage.