WASHINGTON — After nearly a month since the Trump administration issued a freeze on all federally funded grants and loans, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced the first tranche of funding released from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) since then.

Following White House directives, USDA is releasing approximately $20 million in contracts that were previously made directly to farmers. These contracts fall under the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.

“We will honor our commitments to American farmers and ranchers, and we will ensure they have the support they need to be the most competitive in the world,” Rollins said.

Rollins explained the funding freeze was due to a review of funding through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed into law in 2022.

“Unfortunately, the Biden administration rushed out hundreds of millions of dollars of IRA funding that was supposed to be distributed over eight years,” Rollins said. “After careful review, it is clear that some of this funding went to programs that had nothing to do with agriculture — that is why we are still reviewing — whereas other funding was directed to farmers and ranchers who have since made investments in these programs.”

USDA continues to review IRA funding. The agency said it will honor programs that aid farmers and ranchers; however, DEIA programs and “far-left climate programs” are under particular discretion.

Additional announcements of released funding will continue to come with further review, USDA said.

The meat industry has already reported how the freeze on federal funding is affecting small processors. For example, Claremont, NH-based Granite State Packing was awarded $1.66 million through the Local Meat Capacity (Local MCap) program but has only received $150,000 in grants so far.

The company began construction and ordered over $600,000 in new equipment before receiving notice that the grant funds were on hold.

“As you know it’s very hard to stop a project mid-stream,” said Arion Thiboumery, director of the board at Granite State Packing. “The lack of clarity on when the funds will come is causing a lot of anxiety and making us wonder what we can or should do.”

Showing support for its members affected by the pause in funding, the American Association of Meat Processors (AAMP) issued the following statement:

“The purpose of the recent federal grant programs was to grow the small meat and poultry processing sector, and while not every award hit that mark, the grants overall were very beneficial. Growing the small meat supply chain is not a controversial issue. Furthermore, the money has already been awarded. Companies have poured concrete for new construction and ordered equipment for expanded processing. If payment is frozen — or worse, canceled — the consequences could drive a small processor out of business.”

Rollins meets with farmers

Rollins hosted a roundtable with two dozen farmers on Feb. 20 to hear viewpoints about the best approaches to combat the ongoing avian influenza outbreak that will help lower egg prices.

Other topics included in the discussion were disaster relief, expanding markets, reducing input costs and decreasing regulation.

“President Trump is committed to supporting our great American farmers,” Rollins said. “He understands that rural communities were crippled by Biden’s disastrous inflationary policies, and he is taking swift action to restore opportunity across our country — especially in rural communities. The era of Biden inflation is over. We will create a new era of prosperity for American farmers. We will also work to reduce grocery costs for families, especially egg prices. This problem wasn’t created overnight, and it will take us a little time to tackle this issue, but we will take aggressive action to help our poultry farmers combat avian flu and to make eggs affordable again.”

She added that the USDA and the White House will work on a comprehensive strategy to “aggressively combat” avian influenza and give poultry farmers the support and tools to protect farms and recover from outbreaks.

Roundtable participants included farmers from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Iowa, Arkansas and West Virginia who were egg layers, dairy, beef, row crop farmers and other representatives from the agriculture sector.