Musk’s tactics are hurting those who live off that land—the farmers

It’s a time of uncertainty in the heartland as agricultural programs are cut. “It’s very unsettling and very stressful.”

By Marcus Baram, for Capital & Main

“It’s very unsettling and very stressful,” said Ben Palen over the phone while driving his truck in rural Kansas. He’s a fifth-generation farmer whose family has been working the land since 1855. And he’s alarmed by the Trump administration’s recent cuts to programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In the last two months, the Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has eliminated USDA programs to encourage better conservation practices and USAID’s Food for Peace program, which put money in the pockets of many farmers across the country.

“They get money from the government to reimburse them for certain conservation practices,” said Palen, whose family has a 15,000-acre farm that grows wheat and raises cattle. “The farmer puts up the money first and they expect to see it repaid. And right now, there’s a real question of whether they’ll be reimbursed. And they are pretty nervous.”

Most of the USDA programs are aimed at changing irrigation practices to use less water, or to change farming programs to use less fertilizer and to keep a cover crop on the soil, Palen told Capital & Main. “They come out and give you advice on how to take care of the land and that’s really valuable.”

He noted that the $2 billion Food for Peace program, which bought crops from farmers to feed the hungry around the world, “is a big market to lose, and the credibility of the U.S. is really coming into question around the world. People here and abroad have counted on this program.”

It’s an especially vulnerable time for farmers, who are deciding what they’re going to plant this spring due to these cuts, all as they face falling prices due to the threat of tariffs.

That view was echoed by Tracy Williams, a livestock farmer in Illinois who raises roughly 30,000 cattle and is planning to grow wheat in Colorado. Because he doesn’t get reimbursements from the USDA, he hasn’t felt the financial hit personally. 

“But we do notice the weakening of export markets, and the uncertainty of tariffs has already started putting downward pressure on commodity prices. And my personal opinion is that I don’t see that easing any time over the next few years.”

Williams doesn’t put much stock in the intense rhetoric on both sides surrounding DOGE and the administration, but he knows that negative effects are very likely.

“You know the old saying, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” He said that banking has gotten much more difficult for farmers, who rely on lines of credit to get through the seasons.

One of the farm programs that has been impacted is Rooted for Good in DeKalb, Illinois, through which vegetables and other crops were grown on small parcels of land and distributed to the needy.

“One of the coolest things they do is they have a vocational farm where the mentally challenged and young adults can work. But with USAID getting slashed, there’s $400,000 not coming to them. And for them, that’s a lot of money,” Williams said.

That money was provided to suppliers, including farmers like Mei Shao of Sunny Oaks Farms. The program “really helped us survive,” she told local radio station 93.5 FM.

“We are not able to continue buying that product without the funding,” Rooted for Good executive director Heather Edwards told the station. “It is going to hurt some of these farmers.”

Reached for comment, deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly said:

“The Biden administration crushed American agriculture with regulatory uncertainty, crippling inflation, trade imbalances, and radical environmental policies. Thankfully, President Trump is already delivering relief by unleashing American energy and cutting ten regulations for every new regulation. He will make all agencies more efficient to better serve the American people, including our hardworking farmers.”

The current status of the Food for Peace program remains unclear. On March 18, a federal judge said the elimination of USAID was unconstitutional, ruling in favor of workers who sought to “delay a premature, final shutdown” of the agency. The White House said it plans to appeal the ruling.

Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X that 83% of USAID’s programs would be cut and that the remaining programs would move under the State Department, but he didn’t specify which ones. A spokesperson for the State Department did not reply to a request for comment. In addition, several Republican lawmakers have called for the Food for Peace program to move to the USDA. 

Palen, a registered Republican who didn’t vote for Trump, said that many farmers who support the president “don’t know what they got themselves into with this guy, and a lot of people don’t know yet how bad this is gonna get.”

He said they voted for Trump because they felt he would reduce the number of regulations they have to deal with, but “even though farmers are independent, they rely on these government programs for some measure of financial support.”

And the small towns where these farmers live will be affected, he added. “It’s like a snowball that keeps getting bigger and bigger as it rolls — it will have consequences beyond the farmers themselves to farm equipment dealers, seed dealers, fertilizer dealers.”

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