|
Department of Agriculture (USDA)
|
|---|
| Increases
|
|---|
| Program | (millions of $) | Description
|
|---|
| Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS)
| +15
| FSIS inspects meat, poultry, and egg product plants to ensure food safety nationwide. Several States
have their own equivalent inspection program, and FSIS shares in the cost of these programs.
Increases are needed to support increased production and demand for services.
|
| Rental Assistance Grants
| +74
| The Budget provides funding to renew the rental assistance grant contracts at $1.7 billion. This
prevents the default of the $9 billion in USDA underwritten multifamily housing direct loans, that
depend on the rental assistance grants for the debt service.
|
| Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations
|
|---|
| Program | (millions of $) | Description
|
|---|
| National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)
| -602
| The Budget eliminates programming in NIFA, such as activities related to climate
change, renewable energy, and promoting DEI in education that were prioritized under the Biden
Administration. In addition, the Budget reduces funding for formula grants. Instead, the Budget focuses on the merit-based
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. The Budget protects funding to youth and K-12 programs
such as 4-H clubs, tribal colleges, and universities. This investment would help prepare future
generations of farmers. It also ensures HBCUs are amply funded.
|
| Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
and USDA Research Statistical
Agencies
| -159
| The Budget reduces funding for
research sites across the Nation and reduces funding for
research projects. The Budget also makes small
reductions to the Economic Research Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service to stop
climate research added by the Biden Administration while ensuring some
analysis and data collection continues.
|
| Natural Resource Conservation Service
(NRCS)—Private Lands Conservation
Operations
| -754
| The Budget eliminates discretionary funding for conservation technical assistance. While funding has helped producers deploy conservation practices on their lands,
many have been forced to participate in the program in order to comply with State environmental
regulations such as California’s Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program, which regulates agricultural
runoff.
|
| NRCS Watershed Operations
| -16
| The Budget eliminates funding to renovate locally owned dams in the NRCS Watershed Programs.
These
programs received an influx of funding through IIJA. Currently, there is over $100 million
in unobligated balances between the two programs.
|
| Rural Development Programs
| -721
| Infrastructure loans are prioritized for aging
rural water and wastewater systems, as well as technical assistance through the “Circuit Rider”
program balanced with reductions in the grants. Other specialty water grants and earmarks are not
funded except where the tax base cannot support loans, including maintaining funding for Native
American Tribes. Community facility grants are eliminated, as the Congress has been earmarking nearly 100 percent of them. No new USDA funding is needed for broadband
expansion. The Budget
would also eliminate rural business programs, single family housing direct loans, self-help housing grants,
telecommunications loans, and rural housing vouchers. Rural Development salaries and expenses are
reduced commensurately.
|
| Farm Service Agency (FSA) Salaries
and Expenses: Farm Production and
Conservation-Business Center (FPACBC)
| -358
| The first Trump Administration placed the FSA, NRCS, and Risk
Management Agency under one umbrella: FPAC-BC. The staff-heavy FSA struggles with hiring
due in part because of labor market competition. The Budget reduces funding in order to reflect the Agency’s plans
for efficiencies, which include improving online services.
|
| National Forest System Management
| -392
| The Budget reduces salaries and expenses by $342 million, and saves an additional $50 million by
eliminating funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, and reducing
funding for recreation, vegetation and watershed management, and land management regulation. The
Budget fully supports the Executive Order 14225, “Immediate Expansion
of American Timber Production,” to improve forest management and increase domestic timber
production. The requested funding level supports timber sales, hazardous fuels removal, mineral
extraction, grazing, and wildlife habitat management.
|
| Forest Service Operations
| -391
| The Budget reduces funding for expenses including salaries and facility leases to streamline the
Agency’s management structure and reduce their real property footprint.
|
| State, Local, Tribal, and NGO
Conservation Programs
| -303
| The Budget reduces grant programs that subsidize management of State and privately-owned forests.
While the Budget provides reduced support for Federal wildland fire
management activities, these partners should be encouraged to
fund their own community preparedness and risk mitigation activities.
|
| Forest and Rangeland Research (Except
Forest Inventory and Analysis)
| -300
| The President has pledged to manage national forests for their intended purpose of producing timber.
The Budget reduces funding for the Forest and Rangeland Research program because it is out of step
with timber production, but maintains funding for Forest
Inventory and Analysis, a longstanding census of forest resources and conditions.
|
| Commodity Supplemental Food
Program (CSFP)
| -425
| The Budget
ends CSFP and replaces it with MAHA food boxes.
The MAHA food boxes provide food directly to
seniors. Unlike the current approach using food banks, which provide those in need with shelf-stable
foods, MAHA boxes would be filled with
commodities sourced from domestic farmers and given directly to American households.
|
| McGovern-Dole Food for Education
Program
| -240
| The McGovern-Dole Food for Education program buys agricultural commodities from U.S. farmers
and donates them in the form of foreign aid. Only a small portion of the program’s funding goes
toward purchasing U.S. commodities, given the high transportation costs and large portion of funding
provided for technical assistance. While these donated commodities totaled only $37 million in 2023
(0.01 percent of all U.S. crop sales), they undercut commodity prices in markets abroad. The elimination of this program is consistent
with the elimination of other in-kind international food donation programs in the Budget, including
Food for Progress and Food for Peace Title II Grants.
|