WASHINGTON, D.C. — Minnesota farmers traveled to the nation’s capital last week with a clear message for lawmakers: the federal government is creating a situation that makes it next to impossible to farm in a manner that’s economically viable, agronomically resilient and sustainable in the long term.
“There’s a lot of volatility in farming these days and it’s being made worse by the confusion around funding and support services in local USDA offices,” said Adam Griebie, a Land Stewardship Project (LSP) member and fly-in participant who farms in Minnesota’s McLeod County.
Griebie and the other farmers were taking part in a national fly-in coordinated by LSP and other member-organizations of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). During the fly-in, approximately 150 farmers and ranchers from across the country had meetings with Congressional agriculture staffers, members of Congress and USDA officials to share their stories about how recent budget cuts and uncertainty related to trade policy and aggressive immigration enforcement were impacting them and their communities.
For example, Griebie, who has worked to improve water quality and pollinator habitat on his family’s corn and soybean operation utilizing USDA programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program, Conservation Reserve Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, talked about how, due to severe staffing cuts at the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), he is having a hard time getting basic support with paperwork and project design.
Nationwide, the NRCS has lost at least 2,400 employees since January 2025 due to the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce. In its 2026 budget request, the administration suggested eliminating NRCS technical assistance. In the final appropriations bill that funds the USDA and other agencies, Congress took a more moderate approach, but still cut nearly $100 million from the service.
“Everybody says they are in favor of conservation, but when it comes to local, on-the-ground technical support for the practices we’re doing, it’s often just not there,” said Griebie, whose family does extensive on-farm water quality research. “It’s frustrating to deal with understaffed NRCS offices, and it’s a common problem I’m hearing from other farmers.”
Shea-Lynn Ramthun, a graduate of LSP’s Farm Beginnings course who traveled to D.C. to represent Farm Aid, another NSAC-member group, described to Congressional staffers how her Goodhue County crop and livestock farm is attempting to build economic and environmental resiliency by diversifying into small grains such as oats. She is a farmer-investor in Green Aces Milling of Albert Lea, Minn., which, when it goes online in August, could provide a ready market for tens of thousands of acres of oats in the region.
“This mill could more than double the value of my oat crop while diversifying the landscape in a way that builds soil health,” said Ramthun. “This is an exciting market opportunity at a time when there’s a lot of bad news in agriculture. It shows that farmers can be very innovative when it comes to taking steps to improve their bottom lines and boost community vibrancy.”
Laura Schreiber, LSP’s government relations director, said it’s unfortunate that at a time when farmers in Minnesota and the rest of the country are working hard to grapple with uncertainty from numerous directions, the USDA and other agencies aren’t making agriculture and rural communities a priority. On Feb. 13, the House Agriculture Committee released a draft proposal for a new Farm Bill. Schreiber said the proposal does include wording supporting local and regional food systems and expanded meat processing capacity. Unfortunately, even these proposals lack mandatory funding, severely limiting how much impact they will actually have, she said, adding that overall, the proposed legislation falls short of delivering a strong ag law that meets the current moment and need.
“We see this administration giving lip service to supporting local food and local markets, as well as conservation, then we see their actions cutting or underfunding effective programs and instead providing bailouts to Big Ag in foreign countries. That can be very frustrating,” said Schreiber. “Given a fair chance, farmers can create a system that feeds people nutritious food, provides clean water, builds healthy soil and supports vibrant Main Streets. We need less volatility and more stability or we will continue to see farmers pushed out and our rural communities suffer.”
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The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an ethic of stewardship for farmland, promoting sustainable agriculture and developing healthy communities in the food and farming system. LSP has offices in the Minnesota communities of Montevideo, Lewiston and South Minneapolis. More information is available at landstewardshipproject.org.