Cancellation of the USA’s Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities program has impacted a Missouri hemp project – and others could be affected as well.
The program was an effort to expand markets for America’s low carbon footprint agricultural products and saw the USDA investing more than $3.1 billion in 141 projects.
On April 14, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced cancellation of the program, alleging the majority of the projects had “sky-high administration fees”, which the Secretary said provided less than half of federal funding directly to farmers in many cases.
The USDA web page listing the projects is now displaying the message “You are not authorized to access this page.”
An archived version of that page dated April 11 indicated a number of projects where industrial hemp was the focus or a component. Among those was a project led by Missouri’s Lincoln University related to commercializing and marketing climate-smart hemp crops while driving soil carbon sequestration and climate resilience.
The project planned to support small and minority and underrepresented farmers by paying producer license fees, incentives and seed costs.
A $5 million grant was awarded in April 2023 for the project, which was meant to carry it over until April next year. According to ABC17, the University has confirmed the loss of funding – although how much wasn’t mentioned.
The University, and other recipients, will have an opportunity to re-apply for funding under a re-jiggered scheme called the Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) initiative. The USDA will review existing grant agreements based on three “Farmer First” policy priorities, which are:
- A minimum of 65% of federal funds must go to producers;
- Grant recipients must have enrolled at least one producer as the end of 2024; and
- Grant recipients must have made a payment to at least one producer as of December 31, 2024.
Besides the acknowledgement of the funding loss, Lincoln University doesn’t appear to have made any further comment on the situation. This isn’t surprising given the new carrot being dangled and stick wielded. The Trump Administration isn’t particularly well-known for criticism as evidenced by other actions so far during Trump’s second presidency.
