Juli and Katie McGuire pack apples at Blue Roof Orchard in Belmont, Wisconsin. Blue Roof is among the producers that took part in the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, now canceled by the Trump administration. (Photo by Sharon Vanorny/Courtesy of Wisconsin Farmers Union)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has abruptly stopped a program that has helped more than 280 Wisconsin farmers move their products to local food banks around the state, to the consternation of participating farmers.
On Tuesday, Gov. Tony Evers in a press release berated the administration of President Donald Trump for “trying to walk back promises to Wisconsin’s farmers and producers” and urged the administration to restore the 2025 Local Food Purchase Assistance program.
Funding for the program was approved and signed into law “years ago,” Evers said.
Over the past two years, 289 Wisconsin farmers took part in the program, distributing $4 million worth of food products across the state, said Julie Keown-Bomar, executive director of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, and participants were looking forward to continuing for a third season.
“It’s very disturbing that the federal government would renege on a federal contract that was already approved by Congress,” Keown-Bomar said in an interview.
“It was an enormous benefit to the farmers who counted on those purchases,” Keown-Bomar said. The program helped farmers have some certainty about their income, she added, and some hired new employees to handle the added production and distribution of goods.
“It really helped strengthen the food distribution system and create local food networks that were not there before,” she said.
Along with the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, the USDA told school nutritionists on Friday it would end a companion program that connects farmers with local schools. Politico reported Monday on thecancellation of both programs.
Politico quoted a USDA spokesperson who said funding announced in October “is no longer available and those agreements will be terminated following 60-day notification.” The unnamed spokesperson said the programs “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.”
Evers’ office said the loss of the two programs would cut off farmers nationwide from more than $1 billion in support and would cut “Wisconsin’s promised funding by nearly $6 million.”
“The Trump Administration must stop turning their backs on America’s Dairyland and betraying our farmers, producers, and agricultural industries by trying to gut funding Wisconsin’s farmers and producers were promised,” Evers said.
He also took the administration to task for tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, now on hold until early April.
“With President Trump’s 25 percent tariff taxes that are going to cause prices to go up on everything from gas to groceries and his escalating trade wars that could affect our farmers’ and producers’ bottom lines, these reckless cuts to critical federal programs couldn’t come at a worse time,” Evers said.
The local food programs marked the second time in less than a month that Wisconsin politicians have pushed back on Trump administration agriculture policies.
On Feb. 26, U.S. Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin wrote to USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins demanding that the department restart suspended grants for dairy farmers under the Dairy Business Innovation initiative. The program, begun in the 2018 Farm Bill, provides aid to dairy farmers to diversify and market products as well as expand their businesses.
“The uncertainty surrounding DBI funding is incredibly alarming because it threatens the future of many dairy businesses that were promised this support to grow and remain competitive,” Baldwin wrote in her letter to Rollins. She added that the “unnecessary and ill-advised disruption could have widespread economic consequences, particularly, for small dairy operations in Wisconsin that drive our rural economies.”
The suspension put 88 Midwestern dairy businesses on hold for $6.5 million in funds that had been appropriated in 2023, Baldwin said, including 30 in Wisconsin.
Evers noted Tuesday that complaints from his office, Baldwin and dairy industry leaders had successfully reversed the suspension, and called on the Trump administration to also reverse its decisions on the food bank and school food programs.
The governor’s office also criticized Trump for having “threatened to cut thousands of jobs from USDA,” including firing about 6,000 federal employees who weresubsequently reinstated.
Evers’ 2025-27 budget proposal has been relying on the local food program funding, and includes a request for $770,000 over two years in conjunction with that money. His office said Tuesday that the loss of the program heightens the importance of a $30 million initiative in his budget proposal to help Wisconsin farmers and producers distribute their products across the state, and called on the state Legislature to approve that, among other items.
William Rutter, USDA plant pathologist and nematologist, examines sprouting plants for research on managing Meloidogyne enterolobii and other root-knot nematodes. This photo was taken at the U.S. Vegetable Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina, on Jan. 28, 2021. (Photo by Lance Cheung/USDA.)
Mass terminations at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are “crippling” the agency, upending federal workers’ lives and leaving farmers and rural communities without needed support, according to interviews with 15 recently fired employees stationed across the U.S.
Since taking power Jan. 20, the Trump administration has quickly frozen funding and fired federal workers en masse. USDA terminations started Feb. 13, the day Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was sworn in. Rollins welcomed the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, to find parts of the USDA budget to cut.
Terminated employees helped farmers build irrigation systems, battled invasive diseases that could “completely decimate” crops that form whole industries and assisted low-income seniors in rural areas in fixing leaky roofs. That work will now be significantly delayed — perhaps indefinitely — as remaining employees’ workloads grow, the employees said.
“It’s really crippling the agency,” said Bryan Mathis, a former USDA employee based in New Mexico.
Caught up in the terminations are single parents and new moms, recent hires and longtime employees, and military veterans. Some had uprooted their lives months ago to start their new career. Justin Butt, also based in New Mexico, said that without the health insurance and parental leave offered by his federal job, he and his wife may hold off on having a child.
Many of the USDA employees were on probationary status, meaning they had worked less than a year (or three years, in some instances) in the civil service. However, several had put in years working for the government and had been permanent employees at other federal departments.
The terminations have left employees distrustful and leery of returning to public service. “I don’t feel safe,” said Latisha Caldwell-Bullis, who served in the Army for 21 years before joining a USDA office in Oklahoma. “The whole reason I got back into the federal system was because it has job security.”
The USDA did not return a request for comment. In an interview with Brownfield Ag News on Tuesday, Rollins said her department has done “significant reinstatements” but added new job cuts might be coming. “I do think that moving forward, it will be more intentional,” she said.
The American Farm Bureau Federation, which represents farmers and rural communities across the country, said cuts at USDA should be “strategic.” The farm bureau has supported the Trump administration.
“Reports are still coming in about staffing decisions at USDA, which are causing concern in rural communities and beyond,” Sam Kieffer, the farm bureau’s vice president of public policy, said in a statement to Investigate Midwest. “USDA plays a vital role in ensuring a safe and abundant food supply, from loan officers and disaster recovery experts to food inspectors, animal disease specialists and more.
“We support the goal of responsibly spending taxpayer dollars,” the statement continued, “but we urge the administration to empower the Secretary to make strategic staffing decisions, knowing the key roles USDA staff play in the nation’s food supply.”
Leading up to the terminations, a feeling of unease pervaded USDA offices, said a former employee based in the Midwest who requested anonymity to protect job prospects. The employee’s agency within the USDA used to have regular town halls, but they were canceled after the “fork in the road” email — which promised federal workers a buyout — hit inboxes in late January. “Then, basically, it was crickets from our leadership,” the employee said.
The email that was sent to federal employees on Jan. 28, 2025 presenting a deferred resignation offer. photo credit to U.S. Office of Personnel Management
As news of mass firings at other agencies circulated, USDA staffers wondered if they were next. Some cried in offices. Others coped by telling jokes.
The firings were haphazard.
Many received the same email late at night on Feb. 13 saying they were terminated immediately. Jacob Zortman, who sold his house in Kansas in January to move to Nevada, received his work phone on Friday, Feb. 14, only to be fired the following Tuesday, he said.
Another employee said his job title was listed incorrectly on the termination letter. One said they had received an award days before their termination. Several employees said their supervisors had no idea they were fired.
Mathis, who worked for the Forest Service, received a phone call on Monday, Feb. 17, a federal holiday, from a higher-up, who told him he was fired, he said. His direct supervisor was instructed to terminate him but refused.
“It kind of went up the chain,” he said.
Doug Berry, who worked for the USDA’s Rural Development agency in Texas, said, when he attempted to get a copy of his performance review last week, it was “mysteriously blank.” He then asked his supervisor to write him a recommendation but was rebuffed. The supervisor mentioned an interview Berry gave to USA TODAY, in which he said his agency “helps the towns that voted for Trump every day.”
“I don’t know who’s watching what, but as soon as they saw my comments, any good will evaporated,” he said.
Another former USDA employee, who requested anonymity to protect job prospects, said the terminations will result in a leadership void. The job cuts affected training intended to give the new generation of leaders a holistic view of the agency.
“It’s just going to create a lot of chaos,” the employee said.
DOGE claims cuts are for efficiency
DOGE’s stated goal is to improve efficiency across the government, but former employees said they were already working on improving government service efficiencies.
When one former employee joined the department six months ago, they faced a five-year backlog. They had worked through three years when they were terminated, said the employee, who is based in a Western state and requested anonymity to protect future job prospects. Now, other workers will “have to pick up the slack,” meaning delays for projects that farmers and ranchers want done.
Stephanie Gaspar worked for a USDA agency that helped prevent plant, animal and insect diseases from entering the nation’s food supply. Her job was to decrease IT costs. “I and my team had already reduced tens of thousands of dollars of the budget,” she said. “It’s going to cost more in the long run because there’s not enough people to do this work.”
Gaspar, based in Florida, said she had worked hard to get her position. “This ultimately was going to be a career that would pull me out of poverty,” she said. “I’m not some rich federal worker. I’m a working mom.”
Rural development workers axed
One of the USDA’s many responsibilities is providing financial assistance to rural, low-income communities. For example, a small town in central West Virginia requested USDA’s help to find funding for a new police cruiser.
Rural Development was also coordinating a plan to help impoverished families access transportation to medical care, said Carrie Decker, a single mom of four children who worked in the West Virginia office. “You have three generations sharing one vehicle, and people have to work and get to school, so finding time to go to a dentist appointment is not high on the priority list,” she said. The project now lacks USDA support, which could delay it.
Homeowner Sandra stands inside her home on Jan. 28, 2022. Her roof appears intact from the outside, but hidden water damage has weakened the structure, affecting her ceiling, walls, floor and foundation in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi. Inside, her ceiling sags, paint and coatings peel, and floor beams give way under weight. She props up the ceiling with boards and sleeps in the living room to avoid unsafe conditions. Delta Design Build Workshop is helping her apply for a USDA Rural Development Housing Preservation grant, as her fixed income cannot cover the repairs. (Photo by Lance Cheung, USDA)
After the Trump administration took over, she and her coworkers were instructed not to perform community outreach, which was “90% of what we do,” Decker said. Decker worries the lack of investment in rural areas — which Trump largely won in his reelection bid — will have long-lasting consequences.
“We’re going to see less funding into these critical access places that really, really need to have it and have needed it for decades,” she said. “I think what’s going to happen is these rural places across the nation are going to continue to decline instead of see the growth and opportunity that we were hopeful for.”
Two primary goals of rural development are to provide affordable housing or to help maintain low-income seniors’ homes.
One former USDA employee in the South, who requested anonymity to protect future job prospects, said they were hired to help expedite environmental compliance reviews, which were required before any funding was dispersed. Before they started, the employee said, another employee performed these duties on top of a full-time job.
The situation delayed help to seniors, the employee said. “Their roof is being covered up by a tarp because it’s been blown off by a storm, and they can’t get their grant money to get their roof fixed until compliance reviews are done,” they said. Former coworkers would “basically hound the guy to get it done. It wasn’t efficient.”
Risks of possible crop disease outbreaks
The USDA also invests heavily in preventing diseases among plants and animals essential to the food supply.
But the department fired employees working to address the bird flu that’s contributing to skyrocketing egg prices, according to NBC News. The USDA said it was trying to rehire them.
Matthew Moscou worked at a lab in Minnesota, where he helped monitor diseases that could wipe out wheat production in the U.S., he said. He spent the past two-and-a-half years learning from a long-tenured employee so institutional knowledge could be passed on, but it’s unlikely that information is retained now, he said.
The Mediterranean fruit fly is a destructive pest that threatens fruit crops worldwide. USDA scientists in Hawaii and Texas have been testing red dye No. 28 as a safer alternative to traditional insecticides. Medflies often share food, which could help spread the dye-and-bait mix and control the population. (Photo by Scott Bauer, USDA)
“They’ve destroyed the institution,” he said.
Without labs like this, crop diseases, such as wheat-killing stem rust, could flourish, he said.
“Either we’re going to have to rethink how we’re doing this whole thing, or we’re going to have a significant collapse in the long run,” Moscou said. “This current push has really cut us off at the knees.”
Editor’s note: Since Investigate Midwest interviewed Moscou, he has been reinstated, at least temporarily, according to his LinkedIn profile.
This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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