July 18, 2025
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the Trump administration added a new rule revealing the agency will no longer consider race and gender for federal farm programs, sounding the alarm for Black farmers responsible for feeding America
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the Trump administration added a new rule revealing the agency will no longer consider race and gender for federal farm programs, sounding the alarm for Black farmers responsible for feeding America, KCUR reports.
Announced July 17 by Secretary Brooke Rollins, the agency labels the decision as a way to “eliminate discrimination,” undoing years of work that attempted to reform a history of discrimination by embedding programs like the 1990 Farm Bill to support “socially disadvantaged farmers,” including Black farmers, women, and veterans. “We are taking this aggressive, unprecedented action to eliminate discrimination in any form at USDA,” Rollins said in a statement.
“It is simply wrong and contrary to the fundamental principle that all persons should be treated equally.”
Black farmers are already feeling the wrath of President Donald Trump’s anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, cutting more than 145 grants worth $148.6 million.
Workers like third-generation East Texas Black farmer Roy Mills believe that continuous rules against diversity will only keep everything at a standstill, resulting in a domino effect for the country’s food processes. “Everything is at a standstill. And we don’t know what the end is going to be,” Mills said, according to the Texas Tribune.
“We’re getting further behind in all the practices that were being implemented. Things that are supposed to be going on have come to a halt.”
Mills and a group of other Black farmers weren’t too surprised at the program’s dismantling, but they weren’t sad to see it go. While data shows that the agency awarded over 615 grants worth roughly $200 million between 2010 and 2023, the Texas farmer says efforts to support Black farmers are not effective.
The U.S. population of Black farmers has declined by 96%. Doctor of economics, finance, and agriculture, Cindy Ayers Elliott, says the reason behind the decline is the lack of assistance received from federal DEI programs. By operating an urban farm in Jackson, Mississippi, Ayers Elliott has helped mitigate the impacts of the country’s food deserts in the majority of Black neighborhoods. She labels the Trump administration’s new announcement as another example of the government failing Black farmers like her. “If I was a turtle, I would be called an endangered species,” Elliott said.
“There are less than 40,000 Black Farmers in America overall.”
Agriculture advocates feel for the farmers targeted by the new rule. Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the past few months under Trump’s second reign have only made it harder to overcome the uncertainty for the U.S. food system overall. In addition to other issues, the lack of funding that many farmers rely on adds more dents. “They already have to deal with the weather. They already have to deal with pests and input prices. Limiting their variables, limiting the uncertainty, is always a good thing,” Lavender said.
“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen from the first six months or so from this administration is the injection, consistently, of uncertainty for farmers by freezing contracts that farmers lawfully held, by terminating contracts, by terminating projects unexpectedly, by canceling market opportunities for farmers.”
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