USDA could be impacted by Project 2025
Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation project plan for the next president to transform the federal government, has piqued the interest of many.
The report has been circulating for months but has been attracting some recent attention.
Speculations around Project 2025 include the impact it can have on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the next farm bill.
The 887-page collection of policies developed by the foundation seeks to reshape all aspects of U.S. federal government, including the USDA.
Project 2025 calls on the White House to demand genuine reform to farm programs, recommending budget cuts to USDA programs and to remove nutritional provisions from the departments control.
Nearly everything in Project 2025’s agricultural chapter runs counter to the $1.5 trillion farm bill proposal the House Agriculture Committee released in May, while little coincides with the Senate Agriculture Committee farm bill.
Chapter 10
Project 2025’s chapter on agriculture recommends the USDA play a limited role in American agriculture.
The chapter, written by former Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow, Environmental Policy and Regulation, Center for Energy, Climate and Environment Daren Bakst, states, “Governmental barriers hindering food production or otherwise undermining efforts to meet consumer demand must be removed.”
“The Biden administration seeks to use the federal government to transform the American food system,” Bakst writes. “The USDA should not place ancillary issues, such as environmental issues, ahead of agricultural production itself.”
The project also says the abuse of Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) discretionary authority, with the exception of federal crop insurance, needs to be addressed and recommends prohibiting the CCC from being used to assist parties beyond farmers and ranchers.
Reforming farm subsidies is also listed as needing attention, which is the opposite of the House version of the bill.
Project 2025 states, “Taxpayers should not pay more than 50 percent of crop insurance premiums which cuts insurance subsidies to 47 percent and would save an estimated $8.1 billion a year, while only reducing insured acres roughly one percent.”
The report calls for eliminating the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), citing, “Farmers should not be paid in such a sweeping way not to farm their land.”
Currently, CRP has 24.7 million acres enrolled with an annual budget of about $1.8 billion.
The project also wants to remove the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) from holding producers to wetlands compliance and suggests authority should be ditched and turned over to states.
Additional recommendations
The report stresses the importance of transparency and genuine reform process when formulating the farm bill and suggests moving USDA food and nutrition programs to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The project calls for tighter work requirements on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients and to reevaluate the Biden administration’s regulations on the Thrifty Food Plan, which boosted SNAP benefits by 23 percent.
In his report, Bakst recommends, “The USDA and HHS should develop a more transparent process which properly considers the underlying science and does not overstate its findings.”
The agencies should ensure the dietary guidelines focus on nutritional issues and do not veer off mission by focusing on unrelated issues, such as the environment, which have nothing to do with nutritional advice.
Another topic Project 2025 covered was promoting legislation which would allow state-inspected meat to be sold in interstate commerce.
Project 2025 suggests the next administration focus on trade policy and removing trade barriers, among other things, to ensure an environment conducive to trade.
“The focus should also include trade promotion,” Bakst writes. “This includes programs like the Market Access Program which subsidizes trade associations, businesses and other private entities to market and promote their products overseas.”
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) would benefit from reform as well, the project notes, stating, “The USFS should focus on addressing the precipitous annual amassing of biomass in the national forests which drive the behavior of wildfires.”
It further states by thinning trees, removing live fuels and dead wood and taking other preventive steps, the agency can help minimize the consequences of wildfires.
Bakst concludes, “The USDA should not be used as a governmental tool to transform the nation’s food system, but instead it should respect the importance of efficient agricultural production and ensure the government does not hinder farmers and ranchers from producing an abundant supply of safe and affordable food.”
Melissa Anderson is the editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
