Julie Davis Good is trying to make the Allen County Conservation District’s budget work.
She’s waiting on the USDA to reimburse the Indiana-based conservation district at least $165,000 for work it has already done under agreements with the agency. She hasn’t been able to replace two staff agronomists who left last year. Funding from the county government is limited. The district’s only tractor is now being sold to bring in some extra cash.
“We’ve already liquidated half of what we had in reserve in investments and we are selling equipment to keep staff on,” Good said.
ACCD is one of several conservation districts across the country waiting on the federal government to reimburse it for work done through contracts now under review as the Trump administration tightens its scrutiny over Biden-era climate and diversity initiatives.
Some agreements funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Program, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Conservation Technical Assistance are among those under review, according to district managers interviewed by Agri-Pulse. In some cases, contracts have been terminated, said Jeremy Peters, the CEO of the National Association of Conservation Districts.
“How long can you go with someone owing you a pile of money?” asked Indiana farmer Mark Muntzinger, who has planted cover crops with the help of ACCD. “It’s got to come around to ‘OK, we’ve got to survive. How do we make that rubber band stretch before it breaks?’ And I think Allen County is, quite honestly, pretty much in that position right now.”
Leaders of conservation districts that have put thousands of dollars into providing services to farmers through agreements now under review are struggling to pencil out their budgets. Not only must they grapple with the legal question of whether they’re contractually bound to continue working on these programs, but also a more practical one — whether they can afford to.
Staff at some districts have been laid off or furloughed. Others are at risk of losing their jobs if payments do not resume. Those that remain face heightened workloads due to not only their colleagues' departures, but also those of Natural Resources Conservation Service staff, with whom they often share duties and offices.
Peters fears these challenges will have impacts on farmers, who may struggle to get help trying new conservation practices or addressing resource concerns.
“We’re risking losing the trust of an entire generation of farmers to conservation if things continue on the path that they are,” Peters said.
A statement provided to Agri-Pulse by a USDA spokesperson said Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins is “carefully reviewing all funding and will provide updates as soon as they are made available.”
“USDA has a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy,” the statement said. “Secretary Rollins understands that farmers are the best stewards of the land, and we are reviewing this funding accordingly to ensure taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars are supporting real conservation efforts, not bureaucratic excess.”
A conservation delivery system under stress
Conservation districts were born out of the Dust Bowl. As USDA leaders in the 1930s searched for ways to connect government-wary producers to practices that could reduce soil erosion and help address other natural resource challenges, some came to believe creating locally led, democratically organized bodies could help accomplish this mission. One by one, state legislatures passed laws establishing such bodies, which they crafted based on guidance provided to them by then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Conservation districts are funded by a variety of state, federal and local sources. They have long worked side-by-side with NRCS, with employees of both organizations often even sharing office space. Historically, district staff have filled similar functions to NRCS employees in their own communities and, on many occasions, even been authorized to fulfill federal technical assistance duties through agreements approved by both sides.
But a lack of certainty that funding will come through for agreements that have already been signed has put this system under strain, said Sarah Blaney, the executive director of the Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts.
“This is a really difficult period because it’s really kind of, in my opinion, undercutting the design of our voluntary, incentive-based, locally led conservation model,” Blaney said.
Blaney said OACD is waiting on $38,000 in federal funding, but added that when the first quarter of the fiscal year ends, its expenses will probably reach “well over $200,000.” The organization has already put two people on unpaid leave, she said.
Kristy Davis, the executive director of the Utah Association of Conservation Districts, said she has had to lay off 12 people due to a lack of federal reimbursement, including IRA-funded employees who helped farmers draft conservation plans and a cultural resource specialist that did archaeological surveys at project sites. The organization is waiting to receive $220,000 from USDA.
“We haven’t gotten any direction from USDA, which is part of the frustration,” Davis said. “We haven’t been told to stop work, but at the same time our payments are on pause, so it’s really difficult to try and decide how to handle that.”
Losing the additional UACD-funded staff who can move around and assist at different offices as needed has reduced morale in districts, Davis said. The state of Utah provides each district around $11,000 in operating funds each year, and because these districts often only employ a part-time staff person, being able to draw help from UACD's specialists is important to ensuring producers get assistance, particularly at a time when workloads have been increasing, she added.
“We’re always trying to help farmers become more resilient and this really puts a pause on progress for those farmers and ranchers,” Davis said. “Utah’s a desert and we have several water projects for rangeland that are on hold currently because of this.”
In California, 50 of the state’s resource conservation districts and the association that represents them are waiting on the federal government to provide them with roughly $100 million, according to California Association of Resource Conservation Districts Executive Director Nancy Wahl-Scheurich. While she said some of these funds aren’t necessarily “officially frozen,” their status is uncertain, meaning “the agencies are unable to provide in writing a statement that these grants will be OK.”
Forty-three staffers across the state are at risk of being let go from 14 resource conservation districts if grants are not reinstated in the next two years, Wahl-Scheurich said. In that scenario, a couple of districts may have to shut down, she added.
Unlike other states, California does not provide any baseline funding for resource conservation districts, leaving many of them almost entirely reliant on grants, she said. Some do have funding from county taxes that they are able to draw from. Still, she estimated that most California districts rely on federal funding for 30% or more of their budgets.
“This is hurting real human beings,” Wahl-Scheurich said of the uncertainty surrounding federal funding. “Everybody that I work with is stressed because you really don’t know what’s going to happen next. And everybody that I work with, they’re all getting up in the morning to do good things, to protect the environment, to support the landowners that they work with … and they don’t know if they’re going to be allowed to continue to do it. It’s just really sad.”
Districts face difficult decisions ahead, but some are fighting back
Heather Duncan became the first-ever executive director of the West Virginia Association of Conservation Districts when she was hired in 2021. If a freeze on certain funds stretches through next year, she could be its last.
Duncan’s position is dependent on federal funding. So are the jobs of the association's other two employees, who have enough funding to probably make it through another quarter but may potentially need to be furloughed after that. The organization is currently waiting on $434,782 in IRA and BIL funding.
“It’s been a big blow, especially when you have the potential to lose all of your staff,” Duncan said.
Duncan said the association’s staff have been able to help develop new programs at individual districts in the state. They have also helped districts cultivate new partnerships and raised awareness of conservation efforts occurring in West Virginia. She said they were also planning to help NRCS with outreach as well, adding that local NRCS offices in West Virginia have been impacted by recent federal downsizing efforts.
“Now we’re kind of in the same boat,” Duncan said, comparing WVACD's staffing and funding limitations with those of NRCS. “Are we going to be able to be there for our partner, provide that assistance that they need?”
At least one conservation district is suing the federal government over withheld funds.
The Eastern Rhode Island Conservation District has joined with three nonprofits in a lawsuit against the Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the departments of Agriculture, Energy and the Interior. The lawsuit alleges these agencies acted “arbitrarily, capriciously, without statutory authority, and contrary to law” when implementing “broad, non-individualized freezes” of IRA and IIJA funding.
Other groups in the lawsuit include the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, the Green Infrastructure Center and the National Council of Nonprofits.
According to the lawsuit, a grant of nearly $350,000 ERICD received from EPA to set up the state’s first municipal composting site has been “frozen on and off for weeks.”
ERICD was planning to use another IRA grant that came from USDA to hire another full-time staff person to help provide technology and data support to farmers. That too was frozen, so the district has not yet hired anyone for that position, court documents say.
“Our organization doesn’t have any other recourse at the moment that I see as a viable path,” Sara Churgin, the district’s director, said of the decision to sue.
While Good, with the Allen County Soil and Water Conservation District in Indiana, said she doesn’t believe the funding reviews and cuts were intended to be punitive to farmers, she does think the Trump Administration has not given enough consideration to how producers, or the environment, are impacted by these decisions. One of her concerns is the potential undoing of efforts to prevent excess nutrients from building up in waterways, which could make future clean-up attempts even more costly.
“The saddest part, I think, is that the downstream effect — and I do mean, literally, downstream in the rivers — will be toxified resources that can never be liberated with an economy that any country could support,” she said.
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