Ag Policy Blog

This blog item could be filed under things I had planned to write about, but other stuff got in the way.

The New York Times on Monday spotlighted how Kansas farmers came up with the idea for Food for Peace, a program that was operated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), but "Now it is effectively dead."

President Donald Trump proposed cutting Food for Peace and the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program.

Paul Penner, a Kansas wheat farmer and former president of the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) expressed frustration that wheat farmers and Kansas members of Congress aren't more vocal about the cuts to those programs.

President Dwight Eisenhower came up with the name "Food for Peace" as he was looking to address crop surpluses in the U.S. in the 1950s while people in Europe, Asia and Africa were still struggling from the devastation to their agricultural regions from World War II. The program is highlighted in Eisenhower's presidential library.

"He meant it when he said, 'Food for Peace'-- it was a way of being a good soldier in the world," Mary Jean Eisenhower, one of the president's granddaughters, said in an interview with the NYT. "I think it was a beautiful program, and I just found it very disturbing when it got caught into the political …" She trailed off, reluctant to discuss politics.

Vance and Louise Ehmke, who farm 14,000 acres near Healy, Kansas, pointed to cuts to research staff who test strains of virus-resistant wheat on their farms. Vance Ehmke also pointed out wheat prices are down nearly $1.50 a bushel since February, "well below the price farmers need to break even," the article noted.

"I would lay a huge amount of that right at the feet of Donald J. Trump," Ehmke said.

Kansas Farmers Union had been in Washington, D.C., in May lobbying for farm programs when members learned about the cuts to Food for Peace.

Tom Giessel, a retired farmer and KFU's resident historian noted, "These people really don't know the story of Food for Peace and the roots of it." Giessel added in the article, "Farmers shipping grain to where people were hungry – that we did these kinds of things is really what made America great."

The article also quoted a member of a grain elevator co-op looking at potentially selling more wheat for dog food.

The Food for Peace budget at USAID was about $1.6 billion. The appropriations bill in Congress for USDA authorizes $900 million for the program.

See, "From Food Aid to Dog Chow? How Trump's Cuts Hurt Kansas Farmers," https://www.nytimes.com/…

Congress Plans to Eliminate USDA Climate Hubs

The Iowa Capital Dispatch last week also reported on plans to scrap USDA's Climate Hubs. The House appropriations bill zeros out the funding for USDA's 11 climate hubs.

The Capital Dispatch interviewed Laurie Nowatzke, former associate director of the Midwest Climate Hub. The Trump administration initially terminated her position in February and then brought her back before she took the deferred resignation buyout. Nowatzke said as of the end of April when she left the office, staff were not allowed to update content on the website and have instead continued to send the outlooks via email to subscribers.

"A huge focus of ours was taking that sort of experienced climate and weather conditions and how that applies or affects agriculture," Nowatzke said.

In the FY 2024 budget, USDA defined the climate hubs as "a cross-department effort to provide technical assistance in tackling the climate crisis, expanding USDA's ability to develop and deliver science-based, region-specific information and technologies." The hubs cost about $14 million in FY 2024, though the Biden administration proposed doubling the budget for the hubs to research climate-smart conservation practices.

Alli Wenman, the regional climate outreach project manager for the University of Wisconsin–Madison's extension, said the partnership with the Midwest Climate Hub was "key" to cut through the "noise" at the research level and give producers the tools and data that matter most to their operations.

Wenman said the ag-focused climate outlooks have become a trustworthy source of information for a lot of producers.

"The information is out there, but it's maybe not framed for ag," Wenman said. "There's too much information, so they help us sort through what information is relevant for ag and put it into ag terms."

A spokesperson for Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Agriculture, said the hubs are a "duplicative" program and the same research could be done through competitive grants. Hinson, in a statement, said," This bill cuts wasteful spending – including for the so-called 'Climate Hubs' – and champions President Trump's farmer-first agenda to strengthen longstanding research programs, support rural businesses and infrastructure, and safeguard our food supply."

At his rally on Thursday in Des Moines, Trump dismissed science on climate change, pointing to weather forecasts for his parade on June 14 that didn't lead to rain when weather forecasters said it would.

"It never rained, and then I thought to myself – global warming," Trump said "They're telling us in 250 for our plant but they can't tell us it's going to rain. In 250 years, they're telling us it's going to burn up. And do you remember when they said that? They called it global warming, the global cooling, they had all different things. Now they just change it to climate change. Climate change. You can't miss climate change every time. If it's cold, if it's hot, if it's rainy, if it's sunny, it's too crazy. We have climate change, but think of it. They're telling you what's going to happen 100 years. The oceans are going to rise a quarter of an inch, and everyone's going to be wiped out. You're going to have more ocean property."

Still, disaster costs continue to mount for agriculture and everyone else. Congress passed $21 billion in disaster aid for agriculture for natural disasters in 2023 and 2024.

One area the Northeast Climate Hub highlighted recently was that "some of the largest rainfall events – known as extreme rainfall events – seem to be intensifying. Some events are now dumping more rain than they did in the past."

As temperatures rise, the amount of water the atmosphere can hold increases. Known as the nearly 200-year-old Clausius-Clapeyron relationship, extreme rainfall increases 7% for each 1.8-degree Fahrenheit (1-degree Celsius) rise in temperature.

USDA's Climate Hub websites remain public. https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/…

Iowa Capital Dispatch https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/…

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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