'Turning their backs' on farmers: Swing state gov. berates Trump as he reneges on promises

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 the cancellation 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.

On Friday, Baldwin announced that USDA had restarted the program.

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 were subsequently 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.

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