Federal Funding Freeze Resources

Updated March 18, 2025

If you are a farmer or organization receiving USDA funding, the most important thing to do is document everything and remain in compliance. Keep track of communications from/with federal agencies related to your project, and ensure that you stay in full compliance with active contract terms and conditions.

Many helpful resources emerged in the weeks following the initial OMB memo and USDA’s corresponding freeze. We are thankful for the following organizations and the timely resources they’ve developed. If there is another resource you believe would be helpful for the OEFFA community, please send it to policy@oeffa.org.

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Available Funding Sources

• NEW: Brighter Future Fund: Uplifts, supports, and amplifies the work of a wide range of farmers, with additional funding allocated to support producers impacted by the funding freeze. (Next grant cycle opens in April)
• NEW: Regenerative Farmer Assistance Fund (RFAF): Healing Soils Foundation’s fund to provide relief to organic and regenerative farmers facing delays in public funding, with a focus on Midwestern states
• NEW: MadCapital Loans: Financing for organic and regenerative farmers and ranchers.
• Regenerative Agriculture Foundation SHOT Fund: Helps farmers access public funds to implement durable, high-impact regenerative agriculture practices. 2025 priority states include Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia, and Tennessee.
• SHOT Fund EQIP Bridge Loan Program: Provides farmers and landowners with flexible, 0% interest loans to cover upfront costs for implementing EQIP practices.
• Soil and Water Outcomes Fund: Provides direct financial incentives to row crop farmers who expand conservation practices like no-till, cover crops, and extended crop rotations. Eligible areas include much of the Midwest, including Ohio.

Media Coverage of the Federal Funding Freeze

National:

• Brownfield: Climate-Smart Grant Holders Say Ripple Effects are Mounting
• Civil Eats: Farmers Say Climate-Smart Commodities Projects are Crumbling
• Civil Eats: USDA Continues to Roll Out Deeper Cuts to Farm Grants: A List
• Farm and Dairy: Cold shoulder: With funding frozen, ag conservation projects hang in balance
• Grist: Slim margins, climate disasters, and Trump’s funding freeze: Life or death for many US farms
• NBC News: Farmers hit by a federal funding freeze scramble to respond ahead of spring thaw
• PBS (video): Farmers are feeling the weight of Trump policies
• Reuters: Farmers put plans, investments on hold under Trump USDA spending freeze
• The Hagstrom Report: NSAC to Rollins: Relieve and reverse pain, confusion

Regional:

• IPM News: A Midwest farmer was promised money for a new delivery truck. Then Trump froze the funds
• Kentucky Lantern: Trump administration plans for federal contracts stir worries across Kentucky
• Pittsburg Post-Gazette: Pa. farmers feel funding pinch as federal freezes trigger labor and infrastructure instability

Ohio:

• Cleveland Plain Dealer (opinion): Why are Ohio representatives silent as Trump’s policies hurt state’s farmers?
• Columbus Dispatch: USDA cancels local food purchasing program, putting more strain on central Ohio food banks
• Dayton Daily News: USDA program cut impacts local food banks, local farmers
• Dayton Daily News: Ohio farmers, ag research stand to lose from proposed USAID cuts
• Farm and Dairy (opinion): USDA turmoil will set back farmers
• Food Tank: The Ripple Effects of Federal Grant Freezes: Small Business Owners Share Their Stories
• The Daily Yonder: Rural Ohio Brewery Faces Financial Uncertainty After Promised Federal Funds for a Solar Array are Frozen
• Spectrum News (video): Examining impact of federal freeze, tariffs on Ohio farmers