USDA

The Conservation Reserve Program incentivizes farmers to take environmentally sensitive land out of production. Project 2025 says the Trump administration should champion its elimination.

Many of these programs offered incentive payments to farmers who adopt an environmentally sustainable or “climate-smart” practice. Some partnerships will be renewed and folded into a new program.

Thousands of schools, farmers and food pantries in the Midwest and Great Plains planned on federal dollars over the next year to support local food purchases. And then the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut the programs.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins assured an audience of agriculture leaders that the president would remember farmers in the midst of imposing tariffs.

The USDA's Rural Development agency has provided billions of dollars each year to small towns, farmers and businesses. Now staffing upheaval and budget cuts brought on by the Trump administration may be eating into the agency’s effectiveness.

Charles McKinzie is a small-town pastor and lifelong Republican. Unlike many of his religious peers, he's also a vocal critic of new laws restricting gender-affirming care for Kansas minors. Plus: a look at organic and naturally grown food labels.

As Missouri lawmakers enter the second half of the legislative session, they are considering bills to amend or repeal the voter-approved measure that ended the state’s near-total abortion ban. They also must pass a state budget. Plus: Layoffs and court-ordered rehiring have all but paralyzed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development agency.

For the hundreds of meteorology students at the University of Missouri, working for the National Weather Service was the dream until federal job cuts hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Plus: Firings at the U.S. Department of Agriculture have impacted research facilities across the Midwest.

Employees at U.S. Department of Agriculture research facilities across the Midwest have lost their jobs as part of the Trump Administration’s efforts to trim the federal workforce. Former and current employees at one of those labs say the job cuts will impact agricultural research and support for farmers.

Farmers, nonprofits and state agencies received almost $3 billion in grants from the Inflation Reduction Act in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. But recent federal funding freezes have recipients concerned they won’t end up receiving money.

Federal agencies have mandated and facilitated testing for the H5N1 virus to try to protect birds, cows and humans; researchers in the Midwest hope those efforts continue under the new presidential administration.

A federal freeze on certain USDA programs has held up billions of dollars for conservation and caused layoffs at a nonprofit in Iowa that supports soil and water quality.