The Aggregate Aggregation V6
Agroecology in the News (Week of March 10, 2025)
Welcome back to The Aggregate Aggregation, our weekly roundup of news and publications that caught our eyes over the last week or so. You can read Volume 5 here.
In this issue, Digging Deep considers the future for small, diversified farming operations in America. Surface Level includes an abundance of links (a busy news week!), including new news on rising egg prices and the fight against bird flu; visualizing the demise of the butterfly; the long term impact of COVID-19 on grocery workers; and resources for nonprofits navigating the new political climate.
Let’s make it a conversation! Please share your reflections - we’d love to continue the discussion in the comments.
Digging Deep: The Future of America’s Small Farms
In last week’s Aggregation, we posed a question: If RFK, the FDA, and “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) somehow begin to unseat industrial agriculture, are small, agroecological, diversified farms prepared to fill any voids? This would require them to have the relationships, the scale, and the knowledge to participate in high-volume, wholesale markets, especially institutional markets (either directly or, more likely, through regional cooperatives, food hubs, and distribution networks).
Editors at The Aggregate hazard a guess - no, the institutional/wholesale system is not set up to benefit smaller, diversified farms. It doesn’t need to be this way; local procurement demands and state and federal programs have started to give these farms an edge. But some of the most successful federal programs have just been cut.
The Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program and The Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program provided millions of dollars for states, school districts, and food banks to directly purchase fresh produce from local farmers. At the USDA’s Ag Outlook at the end of February, the state commissioners of agriculture from Arizona and Massachusetts spoke on a panel entitled “State Success Stories: Local Food Purchase Assistance Programs.” Both commissioners spoke to the incredible success of these programs, particularly in engaging small, local farms in their institutional procurement systems for the first time. They claimed that these connections could not have been made without the programs.
These sudden changes, like the many cuts now rolling out of the USDA, induce feelings of insecurity and risk for small, diversified farms. As Politico reports, hundreds of these farms sent a letter to the USDA Secretary this week, underscoring the resilience that they offer to the wider food system and the urgency of their need for federal funding and support.
The headlines this week were flooded with news of cuts to programs that specifically support smaller, diversified operations and operations investing in conservation strategies. Tariffs that hurt industrial agriculture hurt the small farms, too. Smaller farms report an inability to participate in government programs because of a lack of bandwidth and understanding of the system, capacity issues that government employees can solve by working closely with farmers to support them through the process - yet the USDA continues to plan for a massive Reduction in Force (RIF) that will further slash the federal workforce.
For a while now, I’ve wondered: if the majority of farms in America are still small farms (89%, according to the USDA’s ERS), why does so much federal spending and policy still benefit the largest commodity operations? This truth is made evident in the continued trend towards “get big or get out” farm consolidation in the U.S. In theory, the voices of the 89% should be driving Congressional action - these are the farmers that hold elected officials accountable at the ballot box. Money is power seems to ring too true here, but it still feels notable that this administration is so clearly begging the question “whom do you serve?” And as Congress relinquishes its power and ability to hold the Executive branch accountable for the current chaos (the sudden spending cuts, the unprecedented firing of federal staff, the tariff whiplash), is the small farmer’s hill to climb getting steeper?
Last week we also asked: Is an alliance between the FDA, MAHA, and the USDA, an alliance that could revitalize small, diversified farms across the country, possible? Today we posit: RFK’s message is a signal that may have minor implications for the sector of ag industry best positioned to defend itself; the USDA’s actions (and Congressional inaction) have the potential to make much more drastic changes to the viability of small farming in America.
We’d love to hear your reactions - please drop us a note in the comments!
Surface Level
This week, we’re sharing the many headlines covering federal shifts in ag policy, environmental policy, and more. Birds and butterflies have their moment, and grocery news dominates “everything else.”
🇺🇸More on federal ag funding and policy changes
USDA cancels $1B in local food purchasing for schools, food banks (Politico). “The Agriculture Department has axed two programs that gave schools and food banks money to buy food from local farms and ranchers, halting more than $1 billion in federal spending. Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in 2025 has been canceled, according to the School Nutrition Association… The Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which supports food banks and other feeding organizations, has also been cut.” A spokesperson quoted in the article says the programs “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency,” but this is in stark contrast to presentations from the USDA’s 2025 Ag Outlook conference which took place just a couple weeks ago in DC. Presenters included the Ag Commissioners from Massachusetts and Arizona who both praised the programs and quantified the benefits to local communities, farmers, and schools. Referenced in the article, “Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, castigated the administration for the decision, noting that her state would lose $12 million it planned to dole out to school districts.”
Trump's USDA secretary defends $1 billion cuts to funding for food banks, schools (MSNBC). “Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins took a jab at trans people while defending the food aid cuts as "nonessential" in remarks to Fox News.”
Small Farms and Food Banks are Caught Off Guard by Spending Cuts (New York Times). “Some participants, however, expressed surprise that the programs were suddenly scrapped, saying they seemed to intersect with many of the Trump administration’s priorities. The administration has vowed to support farmers and to encourage Americans to eat healthier foods, and to empower states to oversee and distribute the funds.”
Kennedy Rattles Food Companies With Vow to Rid Food of Artificial Dyes (New York Times). “In his first meeting with top executives from PepsiCo, W.K. Kellogg, General Mills and other large companies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, bluntly told them that a top priority would be eliminating artificial dyes from the nation’s food supply… ‘Decision time is imminent,’ a trade group warned its members.”
Inside the USDA, staffers struggle with Trump’s funding freeze (Washington Post). “The day after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to halt efforts to freeze trillions of dollars in U.S. government spending, a group of middle managers at the Department of Agriculture discussed the court action: Could they go ahead and release money promised to farmers and other grant recipients? The short answer, their boss told them, was no. “We cannot make any payments until we are given instruction that it’s okay to make payments,” said Tricia Kovacs, a deputy administrator overseeing the USDA’s Transportation and Marketing office, according to a contemporaneous record of the Jan. 29 meeting, which was obtained by The Washington Post. Employees seemed confounded by the idea that they would not change course in response to the judge’s action. “Isn’t that the whole point of our legal system?” the meeting record shows one employee said.”
Food & Ag Community to MAHA Commission: "We Must Use Sound Science" (Morning Ag Clips). “More than 300 organizations have sent a letter to health, agriculture and environmental leaders in D.C. calling for sound science and data to be used by the Make America Healthy Again Commission in upcoming evaluations for products essential to food and agriculture. The letter specifically focuses on the importance of pesticides, biotechnology, and food and feed ingredients for farmers and consumers, and it also highlights the ways in which these products are already robustly regulated to ensure their safe use.”
USDA Makes Rare Move to Reschedule an Important Organic Standards Meeting (Civil Eats Policy Tracker). “The rescheduling sparked concern among organic advocates since the agency has been making cuts and pausing funding to other farm programs that prioritize climate and environmental aims. The news also comes at a time when organic farmers and advocates have been fighting to restore organic programs, including federal help with the cost of certification that Congress left out of the recent farm bill extension.”
Kennedy Directs FDA to Explore Revising Controversial ‘GRAS’ Food Additive Rules (Civil Eats Policy Tracker). “The action came up during the first panel at the Consumer Federation of America’s National Food Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, where Beth Johnson, the founder of Food Directions, said the FDA ‘could be an outlier’ when it comes to the Trump administration’s overall deregulatory agenda.”
🌏Major changes signaled at the EPA
Deregulatory Blitz at EPA Includes Climate and Water Rules That Impact Agriculture (Civil Eats Policy Tracker). “On March 12, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced more than 30 deregulatory actions the agency is taking, including steps to roll back rules that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and farm pollution, and to eliminate environmental justice efforts.”
EPA head says he’ll roll back dozens of environmental regulations, including rules on climate change (AP). “Zeldin said he and President Donald Trump support rewriting the agency’s 2009 finding that planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The Obama-era determination under the Clean Air Act is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources.”
E.P.A. Targets Dozens of Environmental Rules as It Reframes Its Purpose (New York Times). “In a barrage of pronouncements on Wednesday the Trump administration said it would repeal dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, protections for wetlands, and the legal basis that allows it to regulate the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. But beyond that, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reframed the purpose of the E.P.A. In a two-minute-and-18-second video posted to X, Mr. Zeldin boasted about the changes and said his agency’s mission is to ‘lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business.’”
🐓It’s not a news cycle without eggs and bird flu
DOJ opens investigation into egg companies for price-fixing (Politico). “The Justice Department is investigating whether the nation’s largest egg producers are conspiring to keep prices high as the bird flu outbreak worsens and grocery stores start setting rations for customers, two people familiar with the matter told POLITICO… The price-fixing investigation is in very early stages and targets large egg producers such as Cal-Maine Foods and Rose Acre Farms, the people said… Cal-Maine and other egg producers paid $53 million in 2023 after being found guilty of price-fixing in a separate federal lawsuit.”
Exclusive — USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins: Vaccines ‘off the Table’ in Fight for Lower Egg Prices (Breitbart). “U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins told Breitbart News exclusively that President Donald Trump’s administration will be focusing its egg price reduction efforts on repopulation of chickens and on biosecurity measures, and that the administration is now ruling out any vaccines for animals against avian bird flu.”
🦋Visualizing butterflies in decline
Butterflies Declined by 22% in Just 2 Decades Across U.S. (Morning Ag Clips). “From 2000 to 2020, the number of butterflies fell by 22% across the continental United States. That’s 1 in 5 butterflies lost. The findings are from an analysis just published in the journal Science by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Powell Center Status of Butterflies of the United States Working Group… The magnitude and rate of biodiversity loss in the world right now can make one feel helpless. But while national and international efforts are needed to address the crisis, you can also take small actions that can have quick benefits, starting in your own backyard.”
And here’s a link to the published research in Science.
See How Butterflies Are Surviving, or Not, Near You (New York Times). “Populations are falling in the United States, a new study has found. Look up what’s happening in your area.”
🔄Everything else that caught our eyes
The Shrimp Detectives (Ambrook Research). “Shrimp mislabeling is rampant in Gulf State restaurants, according to a new study. Shrimpers and consumers are paying the price.”
Large-scale investment in research needed to maintain U.S. agriculture (Cornell Chronicle). “Climate change and flagging investment in research and development has U.S. agriculture facing its first productivity slowdown in decades. A new study estimates the public sector investment needed to reverse course.”
Can Northwest Arkansas farming survive in Walmart’s backyard? (Investigate Midwest). “However, over the past several decades, Walmart’s corporate presence — which includes more than 1,300 vendors that sell to the retail giant and maintain a local presence — has ushered in a surge of urban development, shifting the region from a farming hub into a major metropolitan area.”
The Chairman and CEO of Kroger resigned following an investigation into his personal conduct (WOUB Public Media). “Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain, said Monday that the investigation into McMullen’s personal conduct was unrelated to the business, but was found to be inconsistent with its business ethics policy.”
How Grocery Workers Are Still Bearing The Scars Of Covid-19 (Forbes). “Around 100,000 grocery workers fell ill and hundreds died from the Covid-19 pandemic. These deaths climbed into the thousands when families and community members of food workers were included in statistics. For many food workers still in the day to day retail grind, this is not a trauma they can easily move past.”
Guidelines Pave the Way for Adoption of Methane-Reducing Feed Additives (Morning Ag Clips). “After many decades of research, the dairy sector has a significant body of peer-reviewed research showing that feed additives can effectively reduce methane, the greenhouse gas that makes up most of dairy’s environmental footprint. Yet the practical use of this knowledge on farms—as well as general awareness around additive effectiveness and safety—is still gaining momentum.”
AI Made Its Way to Vineyards. Here’s How the Technology Is Helping Make Your Wine (Associated Press). “Farmers, Gamble said, are always evolving. There were fears when the tractor replaced horses and mules pulling plows, but that technology “proved itself” just like AI farming tech will, he said, adding that adopting any new tech always takes time.”
China Strikes Back at Trump Tariffs With 15% Levies Targeting US Farmers (US News - Associated Press). “China retaliated against President Donald Trump's tariffs with an additional 15% tax on key American farm products, including chicken, pork, soybeans and beef.”
They were working to ensure invasive pests didn't destroy U.S. crops — until they were abruptly fired (NBC News). “As the national taxonomist for thrips and psyllids, Ulmer knew there wasn’t a single person left at the agency with the expertise that he had — and he knows the consequences of making a mistake can be dire… He's one of at least 145 workers in plant protection alone who were terminated, including entomologists, soil conservationists and tree climbers who hunt for pests, according to a list of terminated job titles obtained by NBC News.”
Resources from the National Council of Nonprofits
What did we miss? Drop a link to your favorite story of the week (or month, or year) in the comments. Tell us why it resonated with you!
What we’re reading
A list of sources the editors at The Aggregate check regularly for our agroecology+ news.