OMAHA (DTN) -- USDA last month cut more than $1 billion in expected grant funding to 69 Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) projects nationally.

Few groups publicly criticized the funding loss.

In October 2024, the Biden administration announced USDA would invest $1.5 billion in 92 projects through RCPP, the largest funding ever for the program. The list of grant awards relied heavily on funding USDA had received from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

On June 11, after months of freezing work on contracts for the RCPP projects, USDA rescinded awards for 69 of those organizations. Near the end of June, USDA posted 28 projects nationally that were awarded RCPP grants. The total funding was reduced from $1.5 billion to roughly $400 million.

After sending letters to nearly 69 groups canceling their projects, NRCS sent out an "RCPP Talking Points" memo to staff citing that "NRCS is returning RCPP to focusing on Farm Bill established conservation priorities." The agency made its final selection of projects "equally across geographic regions." So, no more than one project was selected per state, excluding three contracts to tribal organizations.

In an email to DTN, a USDA spokesperson said the department did not cancel any contracts, which is true because groups had not inked their final contracts with NRCS.

"Contracts have not been canceled. Applications that were in the pre-approval or application phase may have been re-ranked using the traditional farm bill ranking system. The impact on a particular pre-approved application varies by state, depending on the volume and strength of other applications submitted," a USDA spokesperson stated.

Robert Bonnie, who was undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation in the Biden administration, said NRCS selected projects through a rigorous process last fall. "They are now breaking that commitment, which they can do because -- as is always the case -- it takes several months to turn the project selections into contracts." Bonnie also added, "RCPP has always focused on Farm Bill conservation priorities," adding, "climate-smart practices have been around for years."

Privately, staff from some conservation groups told DTN they didn't want to speak publicly about their lost grants because that could put other funding in jeopardy.

"We're trying not to rock the boat because we don't want them to look at anything else," said an organizer of one national wildlife working in the upper Mississippi River watershed. "It's kind of a scary time so we're kind of trying to be as thankful as we can for what we got and get it spent as fast as we can and get our work done as fast as possible."

Farmers in the Mississippi River basin were among the biggest losers when it comes to grant awards. Of the 69 grants canceled, 16 were tied to projects focused on the Mississippi River basin. Over $274 million in grants throughout the watershed were rescinded involving groups including the Mississippi Soil & Water Conservation Commission, the Ohio Department of Agriculture, Mississippi River Trust, Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, and multiple local and regional conservation districts.

SMALL MICHIGAN GROUP PUSHES BACK

Some groups are questioning USDA's rationale and appealing the funding recissions. Leaders of some smaller organizations say they simply can't afford to fight.

Legacy Land Conservancy (LLC) in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was awarded $24.67 million to preserve up to 4,000 acres of farmland in southeastern Michigan -- land threatened by urban sprawl and gravel mining. LLC had a small group of farmers ready to participate and had planned to reach out to more than 200 additional farmers over the five-year grant.

"When we got awarded, the whole area was like, 'wow, this is amazing,'" said Diana Kern, executive director of LLC. "It was the largest amount of money we've ever had come into this area to save farmland and forest land."

LLC primarily works to secure farm and conservation easements that ensure a farm will not be developed. A lot of the group's work involves smaller tracts of ground, Kern said.

"In our area, one of the benefits of putting a conservation easement on the farm is it generally lowers taxes, and the cost of the property is going to be lower because the development rights are out," Kern said. "So, it's an entry point for newer farmers who might not have access to 30 or 40 acres of land."

One of the problems with the RCPP is that it can take a year from the time an award is announced until a contract is signed. So, when the Trump administration came in wanting to halt much of what the Biden administration had done, it was easy to rescind the RCPP awards because the contracts were not signed.

"We were at the very beginning of the process and everybody knew it would be a year before all of these sub-awards were signed," Kern said. "It's a gigantic pain for a small non-profit like us. We have 13 staff and that's it. The paperwork is unbelievable, but imagine small farmers trying to figure out all of this stuff on their own."

QUESTIONS ABOUT FUNDING POOLS

Legacy Land Conservancy filed a 62-page appeal letter to USDA on Thursday. Kern said the group was particularly blindsided because their project was originally expected to use funds from the 2018 farm bill, not the IRA.

"As soon as we found out we were awarded, I asked, 'Is it IRA money or farm bill money?' because we knew the IRA was probably going to get whacked," Kern said. "So, we thought we were in a pretty decent position."

But when USDA re-evaluated each of the projects, the new selection criteria were made regardless of the previous funding sources. That's become a bone of contention for groups that lost their funding.

In Massachusetts, the group Mass Audubon lost a $25 million RCPP grant aimed at protecting 10,000 acres along the Connecticut River. The project was expected to leverage tens of millions in private funding and benefit water quality across the watershed.

"Notably, working lands would have remained in the hands of private farmers," noted David O'Neill, president and CEO of Mass Audubon. "Terminating grants that conserve our forests, keep working lands working, act as a flood protection buffer for communities, and leverage millions from other funding sources simply makes no sense."

Mass Audubon's funding was also expected to come from farm bill dollars. The group on Thursday also submitted a formal appeal to USDA.

URBAN AG PROJECT

A small urban agriculture non-profit in Kansas City, Missouri, Cultivate KC, had spent two years developing its RCPP proposal -- investing an estimated 430 hours of staff and partner time. Cultivate KC was initially awarded nearly $6.47 million.

"It wasn't our first USDA grant, but it was the first time we had ever applied for RCPP and had been awarded," said Brien Darby, director of Cultivate KC. "We cannot move forward without this funding."

Cultivate KC's project would have helped urban farmers across a seven-county region in Missouri and Kansas access USDA conservation programs through a more streamlined process. Under the Biden administration, USDA had specifically indicated an interest in partnerships that would address conservation in urban agriculture.

"We've had great relationships with both FSA and NRCS in Missouri and Kansas and their efforts to do outreach to urban farmers," Darby said. "Obviously, things are a little strange right now and a lot of the personnel we worked with are gone. But there was a period for four or five years where we had strong relationships with those offices."

Without the RCPP set-aside, Darby said those individual farmers are now forced to compete in a statewide pool with significantly lower chances of being selected.

"We'll still provide technical assistance for anyone who wants to apply for NRCS funds," Darby said. "But we're just not going to see the impact that this set-aside budget would have created."

Darby said Cultivate KC is unlikely to appeal the USDA decision and is unsure whether the group will reapply if the RCPP reopens this fall.

RECONCILIATION AND IRA DOLLARS

Despite the upheaval, conservation advocates also note that the budget reconciliation bill signed into law last week by President Donald Trump reallocated the remaining IRA conservation funds into long-term farm bill conservation programs. Overall, that represents a long-term gain for RCPP and other initiatives. Annual RCPP funding is projected to increase from $300 million to $425 million in 2026 and grow to $450 million annually through 2031.

"So, the IRA was a one-time boost, but now that money was put into the permanent funding pool for conservation programs, which, frankly, was a huge, huge win," said Ben Knuth, an agricultural policy specialist for the National Wildlife Foundation.

Knuth spoke Thursday about farmer support for USDA conservation programs in a webinar hosted by the Iowa Farmers Union. "It may be difficult in this moment since a lot of people are hurt and struggling by some of what happened in reconciliation, but we should acknowledge that because it was a really big victory," Knuth said.

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

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