The USDA says it has said farmers are relying heavily on these key resources to adapt to warming temperatures, following a lawsuit filed by agriculture and environmental groups earlier this year.
Following President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, the USDA’s communications office ordered employees to “identify and archive or publish landing pages focused on climate change,” and flag other pages that mention climate. Reported by Politico. The following month, the Organic Farming Association in Northeastern New York, or NOFA-NY, joined the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group, suing the agency to reissue a page containing information on federal loans for farmers and information on interactive climate maps.
This week, USDA I submitted a letter He told a US District Judge for the Southern District of New York that he would “restore climate change-related web content that was removed after he took office, including all USDA web pages and interactive tools listed in the plaintiff’s complaints.” The agency also said it would comply with federal laws regarding “future publication or submission decisions” that include scrubbed climate information. The letter came several days before hearings regarding the plaintiff’s moves against the interim injunction.
Nofa-Ny is an organization that advocates for a sustainable food system and helps growers adopt organic farming practices, called USDA’s Abacco’s “big win.”
“I have to say that I felt this was just as good as the farmers have been going on over the past few months,” said Mercy Craig, executive director of the association.
Nofa-Ny and other plaintiffs are represented by Columbia University’s non-profit environmental law firms Earthjustice and Knight First Ramendment Institute.
The fact that the USDA agreed to restore climate resources online without a court order and prior to a scheduled hearing, Earth Justice Attorney Jeff Stein said “purgesing climate-related web pages is blatantly illegal.”
This development marks an unusual optimistic moment for our growers, facing many set-offs from the Trump administration. Since January, the administration has sent shockwaves through the agricultural sector, suspending federal grants and loan programs that support local and local food systems and farmers’ climate resilience efforts. The administration also frozen funds for rural clean energy programs, but removed them with warnings, creating headaches and economic stress for growers. Federal funding cuts also threaten the situation in agricultural research, including projects designed to increase sustainability in the face of climate change.
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Faced with these obstacles, Craig noted that her optimism was mitigated by healthy skepticism. “I think we all have a level of cautious optimism about what actually happens about this action,” she said. As of Thursday, USDA restored the page About Inflation reduction methods and countryside Clean Energy Programearthjustice says that other pages will remain offline. However, Craig agreed with Stein that the USDA’s decision to restore resources that help farmers adapt to climate change without hearing or court orders is a “positive” sign.
Craig said it has become “crippled” for farmers, along with the removal of Climate web pages and federal funding.
Nofa-Ny staff often answered grower questions by sharing USDA’s online resources. According to Craig, one tool that was particularly useful was the website of Farmers Service Agency, a USDA subagency, which is about loans or agricultural practices related to “climate smart agriculture” or agricultural practices. The page included a chart listing the practical and environmental benefits of various climate-smart agricultural technologies, as well as federal funding opportunities to help farmers implement these practices.
It is a “really great example of very specific and clear information” about climate adaptation and “very easy to use,” Craig said.
Even if these sources of funding are still technically available to farmers this winter and spring, the fact that web pages referring to those grants and loans are scrubbed has made them inaccessible, she added.
According to Stein, days before the USDA submitted the letter to the judge, the agency had warned the plaintiff’s lawyers about its decision to re-upload the climate data. In a letter Monday, the USDA said most of its content should be back online for the next two weeks. The department also pledged to submit a joint status report to Earthjustice and Knight’s First Amendment Institute in three weeks and updated the court on its progress.
The hearing that the USDA and the plaintiffs are expected to attend later this month has been postponed. However, Stein said the plaintiff’s probational injunction motion would have ordered the climate-related webpage to be reverted if granted by a judge – is still pending. This means that if the USDA does not advance towards reissuing climate resources online over the coming weeks, the plaintiffs have another way of moving forward with their demands.
“We want to make sure the USDA actually follows that commitment,” Stein said.
Editor’s Note: Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council are advertisers for Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
