“By removing these webpages or rendering them inaccessible, USDA has hurt farmers and farm advisors who depend on the department’s digital resources to access financial and technical support for conservation practices and other agricultural decisions, researchers who depend on USDA datasets and interactive tools to study climate change and its related risks, and advocates whose mission is to educate farmers and the public about USDA programs and policies,” the lawsuit alleges. Filed in US District Court in New York by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York along with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group, it asks that the court require the pages be restored and any similar moves to be banned.
“USDA’s irrational climate change purge doesn’t just hurt farmers, researchers, and advocates,” said Jeffrey Stein, an attorney for the nonprofit Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs along with Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute. “It also violates federal law several times over.” Specifically, they argue that the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Freedom of Information Act were all violated by the unannounced and rapid “purge” of climate tools and data.
In a rational world, farmers across the country would be lining up to fight the Trump administration. Though they voted pretty heavily in Trump’s favor, policies ranging from the potential Canada and Mexico tariffs to brutal immigration crackdowns will cut into farmer bottom lines almost immediately. And along with the climate data purge, Trump’s various executive orders have also frozen funding that many farmers were relying on to come in as the growing season begins.
It is, maybe, starting to dawn on them. A fifth-generation farmer recently wrote that that Kansas farmers “have been played for suckers.” Some angry Wisconsin farmers recently “shared their frustrations” at a town hall that Republican representatives failed to show up to. The USDA has claimed it started to open up its funding spigot again but one advocate called the amounts released “a pittance.”
The climate change data that the new lawsuit focuses on may seem like more of a liberal priority, but even the most MAGA of farmers tend to understand that planning better for worsening drought or changing rainfall patterns can increase their profits, or at least protect against larger losses. In general, the degree of uncertainty that has characterized the first month of Trump’s second term is anathema to the entire idea of farming: you kind of have to know ahead of time what you can or cannot plant or harvest.
“Taking climate change information off websites, freezing funds, and laying off USDA workers that are helping to protect communities is ludicrous,” said Wes Gillingham, the board president of the farming association behind the new lawsuit. “The removal of vital information for family farms is the real hoax being played on America.”
GET SPLINTER RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
The Truth Hurts
