The Trump Administration is cutting U.S. Department of Agriculture programs aimed at helping minority farmers and other programs they’ve labeled DEI. Details about some programs have already been scrubbed from the internet and some Oklahoman recipients said they’ve had funding frozen.
Here are five takeaways from The Frontier’s reporting with KOSU on the uncertain future of federal programs benefitting Oklahoma’s Black farmers.
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1. One study found historic discrimination in USDA lending practices contributed to Black farmers losing millions of acres of land worth about $326 billion in the 20th century. In recent years, the department has worked to prevent and fix discriminatory practices.
2. The Biden-era Discrimination Financial Assistance Program was to help address historic discrimination against Black farmers and other marginalized groups. Oklahoma saw the third-highest number of payout in the nation behind Mississippi and Alabama, according to archived payment data from the agency. But some farmers were not approved for payments and others say it was not enough.
3. Brooke Rollins, President Donald Trump’s secretary of education, repealed all DEI programs within the USDA on her first day in office. She also canceled more than $132 million in contracts and announced her office would review over a thousand more.
4. Some initiatives in Oklahoma had their USDA funding frozen briefly after Trump took office. Oklahoma State University’s Oklahoma County extension office had secured a federal grant to support the Eastside Fresh Market in northeast Oklahoma City, a part of the city historically considered to be a food desert. The office learned the grant had been frozen in January with no explanation, but funding resumed in mid-March. A scholarship program for students studying fields including agriculture at historically Black land-grant universities, like Oklahoma’s Langston University, was also briefly paused.
5. Some programs are still in limbo. The USDA agreed in November to pay the Greenwood Community Development Corporation $250,000 to provide financial literacy and entrepreneurial training to historic all-Black town residents. But that funding is on hold without explanation or updates, and the in-person workshops are delayed, said Freeman Culver, the organization’s administrator.
