Rollins puts farmers first, reverses woke priorities of Biden administration

In the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has worked to put Farmers First and reverse the woke Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion agenda of the Biden administration.

“It is absurd that while the Biden Administration was driving up inflation, American taxpayers were forced to fund billions in woke DEI initiatives,” Rollins said. “American farmers and ranchers don’t need DEI, they need reduced regulations and an administration that is actively putting them first.

“In the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, USDA has done exactly that, by cancelling more than 3,600 contracts and grants saving more than $5.5 billion. I look forward to finishing our work of cleaning out Biden’s bureaucratic basement and moving forward with this Administration’s priorities that put American farmers first.”

On day one, Rollins issued a memorandum to rescind all DEI programs and celebrations.

Instead, USDA is reprioritizing unity, equality, meritocracy, and color-blind policies. Rollins directed USDA to review Inflation Reduction Act funding to ensure that it honors the sacred obligation to American taxpayers — and to ensure that programs are focused on supporting farmers and ranchers, not DEI programs or far-left climate programs.

Since Jan. 20, the USDA has begun a comprehensive review of contracts, personnel and employee trainings and DEI programs. As a result, USDA has terminated 597 grants, which totaled more than $3.45 billion and more than 3,000 contracts totaling $1.8 billion.

Between grants and contracts, USDA has terminated more than $5.5 billion in unnecessary and wasteful spending. USDA has identified and canceled nearly 1,000 employee trainings, more than 750 of which focused on DEI alone. Other canceled trainings include Environmental Justice and gender ideology classes.

Per the president’s directives, Rollins is leading a new era of USDA to ensure that it is the most efficient, nimble, and innovative department to serve American Agriculture since its establishment in 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln.

In order to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent in accordance with federal law, Rollins sent a letter to Maine Governor Janet Mills announcing the pause and an ongoing review of federal funding that the state of Maine receives from the USDA. This comes after Maine’s continual refusal to provide equal opportunity to women and girls in educational programs, in direct violation of Title IX.

Rollins also sent a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom announcing a review of federal funding California receives intended for research and education.

Additionally, in order to ensure that taxpayer dollars are directly supporting farmers and not serving as a Green New Scam slush fund for non-governmental organizations, Rollins announced the cancellation of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities.

Following a thorough line by line review of each of these Biden era partnerships, it became clear that the majority of these projects had sky-high administration fees which in many instances provided less than half of the federal funding directly to farmers. Select projects may continue if it is demonstrated that a significant amount of the federal funds awarded will go to farmers.

With this action, USDA is cutting bureaucratic red tape, streamlining reporting, lowering the paperwork burden on producers and putting farmers first.