USDA COULD BE IMPACTED BY PROJECT 2025
USDA cites Daren Bakst on Project 2025:
The chapter, written by former Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow, Environmental Policy and Regulation, Center for Energy, Climate and Environment Daren Bakst, states, “Governmental barriers hindering food production or otherwise undermining efforts to meet consumer demand must be removed.”
“The Biden administration seeks to use the federal government to transform the American food system,” Bakst writes. “The USDA should not place ancillary issues, such as environmental issues, ahead of agricultural production itself.”
The project also says the abuse of Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) discretionary authority, with the exception of federal crop insurance, needs to be addressed and recommends prohibiting the CCC from being used to assist parties beyond farmers and ranchers.
Project 2025 states, “Taxpayers should not pay more than 50 percent of crop insurance premiums which cuts insurance subsidies to 47 percent and would save an estimated $8.1 billion a year, while only reducing insured acres roughly one percent.”
The report calls for eliminating the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), citing, “Farmers should not be paid in such a sweeping way not to farm their land.”
Currently, CRP has 24.7 million acres enrolled with an annual budget of about $1.8 billion.
The project also wants to remove the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) from holding producers to wetlands compliance and suggests authority should be ditched and turned over to states.
The project calls for tighter work requirements on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients and to reevaluate the Biden administration’s regulations on the Thrifty Food Plan, which boosted SNAP benefits by 23 percent.
In his report, Bakst recommends, “The USDA and HHS should develop a more transparent process which properly considers the underlying science and does not overstate its findings.”
“The focus should also include trade promotion,” Bakst writes. “This includes programs like the Market Access Program which subsidizes trade associations, businesses and other private entities to market and promote their products overseas.”
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) would benefit from reform as well, the project notes, stating, “The USFS should focus on addressing the precipitous annual amassing of biomass in the national forests which drive the behavior of wildfires.”
Bakst concludes, “The USDA should not be used as a governmental tool to transform the nation’s food system, but instead it should respect the importance of efficient agricultural production and ensure the government does not hinder farmers and ranchers from producing an abundant supply of safe and affordable food.”