The African Alliance of Rhode Island’s Johnston community farm, one of the USDA grants recipients. Photo: AARI
RIFPC learned in late July that the U.S. Department of Agriculture was cancelling the remainder of a three-year grant for beginning farmers and ranchers because of the grant’s focus on DEI. The $738,000 grant was first awarded in September 2023 with the goal of building the strength and resilience of socially disadvantaged farmers and beginning farmers and ranchers through increasing their knowledge, skills, experience, and networks.
“In the first year of the grant alone, we and our sub-awardees helped 29 farmers acquire more than $400,000 in support, trained 82 farmers on business planning and marketing skills, and provided more than 300 hours of one-to-one coaching,” says RIFPC Director Nessa Richman. “Although the grant was cancelled mid-stream, the impacts on the farmers we helped through this grant will live on. RIFPC will continue to work toward small and beginning farmer success and viability in Rhode Island.”
The grant’s sub-awardees are The Carrot Project, Young Farmers Network of Southeastern New England, African Alliance of R.I., Sankofa Initiative of West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation, R.I. Association of Conservation Districts, and Farm Credit East.
As Richman told reporter Ayurella Horn-Muller for a July 31 Grist story (“The USDA announced the cancellation of $148 million in ‘woke’ grants. Then it went dark”), she had a “sinking feeling” when the USDA announced on June 17 that it was terminating $148.6 million in funding to projects geared toward DEI. A month letter, the termination letter to RIFPC spelled out this rationale. “Specifically, the project is targeted at beginning farmers and ranchers from Rhode Island communities defined by their immutable characteristics,” the letter said. “The award is therefore inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, Department priorities.”
The June 17 USDA press release noted that more than 145 such awards would be cancelled nationally, but news of specific cancellations has been trickling out. Grist reporting identified only a handful of confirmed terminations and the federal agency hasn’t released an official list of cancelled grants.